AA Edit | Indian democracy faces its darkest day in history
It was one of the darkest days in the history of India’s Parliament as the elected representatives of the people pushed and shoved, jostled and scuffled on the premises of the temple of democracy. Two camps of MPs, diametrically opposed in their politics, were holding their respective protests in the premises of Parliament on December 19 when a faceoff triggered ugly scenes on the threshold of Parliament where the cramping of MPs led to injuries being sustained, some of the grievous kind.
Of course, the camps blamed each other though, truth to tell, they have together been guilty of progressively sullying the atmosphere of Indian democracy with their acrimony descending in most recent times to a rabid hate for each other. They have also destroyed the ambience of the Houses of Parliament by behaving like ruffians in a crush of MPs.
It would be pointless to seek a cause-and-effect sequencing in such a bizarre happening. The fact remains that far more serious injuries were sustained by two or three members of the ruling party who could only have been victims of the physical strength of their opponents. Ruling party members, including the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, may have been pushed to the ground or manhandled as they claimed.
Such scenes represent an unprecedented event in Parliament though physical violence and the weaponisation of handy objects like microphones and chairs and tables have been known to take place in state Assemblies. Why, even pepper sprays have been carried to cause harm to opponents in India’s political dramas of the worst kind as legislators frequently display immaturity in the face of having to coexist when enclosed with their political rivals.
The irony is not complete in the fact that MPs were the ones who traded accusations after having been guilty of dragging Indian politics to a low in which those opposed to their chosen points of view are seen as enemies and not fellow lawmakers. The image of the Indian politician is already low enough as they are seen as influence peddlers who are prone to aggrandising power and pelf at the cost of the very people who chose them as MPs.
Consider how ironic these events are as they come at a time when the best parliamentary values are supposed to have been imbibed in the 75 years since the writing of the Constitution. Its celebratory diamond jubilee will now be remembered for all the wrong reasons even as one of the most rancorous sessions came to an inglorious close after days of sound and fury and hotly contested divergent points of view, dragging in historical figures, ranging from the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to the main architect of the Constitution Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar.
Police complaints have been filed and an FIR lodged against the Leader of the Opposition of the Lok Sabha under such sections as voluntary causing of grievous hurt, endangering life or personal safety of others, criminal intimidation, etc. in a litany of “offences”, which just goes to show how things have come to such a pass that the very foundational principles of democracy could be under threat from elected representatives themselves. As democracy endured one of its worst days in the country, Madame Roland’s death cry may be adapted to say — O Democracy! What crimes are committed in thy name!