In Meghalaya legislative privileges appear to extend to the realm of personal peccadilloes. Can a legislator use his brawns to thrash a journalist to the point that he had to be rushed to hospital? What sort of a democratic space do we enjoy when a legislator will not allow the media to do its duties? The media is not a narrator of dry events. It observes what’s newsy and unconventional and makes a report of it. If watching pornography inside the august House as happened in Karnataka is both a crime and a sensational piece of news, an MLA sleeping inside the House during an absorbing session where weighty matters affecting the people of the state are discussed, is not just an unpardonable lapse but is also newsy. An MLA is paid by the taxpayer to raise issues of concern to his electors and also of the State in the House. As it is the Assembly sessions are truncated. Last year the House met for a mere 16 days which included the budget and autumn sessions. The lackluster performance of the majority of legislators shames Meghalaya.
Being an MLA is not just about talking down to constituents and doling out third rate plastic stuff to them. That’s reducing them to the status of beggars. An MLA must keep abreast of issues both of the state, the nation and the world especially since we live in a globalised environment. The legislator is duty bound to critique government schemes that fail to deliver and ask why outlays do not match the outcomes. Why should only three or four people out of the 60 be holding forth in the Assembly?
Speaker Charles Pyngrope has rightly stated that mere allegations of ‘manipulative government practices’ are not acceptable. They have to be substantiated with evidence to show where exactly the manipulation occurred. This obviously requires a lot of investigative work and diligent study of accounts; even getting information through the Right to Information, if needed. But how many of our MLAs really spend time to delve into the different schemes and their road-maps to critique the shortcomings. Very often the non-elected journalists and columnists do a better job and take on the role of the MLA.
Hence when an MLA sleeps through the sessions the media sees it as a dereliction of legislative duty and considers it important to bring this delinquency before the public.His electors have to know what he does inside the House because he is accountable to them. So why should Mawlai MLA, Founder Strong Cajee take umbrage that he was caught napping? Above all what gives him the right to assault the photo-journalist who captured the snoozing image? Cajee’s counter FIR against the assaulted journalist is at best a fig leaf and a weak defense which would not stand legal scrutiny. The injustice of it all is that if an ordinary citizen were to physically assault anyone the way Cajee did he would have been promptly booked. So why the double standards? Does legislative privilege allow legislators to beat up members of the public who point out their lapses? The legislature is the first estate and the press the fourth one. There has to be mutual respect between these two pillars.
This matter needs to be debated in the Assembly since its premises have been allowed to become an arena for a one-sided wrestling match. But the matter is also serious enough to merit public discussion. Can we have MLAs who throw their witless weight around?