New Delhi: Parliament was disrupted for a while during the recent winter session over the eulogisation of Mahatma Gandhi’s killer Nathuram Godse, but his name has been struck off the records as it is considered unparliamentary.
A glossary of unparliamentary words has been compiled and ‘Godse’ is one such which cannot be used during debates.
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari have been entrusted with the task of removing the ‘unparliamentary’ expressions from the archived record.
Some MPs got a shock during the winter session when they found ‘Godse’ was missing from the record of a debate. On the last day of the session, Deputy Chairman P.J. Kurien confirmed that the name was removed as it was unparliamentary.
Similarly, ‘Hitler’, ‘Mussolini’, ‘Idi Amin’ and ‘Ravan’, among others, are strict no-nos. ‘Anarchist’ is out, but ‘anarchy’ can be used.
According to a handbook for MPs about conduct in the house, the decision by the presiding officer on a word being unparliamentary is final and there can be no appeal against that.
CPI-M leader P. Rajeeve, who raised the issue of Godse’s name being deleted from the debate, said: “The list is there but the chair takes the decision, it is for the presiding officer to apply his or her mind and decide if the word shall be expunged”.
Interestingly, a glossary of unparliamentary words includes ‘communist’. It entered the list when an MP said in 1958 that “friendship does not mean that I should give my wife to the communists.”
The Lok Sabha secretariat has, in fact, an exhaustive book of words and expressions in Hindi and English that are considered unfit for use in Indian parliament. It runs into several hundred pages.
The latest edition of the book ‘Unparliamentary Expressions’ came out in 2009 and is available for Rs.1,700 at the reception counter of the Lok Sabha secretariat. While MPs used to get a 25% discount on the book till last year, a recent Lok Sabha bulletin informing members about the book did not mention any rebate.
In 2003, the word ‘videshi’ (foreigner) was declared unparliamentary by the chair when Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MPs used it for Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.
“The chair had then expunged the word ‘videshi’ from proceedings, but the word is quite commonplace,” a senior MP, who did not want to be named, said.
The list also includes expressions like ‘lie’, ‘liar’, ‘bad man’, ‘rat’, ‘badmashi’, ‘bag of shit’, ‘goonda’, ‘ashamed’, ‘unfortunate’, ‘shy’ and ‘stunt’. The words ‘lie’, ‘liar’ and ‘rat’ also figure in the British parliament’s list of unparliamentary words, as does ‘coward’, ‘hooligan’, ‘hypocrite’, ‘idiot’ and ‘swine’. (IANS)