Life has its own rhythm. Straight-jacketing life is what dictatorships and religious fundamentalists do – by effecting even unwarranted curbs on free speech, action and responses. India is a functional democracy, the world’s largest, and there existed a sense of balance with regard to people’s conduct in public life. Violation of law and order is not the norm. Laws give both protection for one’s right to speak and act; and laws also impose curbs on unacceptable conduct in public life. Such freedom and curbs naturally extended to our representative houses like parliament and state legislatures. All was, perhaps, fine until the Lok Sabha Secretariat came up with a new booklet this week, on the eve of the Parliament Session, that brought several new, patently harmless words into the list of ‘unparliamentary’ words. The warning is that these, when used, will be expunged from records. It also means such content must be excluded from the reports in the media about parliamentary proceedings.
It must be stated with a certain degree of pride that the Indian political class as a whole demonstrated a maturity in the way they spoke in representative houses. This, even as discussions turned acrimonious, as is also witnessed in the US or UK — two other stellar examples of functional democracies. Things get out of control when passions are high; and order is restored almost effortlessly by the presiding officers. On the negative side, there often was very little by way of discussions and more of disruptions of houses as no law prevents unruly scenes. Even the semi-literate members however avoided abusive words, for the most part. If they did, such words were expunged from the records of the house. Now, in what looks like an excess, even patently harmless words like ‘dicatorial’, ‘snoopgate’ and ‘vinash purush’ have been barred from use in Parliament.
Too much control harms a society; such attempts kill the inner spirit of a nation. This is more so when such curbs are effected on freedom of speech of the people’s representatives. Parliament is where the people’s mood must get adequately reflected in order for those in the seats of power to be mindful of the ground realities. The Modi government, like the previous ones, keeps “producing” laws, rules and regulations as if from a production factory. There is no escape from this as parliament and legislatures are meant for this. Yet, the surfeit of new laws and rules is hugely confusing the judiciary itself and the law-enforcement agencies. Life has to have checks and controls but an overdose of them will only harm the society.
