Reality often has an unpleasant link with money. For members of parliament in India, reality is obscured by the privileges of their position, and long habit erases the money connection from their sensibilities. The decision of the Lok Sabha speaker, taken in consultation with the chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, that MPs will no longer be able to go on what are really pleasure trips ? in the name of study tours or departmental work ? at the expense of the public, is likely to resurrect the money link in the minds of the representatives of the people. The public sector units or other organizations, which are milked for the purposes of such trips, are also made to pay for accompanying relatives. The practice is imbued with the lack of accountability that the political culture of India has made its most striking feature, and it perpetuates in a democratic system an inherited set of feudal expectations and responses.

The speaker of the Lok Sabha, Mr Somnath Chatterjee, has been an exemplar in this respect. Nowadays it is a rare MP who acts with professional propriety and ethics. The guidelines that have been laid out regarding future trips are an embarrassing expos? of actual habits of the MPs. The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha together have 24 department-related committees, each of which has 30 members. Earlier rules allowed two trips per MP; that has now been reduced to one. Besides, a small sub-committee or study group has been asked to go on tour each time, instead of the entire committee together. No one is allowed family and friends on tour, and a companion only in cases of ill health. Expenses would all be paid by the MP, and no PSU should be asked to dole it out. Only the relevant ministries or the state government concerned may be requested to pay. Perquisites are a big attraction of the MP?s chair, and the paring down of these little happinesses may cause some heartburn among MPs. At the same time, earlier experiments with ?austerities? have not proved too successful. Power, and the complicity of power, forge deep bonds of unity across the hall. Opposition to all moves to reduce unfair privileges is therefore always united. What Mr Chatterjee and his colleague in the Rajya Sabha are looking for can only be achieved with a change in attitude. If that does happen, the new guidelines will become superfluous.