India was compelled to hang its head in shame as the representatives in the opposition benches in parliament behaved in a manner that no words can describe. Their juvenile, ill-informed and abusive responses to the speeches made from the treasury benches were sick-making, to say the least. One had to pinch oneself to make sure that one was hearing the horror correctly. The noise pollution was unprecedented. In sharp contrast were the substantive, clear and uncluttered speeches of Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, Anand Sharma, Praful Patel, P. Chidambaram, Lalu Prasad, Rahul Gandhi, Ranjeeta and Omar Abdullah. The mindless, high-pitched rabble-rousing that emanated from the Opposition only confirmed their lack of intellectual acumen, the deep insecurities, their faded ‘nationalism’, as well as their desperation to grab even temporary power. The babble emphasized the stark vacuum in our recent parliamentary debates, making them insubstantial, incompetent and unintelligent, based on knee-jerk reactions instead of empirical truths and a vision for the future.

This two-day debate emphatically exposed the divide between the brainy and the brainless, just as it has also proved, judging by the public reaction, that Indians have ceased to respect the political class, which today stands degraded and corrupt, unable to hear or listen to another point of view and be able to argue it cogently with intellectual passion. Most of them come across as individuals ill-equipped to debate or discuss any issue of consequence, disinterested in doing so because their single-point agenda is to better their personal lives and make hay while the sun shines. Unread, unimaginative, with no exposure to new ideas or even to a history of ideas, these individuals are killing the institutions of democracy with their boorish machinations. This is not ‘being Indian’, but, in fact, an aberration that hopefully will be purged as a generation shift takes place.

Shining bright

The other great betrayal came from the electronic media. To see and hear television anchors openly discuss the buying and selling of members of parliament on hearsay and speculation was in very bad taste. Surely, all statements and judgments made on the national media should have some empirical evidence before being aired. Sadly, there is no morality in the public space anywhere. Television should show visuals of the reality on the ground as part of the news coverage and when passing judgement must have enough legal evidence before insinuating wrong-doings, instead of passing personal, sarcastic comments, and grinning in response to cheap, asides and suchlike. It was hugely sad to hear senior leaders of the BJP make abusive allegations against Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. Unwittingly, they reduced themselves in the eyes of the people and diluted our democracy further.

And, irony of ironies, the chief architect of this horrific and shameful exposure was missing from the scene. Where was Prakash Karat? Having breakfast with Mayavati? His predictable blast from the past was missing on our screens! Before the Left members begin to spout and loudly damn Congress ‘sycophancy’, they need to take a look in the mirror first and discard their own unquestioning sycophancy, as they abdicate their intelligence and personal judgment to follow the diktats of the leaders.

In all of this, it was Somnath Chatterjee who came up trumps. Dignified and upright, he operated from a moral and intellectual plane, representing integrity, an ingredient that is not part of the parliamentary ‘stew’ that is dished out to us when the august house is in session. He was the Bharat Ratna that shone through the prevailing mire, setting standards that ought to be emulated by each and every parliamentarian.