O MLA! Why you no legislate?

A witty, tongue in cheek video prepared by the well-known Indian newspaper ‘The Hindu’ shows a typical college classroom with the stern old professor standing at the board and announcing a topic for a debate in the class and declares which side is to speak for and which will speak against the topic. So far so good, there are no foreseeable problems that could possibly arise, other than high volumes and higher tempers of course.

Then the gentleman makes the mistake of saying that he expects ‘proper parliamentary behaviour’ during the discussion.

How is that a mistake you ask? Well, move a few seconds further into the video and you realise why. Many will probably find the video extremely funny, I admit I sure did enjoy that completely bewildered and flustered expression on the professor’s face as his class erupted in complete pandemonium, but like the best of the stories from the genre of satire, along with tickling the audience’s funny bone it also highlights an important problem in or country today: the un-parliamentary behaviour of our ‘representatives’.

Not only do these modern day Bourbons, as a columnist for the very same paper titled them, live in their fantasy worlds where everyone adores them and use their power and influence to ensure this fantasy doesn’t get disrupted (read misuse of state judicial machinery) but they also feel that they are completely above any law, regulation or even code of conduct and can do whatever they please, whenever they please; and governing and the functioning of the state apparatus be damned. Passing legislations, ensuring that the parliament is actually running are but secondary, nay, tertiary objectives for them if even that. They’d rather engage in heckling and abusing the opposition party MP’s or anyone who isn’t ‘one of them’ and, in demonstration of their love for brawling, turn any session of parliament into a slug-fest whenever they please.

While the world is in recession and our nation is struggling to stay above the water and keep its economy floating our dearest ‘leaders’ are busy getting the police to lock up people who offend them, creating a ruckus about corruption claims with respect to the opposing parties to fend of attention from the charges they themselves are facing and being indecisive about anything that has to do with legislation or governance. It is as if they are unaware of the global situation.

Of course another explanation is that they are probably reassuring themselves that we’re clocking 5.5% on our GDP (not sure of the precise figures, so please point out any mistakes) and that having so much in the way of resources and man-power and skills we can’t possibly be in any danger of sliding backwards and ending up in the dump. They probably believe that the threat of economic status downgrade is but a fictional threat, like those mommy used to make up about boogeymen and ghosts who kidnap naughty little kids, to get them to do something [good] which they’d rather not do, namely: legislate.