KR Ravi | Oct 31, 2009

An incident took place recently when the US President Barack Obama addressed Congress that needs to be discussed seriously in India for its many ramifications. It occurred when President Obama was addressing both the Houses — Representatives and Senators — the Indian equivalent of which is a joint session of Parliament. This is where the parallel ends. The points I wish to raise are as follows:

(1) I do not recall too many instances when a joint session of Parliament was called for listening to our Prime Minister make a policy statement and outline a strategy to tackle one of the many crises facing the nation. I am not content with the platitudinous speeches made by the Rashtrapathi or Pradhan mantri at the beginning of a Parliament session. These are lofty speeches that do not really address any crisis and in any case these are part of Parliamentary procedure and do not have the nation’s attention. When Obama spoke to the Houses, the entire nation was glued to the TV and I suspect many people elsewhere in the world also watched him tackling a much debated issue in the US, namely health reform.

(2) The very fact that the speech was devoted entirely to a single issue — health — is itself a telling point for us Indians. Let us take just health in India’s context. In the tenure of Anbumani Ramdas as Union Health Minister I do not recall any initiative to attend to the myriad problems in our health sector. Instead Ramdas was engaged in the single minded pursuit of Dr Venugopal. Eventually he managed to oust Dr Venugopal, a renowned surgeon, out of the AIIMS. Other than that, Ramdas tilted against windmills like asking Shah Rukh Khan not to smoke in movies. Surely there are far more critical issues to be attended to? The current Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has been no different but this time there is a difference — the PM has pulled him up for non-performance.

(3) Considering the many areas where the situation is tragic: education, power, infrastructure, Maoist violence, national security, etc, I would have thought that each minister at state and union levels would address the nation/state, and tell us what he or she intends to do and what results we can expect. Barring one or two, we have only silence as an answer. When did you hear our power minister for instance tell us what he is doing to solve our deepening crisis? How many can tell me who the power minister is?

(4) Now comes a crucial point. In the course of his speech Obama announced that illegal immigrants would not get medical cover. At this juncture Republican Joe Wilson shouted, ‘It is a lie!’ Many Americans were outraged but for a nation like ours this seems almost a term of endearment. I imagine that if Mayawati announces in the UP Assembly that the hundreds of crores she is spending for statues are for public welfare and the only response she gets from the opposition is a lone MLA shouting, ‘Ye sarasat jhoot hai,’ Mayawati will hug him in affection and assume that her idea has unanimous consent!

Over the years we have been seeing deterioration in the conduct of our law makers. Obscene acts like unfurling of dhotis happens more often than unfurling of our national flag. Chappals are hurled, microphones ripped apart, abuses exchanged, lawmakers rush menacingly to the Minister or Speaker…these are daily events that do not shock anyone any more.

If you think that these are the prerogative of rustic goondas who have made it to the legislatures, you may be wrong. To my knowledge all this was started by a scion of India’s royalty, the Gandhi family. It is Sanjay Gandhi and his band of rowdy MP’s who used to engage in shouting down those MP’s who had opposing views. The events of that era have been well discussed and need no elaboration here. Sanjay’s behaviour started a trend that has reached a new low these days.

But the fury of public anger at Wilson’s behaviour has now snowballed into a crisis for himself and his Republican Party. Mid-term elections are a year away and Wilson is in for a drubbing and his political career may well end. His party has asked him to apologize to the President on the floor of the House, which he has refused to do and is content to apologize to Obama directly. This incident — trivial by Indian standards, has made his party look like the BJP. The party looks adrift, leaderless, visionless, ungainly and lost in the woods. It has been said about South Carolina (where Rep Wilson hails from), is a state is that is too small to become a nation and too big to be a lunatic asylum. How would you describe some of our states? I invite readers to send me catchy lines for our states and our country.