28th February

Neutral Umpire

As the LS Speaker Somnath Chatterjee steps down from the post as well as his political career, the article reviews his career as the Speaker and issues that remained prominent during his tenure.

His tenure as the speaker was dominated mostly by disruptions and walkouts. Most disgraceful incident was when some of the MPs waved bundles of notes as bribed given to them by the ruling party during the vote of confidence. Somnath Chatterjee would be remembered as a Speaker who honestly tried to instill some order and discipline in the house. He talked about implementing several laws provided in our constitution so that disruptive activities could be stopped and the public money could be utilized for some productive work. So much was his frustration with the frequent disruption and indiscipline that he told that the current MPs do not deserve a “single paisa” of public money and that they should all get defeated in the coming elections. However, he clarified later with a regret that the statement was purely out of frustration. 

His understanding of the post and neutrality was commendable. This was the precise reason that he refused to step down even after CPM withdrew support from govt saying that he was elected unanimously and the post is independent of the party decisions. He was successful in bringing the parliamentary norms and behavior to the centre stage. What’s to be seen now is whether these issues will have an impact on his colleagues in future or not.

Beyond the State

The article advocates separation of religion from the state affairs which has been an Indian tradition since centuries but disrupted in the past few years.

As Taliban in Pakistan tries to impose Islamic laws in the governance of day to day affairs, Sri Ram Sena tries to impose Hinduism on the Indian state. Indian state has never defined state in religious terms. Perhaps the major reason is that, unlike Europe, there has never been a well defined church above the state to mandate the governance issues. This is again the reason why multiple religious faiths have flourished in India. Hinduism is a conglomeration of multiple faiths and doesn’t have a single entity called church. Hindu belief of separation of public affairs from religion owes to the ideology that religion should think more about the matters of higher reasoning. The mundane tasks of state and public life should be the responsibility of rulers and not the religion.

Perhaps this should be the understanding of the present time as well. People who try to mingle state with religion are actually trying to vilify the later. Public affairs should be solved with the help of political documents like Constitution and religion should be isolated from it.