No business could be conducted in today's Rajya Sabha session, due to the constant disruption by the opposition. This is not the first time nor will this be the last. This post is not to lament the fact that tax payers money goes down the drain when these sessions are adjourned without any business, but to look into the reason which has gotten the opposition riled up and united.
A certain Sadhvi Jyoti, a BJP MP and an MoS in the Modi government, used an expletive while addressing a rally / gathering in Delhi. The exact words she had used were
"...ab yeh aapko tay karna hai k yahan Ramjadon ki sarkar banegi ya Haramjadon ki.."
This would approximately translate into "..now its up to you to decide if the government is to be formed by children of Ram or Bastards"
Plenty of things wrong there. Apart from the fact that i am not sure if a word like "Ramjadon" to denote followers or children of Ram has been used ever (Willing to correct if anybody can provide a link to its usage elsewhere), the usage of the expletive,which would loosely mean "Bastards", for opponents is really an example of the falling levels of political discourse. What i find equally disturbing is the fact the crowd actually cheers her after she makes the comment.Which makes me wonder if this was a "tukbandi"(rhyme) intended to get the audience applauding and not necessarily a result of ill will towards anybody in particular or general(i must admit here that i haven't seen the entire footage but only the part where she makes the now infamous comment). Whatever the reasons or motivations, the comment was uncalled for and in very poor taste.
Now to the furore which followed thereafter. Opposition MP's have united to demand that no less than her resignation will satisfy them. The Sadhvi, after much delay,has personally apologized for the remarks in both houses of the parliament and has expressed regret but has refused to resign. This brings us to the important question of whether a person is morally bound to resign after making such a remark. The answer will probably depend on how high or low the morals of that person are. But do we have a precedence in Indian political history where a person had to resign or offered to resign beacause of using expletives against anybody. The answer to that is a clear NO.
So what is the basis on which this opposition MP's are demanding the resignation? Have expletives not been used by any politician before? You don't have to go back much in time to find out the kind of words that have been used for Modi. Here is a list for those who are interested.
And more recently, former quizmaster now politician and TMC MP had this to say about a journo whose views he did not subscribe to.
And he is a member of the "Upper House".
Let alone resignations, not even an apology has been tendered in any of these cases.
Another important thing to keep in mind is that in most of the instances mentioned above, the expletives/remarks were aimed at a particular person with the objective of intimidating and belittling him/her . Whereas in Sadhvi's case it wasn't directed against anybody in particular. The former deserves much more condemnation in my eyes. An allegation saying all politicians are thieves is much less damning than saying e.g Srinjoy Bose is a thief. Leave alone politicians, journalists like Rajdeep Sardesai have verbally abused and physically attacked people but continue to perform their duties without anybody asking for their resignation or even an apology.
So is the demand for her resignation justified or is she being unfairly targeted for a) not using the Queens language for her rants b) Being a women and an OBC MP from BJP c) being a Sadhvi
I think it is all of it and more. The opposition in the last few months has not had one solid issue using which it could attack the government. All their debates on communal violence, Black money have failed and backfired. This comes as a god sent opportunity and they will try to milk it to the fullest and prolong this as long as they can. This is an issue on which the BJP finds itself on the defensive. Has it done enough by making the concerned MP apologize? Will this make a dent in Modi Sarkar's image or will the public be able to see through these protests? Only time will tell.
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