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Thursday, Jun 10, 2004

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Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Somnath as Speaker

By Era Sezhiyan

Somnath Chatterjee as Lok Sabha Speaker symbolises the hopes for the dignity and credibility of Parliament.

THE UNANIMOUS election of Somnath Chatterjee as Speaker of the Lok Sabha is the most unexpected of all the unexpected results of the recent general election.

There were many upsets. First, the poll surveys saw Atal Bihari Vajpayee as Prime Minister for a second term, with Sonia Gandhi and others trailing far behind. The uncanny electorate did not oblige. Once the results were out, it was taken for granted that Ms. Gandhi would be Prime Minister; that expectation was also upset.

There are many `firsts' to the election of Somnath Chatterjee. Over the last half-a-century, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) neither formed any electoral alliance with the Congress or the Jana Sangh/BJP nor did it join their Governments after the elections. It might have joined the others in the Opposition to fight some of the undemocratic measures of the government of the day. This was the first time the CPI (M) came forward to support the Congress at the polls to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance. Even then, it kept its identity intact in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura where the Left alliance fought the elections successfully against the candidates of both the Congress- and the BJP-led alliances.

For the first time, a member of the CPI (M) has accepted the office of Lok Sabha Speaker. After a general election, the senior-most member of the Lok Sabha is appointed by the President the pro tem Speaker to administer the oath to the newly-elected Members. As the senior-most MP, Somnath was appointed pro tem Speaker. This is the first instance of a pro tem Speaker himself being elected Speaker.

When in 1962, I along with six other DMK members was elected to the House of the People, we were numerically few and politically much disliked by the ruling party in Parliament. At that time, N.C. Chatterjee, a distinguished barrister, was a senior Member of the House from the Burdwan constituency of West Bengal. Normally, MPs from West Bengal, irrespective of their party affiliations, are inclined to champion the federal character of the Constitution, rights of States and fundamental rights of the people. When we raised any debate on federalism, Centre-State relations, especially the imposition of one language as the official language, we got spirited support from N.C. Chatterjee. He was in the House till the end of the fourth Lok Sabha. As he was disabled due to illness, his son, Somnath Chatterjee, was chosen to contest the 1971 election from the same constituency and was elected to the fifth Lok Sabha.

Somnath too was a barrister like his father and had already distinguished himself as an able advocate in the Calcutta High Court and in the Supreme Court. In the House, he soon established himself as an accomplished debater and a committed parliamentarian. Above all, he became a close and warm friend of mine and over the last three decades, our friendship has grown.

The infamous national Emergency was clamped on June 25, 1975. Jayaprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai, Asoka Mehta and many others were arrestedthat night. I was getting calls from friends and journalists about the mounting score of midnight arrests. Around 1.00 a.m., Somnath and Erasmo de Sequeira, MP from Goa, rushed to my place and said: "Get immediately out of this place. There may be an arrest warrant for you also." Somnath took me to the residence of his friend in the Green Park area and was with me the whole night and the next day. Later, I was told that the police had come to my residence in Bishamber Das Marg and left after half an hour or so. Next evening, I was able to go directly to the airport, get a ticket to Madras and board the plane without difficulty. Even in a time of grave crisis, Somnath remained calm and effective in his endeavours.

Somnath has been an able speaker in the House; hereafter he will be the Speaker of the House. Even in the tradition of the House of Commons, the Speaker is one who does not speak in the House, but one who speaks for the House.

Till the 17th century, Speakers of the Commons were nominees and in the pay of the monarchs to protect the rights and privileges of their royal masters. After the Civil War and the ascendancy of the Commons over the monarchy, a strong man of the ruling party was made the Speaker. Later, in the second half of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, the Speaker once elected to his post became independent and impartial and was able to bind himself wholly to serve his office and function.

About the changes in the status and functioning of the Speaker, Prime Minister Gladstone once said: "Earlier, the Speaker was there to protect the interests of his royal master, then he was to protect the interests of the ruling party. Now we need a Speaker to protect the House from itself." In India also, we need Presiding Officers at the national and the State levels to attend to the task of saving the legislature from itself.

The Speakers of the Commons have invariably succeeded in upholding the dignity and honour of the House. It is said that the Members of the Opposition in the Commons would often declare: "The Prime Minister will never do anything right, the Speaker will never do anything wrong." The Speaker commands so much respect, not only in the Commons but also among the common people of the country. It is not without reason that the Speaker there is considered the `First Commoner of the Realm.'

Vithalbhai J. Patel, first elected President of the Central Legislative Assembly, held office from 1925 to 1930. He was a model of independence, impartiality and commitment in spite of the limited scope and power his office had under the British regime. His portrait was unveiled by G.V. Mavalankar, Speaker of the Constituent Assembly (Legislative), on March 8, 1948. On that occasion, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said: "The Speaker represents the House, he represents the dignity of the House, the freedom of the House, and because the House represents the Nation, in a particular way, the Speaker became a symbol of the Nation's freedom and liberty."

Now, Somnath Chatterjee has become not only the Speaker of the House but he also symbolises the hopes for the dignity and credibility of Parliament and the entire system of parliamentary democracy. As Nehru said, the Speaker represents the nation, its freedom and liberty.

As a common man, as a member of the bigger house of the people of this country, I congratulate not so much Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, but the House of the People for its unanimous choice of the right person at the right time.

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