The Hindu : National : It would be an affront to the nation: Somnath

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Sunday, Apr 10, 2005

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It would be an affront to the nation: Somnath

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE, APRIL 9. The Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, today said that it would be "a very sad day for the world if Prime Ministers, Presidents and Speakers are suspected to be terrorists" and subjected to physical searches or frisking at international airports.

In an interview to The Hindu here tonight, on his way back home from Manila, Mr. Chatterjee asked "how can international relations be maintained" in such a scenario.

Elaborating on the reasons for his decision not to proceed from here to Australia, where he was scheduled to participate in a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), Mr. Chatterjee said: "I don't want to make it too confrontational. ... I have nothing against Australia. ... They have a law [on mandatory security checks for all at their airports]. I have a little reservation".

He emphasised that his decision not to travel to Australia at this time was based on his reasoning that it would be "an affront to a country like India", the world's largest democracy, that an alien law be applied to him on "the assumption that the Speaker [of the Lok Sabha] can be a security risk".

Mr. Chatterjee said he would not agree with the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, who said on Friday, in reference to Papua New Guinea, that if he were to be asked to "go through an X-ray machine", at an airport in another country, he would be "only too happy to do so", on the ground that "it is good enough for the Prime Minister if it is good enough for the rest of the community".

Disputing this reasoning, Mr. Chatterjee said: "Then, the Australian Prime Minister would be treated to be a security risk individually. I don't think any country would consider him to be a security risk".

The Speaker recalled how he was treated with respect by the U.S. authorities when he transited through New York last year to attend a Commonwealth meeting in Canada. Pointing out that "there is a good reason for exemptions" from rigorous security screenings in respect of Prime Ministers, Presidents and Speakers, among perhaps a few other categories, Mr. Chatterjee said India observed such exemptions. He had only expected "reciprocity" from Australia in his case.

Emphasising that his decision should not be misconstrued as a boycott of the CPA meeting, beginning in Sydney on Sunday, he pointed out that the Association too had asked for reciprocal exemptions by member-countries on the issue of physical searches.

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