The LS Secretariat’s move to banish a number of harmless words is an exercise in futility
By issuing a new booklet listing unparliamentary words for both Houses of Parliament, the Lok Sabha Secretariat has exposed itself as worse than a censor — as the headquarters of speech control. It intends to proscribe, among other terms, such words as ‘jumlajeevi’, ‘baal buddhi’, ‘COVID spreader’, ‘Snoopgate’, ‘ashamed’, ‘abused’, ‘betrayed’, ‘corrupt’, ‘drama’, ‘hypocrisy’ and ‘incompetent’. The Secretariat finds these words unfit for use in Parliament whose Monsoon Session begins next Monday. But what on earth would the Members of Parliament discuss and debate if they are not allowed to use such words? Should they do bhajan and kirtan in the Houses? But even that can be problematic, for there is a Minister in Madhya Pradesh who objects to even the remix of a popular 1960 song, Madhuban mein Radhika naache re… Which means that every expression can be dubbed as hurtful to some sensibilities. Perhaps it would be better to declare both Houses as silence zones — no voices, no noises! As it is, there are hardly any meaningful debates; most of the time, it is sloganeering, shouting, rushing to the well and pandemonium. Parliamentarians, who have been rendered slaves of the party leadership by the anti-defection law, just follow their party line. Seldom do they say anything of consequence. Ensuring silence in Parliament would end all this.
In its eagerness to please the Government, the Lok Sabha Secretariat has ignored the fact that the severe purge of language that it has proposed will also deprive the treasury benches to attack the Opposition parties and leaders. Indeed, no parliamentarian will be able to slam enemy nations as well. For instance, how would Bharatiya Janata Party leaders describe the genocide that the Pakistani Army under Yahya Khan carried out in 1971 in East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh if they can’t use the words 'bloodshed' and ‘bloody’? How will BJP leaders talk about Emergency, which they often do, without using the words ‘dictatorial’ and ‘taanashah’? How will our MPs expose China‘s support to Pakistani jihadists and the simultaneous commitment to peace without using the word ‘hypocrisy’? How will they talk about the problems women face at workplaces without mentioning ‘sexual harassment’? An agency report said that “the Rajya Sabha Chairman and the Lok Sabha Speaker will have the last word in expunging words and expressions”. Further, it added that the list of prohibited words states that some of the keywords may not appear unparliamentary unless read in conjunction with the other expressions spoken during the parliamentary proceedings. This doesn‘t make much sense: Would the verb ‘corrupt’ be kosher when quoting Lord Acton and objectionable when mentioning something contemporary? The Lok Sabha Secretariat must discard the booklet, for it militates against the very spirit of democracy. Secretariat bosses must realise that sanitising language doesn‘t sanitise life: You can‘t make politicians and others honest by banishing the word ‘corrupt’.