Week two of the winter session of Parliament is done and dusted. Members returned from a long lazy, four-day weekend to the capital and continued acting on their legislative dreams. Wait, not theirs, the government’s legislative dreams. Individual Members of Parliament don’t seem to matter, sadly enough.

This week, saw outrage about a loose comment by a minister, then a semi-apology and another semi-apology of an insult of the past. Also, in a fast-paced turn of events, the Triple Talaq Bill was bulldozed through Parliament.

Let’s get right into it!

Insults and Loose talk

The first week of Parliament had seen much outrage about the comment made by PM Modi about the former PM Manmohan Singh. We witnessed MPs trooping to the well, screaming and shouting to avenge this insult.

“Apologize for the vile remark!” demanded Congress MPs.

“¯\_(ツ)_/¯” went the government.

Until Finance Minister Arun Jailtey gave a pseudo apology/clarification on Wednesday. He stepped up in the Rajya Sabha and said, “Many statements had been made on all sides during the elections. We don’t want the stalemate to continue as a result of this. Let me categorically state that the hon. Prime Minister in his statements or speeches did not question nor did he mean to question the commitment to this nation of either Dr. Manmohan Singh, the former Prime Minister, or Shri Hamid Ansari, the former Vice-President. Any such perception is completely erroneous. We hold these leaders in high esteem as also their commitment to this nation.”

Before this controversy died down, another one popped up when Union Minister Anant Hegde said at a public function that the BJP has been brought to power to amend the Constitution. He made some snide remarks about secularism too. Again, outrage happened. It continued till Hegde came to Lok Sabha and apologised for his comments. Hegde said he had no intention of hurting anyone and that the comment was misunderstood.

All good?

Oh wait for it. For next week, we might see another outrage topic building up. Rahul Gandhi tweeted this:

BJP, reacting to the grave insult (not misspelling) aimed at our Finance Minister, did this:

So here is another reason for both parties to outrage once Parliament resumes on Tuesday. Joy to the world.

This bothers me a lot. Why is this necessary? Do these parties really believe that by creating a situation where Parliament is stalled and the alleged offender apologises, politicians will refrain from making loose comments in public functions and insulting people on the campaign trails in the future?

We have seen multiple Gormints come and go, the same template is used by national parties to stall Parliament and prevent business from transacting. Today, in a situation where we have a government that has held the lowest Parliament sittings ever, this will just be used as a further excuse to cut short sittings.

Disruptions are eroding what Parliament stands for: Debate, Discuss and Decide. This is just becoming an excuse to hold Parliament for lesser and lesser number of days.

“Why run the Parliament,” people often exclaim. “The Parliament just gets disrupted anyway. No work happens. Stop wasting taxpayer money!”

Sigh. It’s just politics, eh? Good ol’ politics.

Bulldozing & No consultation

A bizarre sequence of events unfolded in Lok Sabha surrounding the Triple Talaq Bill, which was eventually passed on Thursday. Passed? I mean, bulldozed through. The funny thing is, it was completely unnecessary and I’m still trying to figure out why procedures were violated to push it through in a hurry.

The story begins on December 22 (Friday), when the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights of Marriage) Bill, 2017 made its first appearance in List of Business in Lok Sabha. It was supposed to be introduced then.

The long Christmas weekend would give time to MPs to read the Bill, file amendments and prepare a speech. But, that did not happen. A revised list of business was put out for Friday and the Triple Talaq Bill just…disappeared.

So, the MPs couldn’t file amendments since the official Bill was not in Parliament. There was no word about the Bill or when it will be introduced on 26th and 27th either. And then, suddenly, the Bill appeared again in the List of Business for Thursday! It’s slated for INTRODUCTION only.

So… yaay?

Nope.

During the introduction of the Bill, the Minister asks the Lok Sabha to consider and pass the Bill on Thursday itself! The Speaker agreed.

Almost no time was given for MPs to prepare or file amendments. The Bill was changed from just INTRODUCTION to CONSIDERATION AND PASSING in the Supplementary Business Number Two, put out on the Lok Sabha website.

Such an utterly-butterly delicious thing to do. The question here is WHY wasn’t the Bill introduced on Friday, as originally planned? Why wasn’t time given for MPs to file amendments and prepare for a Bill that is supposed to be a historic social reform?

A question was asked to the government whether any Muslim organisations were consulted for the drafting of the Bill and the reply was simply…No.

What makes this worse is that ZERO Muslim women participated in the Lok Sabha debate. As is, out of 64 women MPs, we have three members who actually represent primary stakeholders. None of them participated in the debate.

Here’s a live-tweet summary of what went down during the debate:

All requests by MPs asking for this Bill to be referred to a Parliamentary committee for wider consultation was rejected. The Bill has been cleared by Lok Sabha and will be discussed in Rajya Sabha next week. Let us see what the upper house has in store for us.

Happy New Year!

This is the last Last Week in Parliament for the year 2017. As a gift to you, dear readers, all episodes of Consti-tuition are now out of the paywall. So go binge away!

Until next time: Here’s to keeping the #SansadWatch going strong.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE!