Ring of truth

It was not an exercise in democracy but in strengthening parliamentary system which was founded on democracy. Some 30 persons, eminent in their own fields, met at a Roundtable to discuss how to refurbish the image of the Parliament and rehabilitate it in the minds of the people who are increasingly finding it irrelevant, ruckus and drenched in parochial politics.

That Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee should be convening such a conference after the country has travelled down the road of democracy for 61 years since independence indicates the disconcerting Indian scene he is seeing while presiding over the house. Indeed, over the years, the members have fallen from the standards expected from them. Parliament is losing credibility and it is lessening in performance and rising in disorderly spectacle.

Chatterjee was greatly moved by the letters, messages, telephone calls he received after conducting with dignity and decorum the motion of confidence in the Manmohan Singh government. The speaker intends to associate more outsiders and organisations with his one-man crusade to evoke respect for Parliament which I, as a Rajya Sabha member, found almost in tatters because of political parties' priority to their narrow agenda, with an eye to the gallery for attention. Parties are always thinking of elections.