Having presided over one of the most shameless displays of engineered defections that the country has ever witnessed, Uttar Pradesh Speaker Kesari Nath Tripathi is now understandably anxious to demonstrate to the world that his House is in order. This explains the alacrity with which he has had the microphones in the UP legislative Assembly screwed down, and all movable items like chairs and stools fixed to the ground. He now guarantees that the House is devoid of any object that can be used as projectiles in future skirmishes. This is done ostensibly to avoid a recurrence of the unfortunate scenes that the UP legislature had witnessed last fortnight, when MLAs indulged in behaviour that would have invited charges of rioting if it had been enacted outside the House.

While Tripathi's recent housekeeping needs to be commended, it is a bit like shutting the stabledoor after the horse had bolted. Besides, with his long years in politics, he should know that principled conduct in legislatures is more than just ensuring that the weapons of violence are not deployed. After all, what is there to prevent an MLA from using his fists to settle a dispute, or would the Speaker require that hands be manacled inside the House? There are no shortcuts to proper legislative conduct. It must, above all, be anchored in principled politics, otherwise attempts at correcting it amounts to exercises in hypocrisy. In much the same fashion, the UP Speaker now requests the Prime Minister to amend the People's Representation Act to debar criminals from entering legislatures. Whose eyes is he trying to pull the wool over? Having merrily counted men with convictions ranging from murder to dacoity as part of the group supporting the Kalyan Singh government, many of whom were subsequently rewarded with ministerial positions, his sudden concern about the criminalisation of politics carries no conviction. Of course, there is an urgent need to evolve a proper code of conduct for legislators and parliamentarians to ensure the dignity and honour of the bodies they belong to, but surely window dressing cannot be a substitute for it.

Tripathi's own role as Speaker must also necessarily come under scrutiny. According to the Constitution, a Speaker plays a pivotal role in ensuring the smooth functioning of democracy. Since he or she is the natural guardian of the rights and privileges of the House, it behoves such a person to conduct himself with a degree of detachment from the concerns of the party he or she belongs to. This country has had legendary Speakers who have not shirked from admonishing on the floor of the House the very people who have put them in that chair. Unfortunately, it has also had people who preferred to function like rubber stamps for their party leadership. It would be useful then that the UP speaker, even as he ensures that the microphones in the legislature are no longer detachable, also spend some time in introspection over his own role in the sordid events that led up to Kalyan Singh's ministry of 93 being sworn in. Clearly, setting the House in order goes beyond mere carpentry.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.