India’s media shrugs its shoulders over ‘attack on democracy’
On Friday, India’s winter parliamentary session will come to an end. For an international audience, such a session would ordinarily be of little interest. Yes, there were a couple of contentious bills on the agenda — mostly to do with “decolonizing” Indian criminal codes that were still largely based on British-era formulations.
But over the last week or so, this parliamentary session has turned into one of the most extraordinary in Indian history. On Monday, December 18, a record 78 members of the opposition in both India’s lower and upper houses of parliament were suspended for the remaining week of the parliamentary session. This was followed on Tuesday by a further 49 suspensions. Added to the 14 who were suspended in the previous week, 141 members of the opposition cannot take part in parliamentary proceedings for the rest of the session.
The lawmakers were suspended for disruptive behavior as they demanded that India’s Home Minister Amit Shah explain a serious lapse in parliamentary security in person. On December 13, two protestors were able to get past security, enter the lower house of parliament and set off two smoke canisters. Shashi Tharoor, an opposition member of parliament and bestselling author, wrote that he heard a “panicky” colleague “screaming ‘poison gas,’” as she ran out of the chamber. Other members rushed to tackle the intruders, while one threw the canister out into the grounds.
It was over in minutes, Tharoor said. But the fiasco happened on the anniversary of the December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament which resulted in the deaths of nine people, apart from five allegedly Pakistan-sponsored terrorists who were killed in a shootout with security. Eight Delhi police personnel who were on duty at the time of last week’s protest have been suspended. The police report to Shah and national security is the responsibility of his office. “The home minister’s stubborn refusal to attend the House and speak there,” argued Tharoor, “is at the heart of the current dispute.”