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Please cry, your Parliament can't take a joke

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DailyBiteFeb 10, 2017 | 19:11

Please cry, your Parliament can't take a joke

Trust the politicians to find an excuse to avoid going to work. Even if they do go, they will find a reason to not work. We are a nation of hartals, called by our politicians.

The latest is the Congress party’s decision to boycott Parliament because Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused his predecessor Manmohan Singh of not being corrupt while his government was full of corruption. 

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The trouble is he used a "bathroom" metaphor. He said: "Dr Sahab is the only person who knows the art of bathing in a bathroom with a raincoat on."

That may not be a pretty picture, but definitely funny. What is funnier is that the Congress believes this jibe is reason enough to boycott work.

 

We follow the British parliamentary system.
So does Australia.

Singh himself is seen not-so-willing to walk out even as his party colleagues did. Was he amused? We wouldn’t know because the doctor is an expert in hiding all emotions. If you have looked closely at the Narendra Modi lexicon, this metaphor will be found in the benign section marked benevolent. It’s the small part of the Modi book of humour. When he is in his elements, the jokes get serious and very few people can attempt a guffaw.

Humour is suddenly the enemy number one in our society. The last of the liveliest people have filed a case against jokes involving "Sardars". Caste and religion jokes are forgotten. Politics remains the only subject we can joke about. That’s something to cry about actually. But calm your tears. Our politicians are so shorn of humour that banter seems banned in a House where hilarity has been a hallmark. 

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In the 1950s and 1960s, when our Parliament was young and had stalwarts like Jawaharlal Nehru, Ram Manohar Lohia, Piloo Mody et al, they were able to handle bitter criticism and sharp verbal ammos with ease.

Lohia would attack Nehru with ferocious wit and the latter would retort with equally biting words.

Yet, sessions were not sacrificed because Lohia called Nehru a "bald man". By the way, that's ad hominem since Nehru was bald.

Once, Lohia told the House that Nehru wasn’t an aristocrat he was made out to be. “I can prove that the prime minister’s grandfather was a chaprasi in the Mughal court,” Lohia said. To which, Nehru smiled and replied thus: “I am glad the honourable member has at last accepted what I have been trying to tell him for so many years. That I am a man of the people.”

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 Was he amused? We wouldn’t know because the doctor is an expert in hiding all emotions.

Not one Congressman rose up and screamed: “Aapne hamaare neta ko chaprasi ka pota bola. Shame. Shame.”

Nehru’s finance minister TT Krishnamachari once described Feroze Gandhi as Nehru's "lapdog". Feroze Gandhi didn’t take that lying down. He said since Krishnamachari considered himself a pillar of the nation, he would do to him what a dog usually does to a pillar.

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Today, most parliamentarians wouldn’t even get the meaning of lapdog. The presence of the three-letter word dog would result in THIS IS SPARTA!

Once, Piloo Mody came to the House wearing a placard that read: "I am a CIA agent." The chairman ordered him to remove it. He did so, and announced, “I am no longer a CIA agent." 

Another time, Congress’s JC Jain kept heckling Mody. An irritated Mody shouted, “Stop barking!” Jain started playing the victim and began pleading with the chair: “Sir, he’s calling me a dog. This is unparliamentary language.”

The chair agreed and declared, “This will not go on record.” Piloo Mody corrected himself thus: “All right then, stop braying.”

Jain didn’t get the import of this. This went on record. 

Yes, parliamentary language is a thing. We have elected a lot of unparliamentary lumpens, communal creeps and criminal cretins to this august House, but parliamentary language remains a thing.

Of course, a civilised gathering whose questions are starred should use words that have to be starred for civility, but dry metaphors like that of "bathing in a raincoat" should be fine. Unless, raincoat is euphemism for rubber in the "in-jokes" in the Central Hall.

Even Shashi Tharoor is incensed at the raincoat quote. This man knows the wilful wickedness of a humourless society. He used a perfectly acceptable phrase to describe economy-class travel and people not familiar with the language took it literally. The meaning of "cattle class" changed forever. 

Nobody has high hopes from right-wing parties. Cultural conservatism mandates literal and narrow understanding of the world. The extreme Left is more hopeless in the humour department as it obsesses with its existence and that of the establishment.

The people in the middle have carried the shaky art of sarcasm and wit on their shoulders for so long. And as the centre disappears in this whole new divided world, humour is being pushed to a corner.

And out of the House of the people, where our representatives are wilfully suppressing a laugh and showing their outrage because the latter can be used to shirk. Smirk!

Last updated: February 10, 2017 | 19:11
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