Shame has been banished by fiat from the Parliament of India.
Bravo, and all that, but have you realised that we Indians who have still retained our sanity and our wits around us have long known this. You have only formalised what existed for far too long in the august house of the largest democracy in the world.
As the popular saying goes, and I am paraphrasing a bit: Fool me once, in 2014, shame on you. Fool me twice, in 2019, shame on me.
जेव्हां कमरेचे सोडून डोक्याला बांधले आणि मग टोपी उडवली, तर कसली लाज अन् कसली लज्जा. सगळाच नंगानाच चालला आहे. होऊ द्या.
How very colonial that anything that may be used to either point out a flaw or merely allude to one in the ruling dispensation or even the Speaker/Dy Speaker in the Parliament is outlawed! Just like how we cannot criticise the judiciary. And increasingly, the executive (army and police). Everyone has become somehow royal and we now have lèse-majesté laws in play de facto if not (yet) de jure. Everyone with a little power, even if the source of such power is the people’s will, is untouchable and above dissent. You cannot disagree with anyone for the fear of being punnished for this ‘crime’. Little fiefdoms have sprouted all over the country.
Mark my words: When the tables turn, you’ll regret this. Among a million other things. You’ll regret every little oppression and oppressive law you were the fount of, hoping that you’ll never be at the receiving end. You’ll regret you centralised so much power to the detriment of the very nation you claim to hold scared and in whose interests you insist you are working. You’ll regret the infiltration and hollowing of the institutions designed to arrest exactly people like you, and ideas just like yours. You’ll regret that when you are the opposition and do not control the legislature, that at least the media, the judiciary, and the executive had remained free, fearless, and fair, and that it was you who sabotaged each of them believing naively that what goes up never comes down. How wrong you are! And I hope you live to see the day you regret all of this.
Remember that when all of this goes to shit, you’ll be the first to hang. So, any strengthening of the hangman’s noose, the rope, and the scaffold you are engaged in will only come back to bite you in the ass. Or in this case, strangulate you in the neck.
Bookmark this post. You will suffer.
But till then, enjoy telling us what we can or cannot say, read, wear, eat, believe, do, or even think. You’re in charge today. You won’t be forever. Forever is a long time.
P.S: Anyone who has not read ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ can buy it here, along with ‘Animal Farm’, together giving you a quick and ready peek into the near future of this ancient civilisation and young republic. It’s the best Rs.159 you’ll ever spend.
