My (imagined) speech as an MP.

If I were an MP, this would be what I’d say in the session today:

Respected Speaker Sir,

I rise today to raise two questions regarding the happenings within this august house on Wednesday, the 13th of December 2023, when this house was shocked by two youngsters jumping in from the visitor’s gallery, one of them setting off a canister of coloured gas, while two other protestors (equally young) demonstrated outside the house similarly. They were supported in this mischief by 2 others, all of whom are now under police custody, I am assuming. Thankfully, no one was hurt, and no damage was done to national property during this entire sordid episode. That it was also the anniversary of the dastardly armed attacks on the Parliament in 2001 may or may not be a coincidence. I shall leave that for the investigation to uncover.

Here are the two issues we, as representatives of 140 Crore citizens, must take a serious look at. Firstly, the intelligence and security failure around this unfortunate incident. Seemingly this plan has been in discussion between the accused for over a year. How did our intelligence not spot it and nip it in the bud? Of course, the issues of their immediate access to what is perhaps the most secure building in India, and not just alone, but with contraband, along with their later acts of leaping from the gallery, are also pertinent questions we need answers to, and urgent and effective solutions for. I am sure these are also being asked across the nation and in our media as well as by those who work at the Parliament, whether as MPs or in other positions, whose security was severely compromised by this breach.

However, I have full faith in our investigative agencies and am sure that very soon, a comprehensive report on the problems, probable long-term solutions, and immediate steps to plug the gap would be presented in the house and would pass muster of my wise and honourable friends. I am also sure that the police and various security agencies will learn lessons from this episode and will build better systems and SOPs for the future. In fact, it would not be amiss to say that I have no worries about that. I consider that problem solved, or in any case, eminently, easily, and quickly solvable. We have the resources, the will, and the ability to do so. And we shall. Very soon. Of that, I have no doubts.

Now, turning to the other, more important question we need to ask ourselves: for that, let us see the ages and backgrounds of these intruders and their co-conspirators. Sagar Sharma from Lucknow and Manoranjan Devarajegowda from Mysuru jumped into the house from the visitor’s gallery, one of them with a coloured gas canister. Amol Shinde from Latur and Neelam Singh from Hisar shouted slogans and let off more smoke. Vicky Sharma and Lalit Jha, both from Gurugram, were the other two who absconded, one of whom was eventually caught by the police with great efficiency and alacrity, as the hunt for the other continues.

Neelam is 37 and is studying for competitive exams. Neelam has two masters and an MPhil, in Sanskrit, no less. Sagar is 26, a carpenter’s son who could not study beyond 12th because of financial distress. He drives an e-rickshaw. Manoranjan is 34 and an engineering graduate helping his father on their farm. Amol is 25 and a 12th pass-out who is preparing for the Army and police exams. I do not know about the other two, but I assume they are of similar non-criminal backgrounds. All of them, prima facie, are jobless, and obviously, frustrated.

These are not some indoctrinated people who’d throw away their lives & their reputations for some mythical, impractical, and unsubstantiated cause. These are not people who will kill or hurt for a dogmatic belief or to terrorise innocents into submission. These are simple young folks from across the country. These are the people who we keep claiming will lead India into the next century. These are the youth who we keep talking of as our future. These are the demographic dividend we are placing our bets on. These people here are the ones who were told that if you lead a good life, study & work hard, and be a productive member of society, you will have a happy, peaceful, contented life as a citizen of the Republic of India. That you’d have everything the Constitution promised you and more. You will be free, you will have an equal opportunity to seek your aspirations, and you will have justice. That you will be a respected citizen of this country.

However, what have we handed this youth? Jobless growth, stifling of free speech, a justice system that is glacially slow, a process that is the punishment for all practical purposes, lack of access to resources like finance and education, even to basics like food, clean water, housing, power, and health. What these young people have inherited is a society with a record two-year high unemployment that threatens to enter double digits, a surging inflation that even bank interest rates find hard to keep up with, a Human Development Index that is a pitiable 132 out of 191 countries, a shameful Global Hunger Index rank of 111 of 125 countries surveyed, an 8th rank in pollution out of all countries, with 39 of the top 50 most polluted cities, 1 doctor and half a hospital bed per 1,000 people, a 24:1 student-teacher ratio, amongst the lowest in the world, with less than 10% Indians having access to formal credit, 5 Crore pending cases in our courts, of which almost 2 lakh cases pending for over 30 years, one crime against women every 22 seconds, with just over 25% conviction rate for rapes, and a huge mental health crisis that we have ignored for too long, with the number of male graduates ending their lives having doubled over the past 10 years, and this is not taking into account the farmers, the annadatas, who have resorted to ending it all at the rate of 10 every single day.

Mr Speaker Sir, I wish to submit, very humbly, that we members of Parliament need to introspect and look inside our own souls to see if somehow, we are not responsible for the state of affairs that forces young men and women from across the country to take the law in their own hands and do something like these 6 simply to attract our attention. Have we become blind to their suffering, deaf to their voices, and numb to their pain? Have we become to engrossed in the larger picture that we somehow lose perspective of the smaller, more human, things? Have we focused so hard on winning the war that we are allowing our citizens to die needless deaths? Are we forgetting that it is them that form this country, not the borders or the natural resources, or the roads and bridges, the railways and airports that we are concentrating on? Is it time we paused. And went back to the fundamentals to see how we have failed the youth of this country that the only way for them to be heard, to be seen, to be felt, is to jump in front of us and shout, even at the risk of being incarcerated for the rest of their lives?

To repeat: I am not defending these misguided youth, and I am sure the investigation will reveal how and why they did what they did, and the courts will punish them proportionately. What I am asking for is introspection about our role in this sordid episode and how, as leaders and representatives of this great nation, we must bear responsibility and what we must do differently so that we do not fail our youth.

Thank you, Mr Speaker Sir. I rest.