Brawling lawmakers

User Rating: / 0
PoorBest 

Letter to Editor

Saturday, 24 July 2010 18:25

It appears that at times lawmakers take the concept of participatory democracy quite literally. There are instances when important issues can evoke violent reactions and cause legislators to come to blows. This is far from the democratic spirit, according to which points should be put across through fine oratory and impassioned debate. The latest example of parliamentary violence was witnessed in India when members of the state legislature of Bihar indulged in thoroughly unparliamentary behaviour, trading punches, hurling projectiles and using unprintable language.

Trouble had been brewing over the past few days with the opposition calling for the resignation of the Bihar chief minister and his deputy over alleged involvement in a financial scandal. Things boiled over when the speaker of the assembly had a slipper thrown at him. Opposition and treasury MPs reportedly wrestled each other in the house. But perhaps the most interesting image of the whole bizarre spectacle was of a sari-clad lawmaker hurling a flowerpot at an unknown target.

Violence inside the hallowed halls of parliament is not unknown in Pakistan. In 1958, during a session of the erstwhile East Pakistan Assembly deputy speaker Shahid Ali Jan died after being assaulted. More recently former Sindh chief minister Arbab Rahim narrowly missed being hit by a shoe inside the provincial assembly in 2008; he was manhandled outside the chamber by enraged political activists after taking oath. An MQM-Haqiqi lawmaker was dragged out of the Sindh Assembly in 2002.

Elsewhere across the globe, countries such as Taiwan and South Korea have witnessed many violent scuffles inside their respective parliaments. Also, smoke bombs and eggs were hurled at the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament earlier this year. Though such violence is condemnable (comical as it may seen), perhaps it shows that even more mature democracies than ours are not immune to such disturbing behaviour.

Source : Dawn news