“Humour and wit are gradually fading away from parliamentary proceedings as members are worried about what colour the 24×7 media will give to even a similie.”
– Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
TThe prime minister has got it right. Indian netas may have a cupboard full of skeletons, but it is bare when it comes to humour or political invective.
This author, in research for this piece searched high and low for what may pass off as parliamentary sauce, but came up with some gems but alas no treasure trove.
That cutting remark, that wry aside, the subtle verbal knife that turns, the ultimate putdown, is remarkably absent from the scabbard of Indian political and parliamentary discourse.
This absence of humour in the parliamentary arena is surprising since Indian literature and mythology especially the indigenous cultures are rich in humour and satire. And since Independence, we have had a rich heritage of editorial cartooning – sharp, witty and even acerbic – which continues to grow and flourish.
It is difficult to think of a news-based publication today which does without an in-house political cartoonist, who provide a daily or weekly dose of political satire and comment.
Humour which doesn’t tickle!
The website of the two Houses of the Indian Parliament has a section entirely devoted to wit and humour. One glance will underline the proposition that when it comes to what passes as humour in the hallowed portals, it just scrapes the bottom of the barrel, or worse.
Sample this verbatim account from the Rajya Sabha: “While Shri Tathagatha Satpathy participating in the discussion on the Indian Economic Council Management Bill, 2012, on 4.5.2012, the Chairman interrupted him and this is what transpired later (sic):
Shri Tathagatha Satpathy (Dhenkanal): Sir, do you not want me to speak?
Mr Chairman: You can speak but you will have to be short.
Shri Tathagatha Satpathy: Sir, I am very short. I would actually like to be six feet and two inches, but I am very short!”
The whole House burst into laughter.
Or take another instance:
“While participating in the Short Duration Discussion on Global Warming on 8.5.2007, Hon’ble Member Dr. K. Dhanaraju was making a long speech and the Chairman (Shri Varkala Radhakrishnan) was asking him to conclude. When he went on speaking, the Chairman remarked that Global Warming is applicable to the House also and that there should be limit on the time taken by Members. In response to that, the Hon’ble Member in a quick repartee said, “Sir, we should warm up for a war against Global Warming”, and the House burst into laughter. (sic)”
This is what goes under humour in our Parliament. We are surely not “bursting into laughter”.
This coyness of our netas in Parliament to tickle the funny bone is inexplicable.
There have been a few gems, though,
Even cultured and erudite leaders like the Mahatma and Jawaharlal Nehru, while not lacking a sense of humour, didn’t even scratch the surface. Even gems like Gandhi’s quip “a good idea” when asked what he thought about Western civilisation; or his tongue-in-cheek , “His majesty had on enough for both of us”, when questioned about the appropriateness of his attire of a loincloth and a shawl when meeting the King-Emperor at Buckingham Palace, are rare.
Nehru did come up with “one should not visit America for the first time”, when asked about his first foray to the United States as the Prime Minister of India in 1949.
But of the other luminaries who have strutted across the Indian political firmament, not many of them have used humour to embellish their political narratives.
Of course, there is a Laloo Prasad Yadav who has often raised laughter and merriment. But his performances are more in the nature of insolence, invective and mimicry, which does not lend itself to be classified as humour, however engaging it may be.
Of course, there are a few gems; when the men, or women, in khadi did hit mid-season form.
One of the earliest and the memorable ones came from the original nightingale of India Sarojini Naidu. In response to Governor General Lord Mountbatten’s comment about Mahatma Gandhi’s frugality, she purred, “You will never know my dear Lord Louis what it costs the Congress party to keep that old man in poverty.”
India’s first High Commissioner to Britain, Krishna Menon, caustic at the best of times had said to an English woman who complimented him on his command over the English language, “My English, Madam is better than yours. You merely picked it up. I learned it.”
Then, there is this one of former Prime Minister Vajpayee, then Jana Sangh MP (Member of Parliament), characterising Indira Gandhi’s move to extend the life of the Lok Sabha by an ordinance under the Emergency in 1975 as “Parlok Sabha” – parlok being the Hindi equivalent of hell.
Indeed, Vajpayee was a rare leader who used the felicity of language to send a political message. The memory of his insaniyat ke daire mein (bound by humanness) phrase, when asked if the talks with the Kashmiri separatists will be “bound by the Indian Constitution”, still linger. This was a masterstroke and provided him the political space to hold parleys with the Kashmiri groups, most of whom were loath to confine their wish list to within the four corners of the “Constitution”.
The Swatantra Party leader and MP, Piloo Mody, was one of the few among the Parliamentarians who was known for his wit. Rotund as they come, Mody once found himself being reprimanded by the Speaker for turning his back on him while addressing the House. He shot back with some justification, “I have no back or front. I am round.” Enough to raise a laugh, but not quite in the top draw when it comes to humour; if you know what I mean.
A recent example of political wit is the one by the effervescent Congress MP from Kerala Shashi Tharoor. Forced to fly economy class during one of his many trips between constituency Thiruvananthapuram and the national capital to adhere to his party’s unwritten diktat to keep the appearances of austerity, he shot off a tweet. “In cattle class”, he said, “out of solidarity with all our (Congress) holy cows”.
Clever, very clever, but proved too clever for his party bosses who weighed in with a censure and a reprimand.
Then there is the leader who puts himself for unintended comedy, usually at his own or her own expense. While the only one, the most glaring and recent example is the Congress scion Rahul Gandhi.
Hard to beat Rahul’s “Last night I got up in the morning” or his “Politics is everywhere. It is in your pants and your shirt”.
Humour from here and there
However, the honour of the best gaffes will unquestionably go to the US ex-President George W. Bush. His felicity in the department of mutilating the English language remains unparalleled. Apart from his famous “you misunderestimate me”, there are a legion instances of his unintended humour which has enlivened many an American discourse.
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful”, he once said in Washington, “and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” Or, “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”
Try working this out from the President. “I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe – I believe what I believe is right.”
Do we Indians, and our men in khadi, take ourselves too seriously precluding the light touch, the hallmark and prerequisite of humour? Or, is it that humour is collateral victim of the general lowering of the standards of debate and the raucous functioning of the Indian Parliament? The jury, like humour in our Parliament, is out.
This is in sharp contrast to the fertile ground of humour and invective that animates the proceedings of the other democracies of the world.
American President Abraham Lincoln had a barbed tongue which he used to devastating effect on his opponents. On a political colleague he despised he shot off this missive which is hard to beat in its invective: “He reminds me of the man who murdered both his parents and, when sentence was about to be pronounced, pleaded for clemency on the grounds that he was now an orphan”.
Once accused of going back on an election pledge he countered, “Bad promises are better broken than kept”. Must be the envy of politicians today, given the penchant for exacting standards of political correctness these days.
At the turn of the last century, President Theodore Roosevelt was not only known for his stinging political barbs, but was also the creator of some of the most memorable phrases which now are part of the political lexicon. The most remarkable among them being: “The lunatic fringe”, “weasel words” and “pussyfooting”.
President Harry Truman not only coined the term “the buck stops here”, but gave what some parents would regard the most sagacious advice ever given on how to handle their progeny. “I have found that the best way to give advice to their children”, he said, “is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it”.
Once reminded of his humble background, he shot back, “My father was not a failure. After all, he was a father of the President of the United States”.
For the blackest of humours, almost predictably, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill takes the cake. Bessy Braddock, an MP with a reputation for toughness in the House of Commons is known to have told him where he stood with her. “Winston, if I were your wife, I would have put poison in your coffee”. “Lady, if I were your husband, I would have drunk it”, was Churchill’s reported retort.
One of the most devastating use of humour and invective in parliamentary history was provided by Geoffrey Howe, Britain’s deputy prime minister, against his prime minister Margaret Thatcher. On the floor of the House of Commons, Howe, derided his boss’ tendency to undermine her colleagues saying her conduct was “like sending your opening batsman to the crease only for them to find, the moments before the first balls are bowled, that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain”.
“The time has come”, he continued, “for others to consider their response to the tragic conflict of loyalties with which I have myself wrestled for perhaps too long”. The speech was considered the beginning of the end of Thatcher’s iron grip on her party and British politics, coming as it was from one of her closest confidantes.
A similar instance in the history of Indian Parliament is hard to come by, where humour and invective was used to make a telling and cutting political point. One example that comes to mind is the United Front prime minister Deve Gowda’s “man in a hurry” resignation speech, in which he assailed the then Congress President Sitaram Kesri for bringing down his government. But even there, the comedy, if at all, was situational rather than wit and humour.
Our netas in khadi clearly have a long way to go before they measure up to the exacting, and exciting, standards of their Western counterparts.
[/column][column size=”4/5″]
E. Jayakrishnan
E. Jayakrishnan has reported and commented on national politics for the better part of two decades. Until recently he was the Managing Editor of MSN.com and oversaw the editorial content on Windows Apps. With an M.Phil from JNU on international studies, he currently devotes his time teaching journalism and upgrading himself in the world of strategic affairs and social marketing in Bangalore.[/column]