An extract from my autobiographical memoir, On the Loom of Time p. 326 (see the Homepage of www.shivakantjha.org)
“I am surprised to think of situations when even parliament is seen to have run away from the people. Noam Chomsky has told us (Hegemony or Survival p.135) how under the US pressure Turkey yielded to ‘comply with Washington’s demands over “overwhelming” popular opposition. Chomsky quotes a Turkish correspondent who had commented:
“A war against Iraq remains deeply unpopular among the Turkish population. That is why Thursday’s parliament session was closed to the public and balloting was secret. Headlines were stinging in their criticism of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party on Friday. The front page of the respected daily Radikal said “the parliament ran away from the people.”
It is amazing that things have come to this pass! I wish such things never happen in our Republic. But a common man has a lot of reasons to apprehend:
(i) that our Parliament ‘ran away’ from our Constitution’s vision of ‘constitutional socialism’ (see Chapter 21);
(ii) that our Parliament ‘ran away’ even from controlling the Executive government which considered its treaty-making power not under constitutional restraints;
(iii) that our Parliament ‘ran away’ from controlling the Executive government which entered into the Indo-US Nuclear Deal creating conditions exposing us to numerous hazards;
(iv) that our Parliament ‘ran away’ from the aam aadami suffering on the wheel of fire wrought by high price rise, and gross corruption;
(v) that our Parliament ‘ran away’ from egalitarianism to promote the worst form of capitalism.
Whenever I think about these issues, tears come to eyes. Did our freedom fighters, did my father, mother and uncle, struggle and suffer for this sort of free India? Did I myself suffer so much to build a society that has thus emerged.”
Please read the above extract keeping in view our Government’s performance yester night (Nov.29, 2011) in the Rajya Sabha. Many said, on good reasons, that ‘ government tonight literally ran away from putting the Lokpal Bill to vote in the Rajya Sabha fearing it would be defeated, while the main opposition BJP alleged that it was all “choreographed” by the government.
Shiva Kant Jha 