A Speaker speaks -- on how to look after animals to faith in God

A Speaker speaks -- on how to look after animals to faith in God
VRINDA GOPINATH

NEW DELHI, SEPT 13: Lok Sabha Speaker Ganti Mohana Chandra Balayogi may be a man of few reprimands in the House, but outside he is grandiloquent and verbose, if his book, A Speaker Speaks, is anything to go by.

From taming warring MPs in the House with stiff rebukes like -- ``That's not good, you're a very senior leader,'' -- Balayogi has come a long way to metamorphose into an effusive gabbler on almost every politically correct subject: the 475-page tome is an edited compilation of 134 speeches made within one glorious year. That is roughly about one speech every three days.

According to the preface of êA Speaker Speaks, it is a volume that comprises only a representative section of the speeches delivered by the Hon'able Speaker, and hence is not a complete compilation. However, as a key functionary in our constitutional framework and as chief spokesman of the House, what he says inside and outside the fabled hall reflects the collective wisdom of our elected representatives.

Balayogi has let the words pour on issues that teeter from `Ethical and Moral Values in Public Life' taken up at a seminar in Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh to `Faith In God -- Path to Happiness' at the Good News and Healing Festival in Hyderabad. There is a speech from `Christian Missionaries and Social Development' at the Annual Christian Meeting in Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh as also `Animals Are Man's Best Friends' delivered at the inauguration of the Animal Husbandry Divisional Office in Amalapuram.

Balayogi is lucid on almost every subject he has chosen; the various subjects have been classified as constitutional, legal, parliamentary and political and also perspectives on national development, prescriptions on social development to economic development and planning, religion and spiritualism, science and technology, tributes to nation-builders and foreign affairs.

In the first category, Balayogi begins his outpourings with his inaugural speech on the floor of the House which is lacklustre, with the usual references to the challenges ahead and the need to live up to the expectations of the people. A few chapters later, he skims over the need for a debate on the anti-defection law and electoral reforms but it is when he talks about discipline and decorum in the House that Balayogi shimmers. He chides members for rushing to the well of the House, raising slogans and creating unruly scenes and coaxes them to refrain from using unparliamentary language ``when passions run high''. He despairs about the decline in the educational profile of MPs and presents statistics to prove his point -- how members with a legal background who once outnumbered other professions now play second fiddle to social workers and agriculturalists.

Balayogi is unrestrained in the range of topics he has spoken on but they lead to nowhere, being hurried and scanty. So, in the chapter on electricity -- a vital ingredient of development -- Balayogi deliberates on the charming village life and India's cultural diversity while skirting the urgent need for electrification for speedy development. Spiritual discourses seem to levitate him, and his spiritual potion for despair and destitution is the usual dole of hope and faith. He also recommends a good dose of laughter in public life. At least it does not provoke, as he puts it, ``people to smash everything that comes their way -- from buses to ambulances carrying emergency patients''. A hearty laugh is good for health, he declares benevolently.

Balayogi's rulings and observations from his exalted chair no doubt lift the book to a reasonable level. After all, as it is rightly pointed out, a Speaker's rulings sets precedents by which subsequent presiding officers are guided ahead. His observation on voting in the House by a member who has become the chief minister is significant -- that lone vote brought the Vajpayee government tumbling down in April, 1999. Being a Dalit himself, he agrees with a member that henceforth the word Harijan would never be used in the House as it it patronising and sanctimonious, and observes that it would be replaced by SC/ST.

As the book plods towards the end, A Speaker Speaks has a big surprise. Balayogi's experience as an MP in the Tenth Lok Sabha is brought out with even more flourish. It reproduces with great detail how Balayogi skillfully used every effective parliamentary device, from starred questions to short-notice questions and parliamentary procedural innovations like Rule 377 to raise matters of public importance and issues crying for immediate attention, in the Lok Sabha. If the reader is greedy for more, he can look forward to a sequel that should come towards the end of next year.