PRIVILEGE

AMIDST MISPLACED PRIORITIES AND PRIVILEGES, WHERE DO WE STAND?

While returning from Belagavi sessions along with Rakesh Prakash, Niranjan Kaggere and Sathish B S, our discussion slowly turned towards politicians of yesteryears like J H Patel, Bangarappa, S M Krishna, Ghorpade and others. Sathish had an interesting story to tell, which J H Patel told him during their first meeting.

When Patel was Member of Parliament, he went to a party with friends. He had couple of pegs more than usual and it was late in the night. Though his friends offered him to drop home, Patel assured to manage as Shivamogga was a small town.

Little while later, Patel realized that he was unable to locate his house. By then, he was high and his dhoti had fallen down and was desperately looking to locate his house. A police constable approached him and started questioning. When Patel said that he was local Member of Parliament, constable slapped him on the head, took him to police station and put him in the lock up. That was the last Patel remembered and went to deep slumber inside the lock up.

When he opened his eyes in the lock up, the constable was falling at his feet and begging for forgiveness. Then Patel recalled what happened previous night and started laughing. Though his followers wanted to teach a lesson to constable, Patel laughed and said, the constable made him realize that he did not look like a Member of Parliament.

There are any number of such stories of another former Chief Minister R Gundu Rao, who cracked jokes with police personnel, who had given him tough time as budding politician. What would have happened today? The behavior of our politicians would not have been even closer to above incidents. The privileges of the elected representatives would have been mercilessly invoked.

In 1997, I slowly started peeping into corridors of Vidhana Soudha, covering Legislature Sessions for Indian Express. As a cub reporter, I used to see stalwart politicians like the then Chief Minister J H Patel, Speaker Ramesh Kumar, Ministers M P Prakash, M C Nanaiah, C Byre Gowda, Jayaprakash Hegde on one side, Mallikarju Kharge, M Y Ghorpade and others on other side.

The first and second time MLAs used to sit around the stalwarts, listening to issues pertaining to Parliamentary democracy. In Brishish Parliamentary system, they are termed as shouting brigades. It was a great learning process and as junior reporters, we waited some opportunity to get acquainted with the stalwarts. When we did, they used to tell us about what they thought about journalism and point out our mistakes. When cross checked later, they used to be right.

In two decades of journalism, I came across `privileges’ of legislators only once, when Legislative Council summoned an IAS officer to the house and reprimanded him. I thought it was harsh, but did not attach much importance to it.

Till last week, I had misconception about privileges of the legislators. Now, it has turned out to be confusion… Two journalists – Ravi Belegere and Anilraj have been sentenced to one year of imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 10000 each.

Quickly, I got copy of the report submitted by Privilege Committee to Assembly and went through it. I don’t want to get into merits and de-merits of the report, how it concluded `breach of privilege’ in both the cases. However, some of the facts are worth mentioning.

In the report, the Committee admitted that there was no proper definition for `privilege’ of legislators as well as prescribed punishment for breach of privilege. However, they have quoted relevant parts from the book: `PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE OF PARLIAMENT’ by KAUL AND SHAKHTAR as reference. It reads:

`It is breach of privilege and contempt of the House to make speeches, or print or publish any libels, reflecting on the character of proceedings of the house or its Committees, or any member of the House for or relating to his character or conduct as a member of Parliament’.

Speeches and writings reflecting on House or its Committees or member are punished by the House as contempt on the principle that such acts, ``tend to obstruct the House in the performance of their functions by diminishing the respect due to them.’’ 

The house may punish not only contempt’s arising out of facts of which the ordinary courts will take cognizance, but those of which they cannot, thus a libel on a member of Parliament any amount to a breach of privilege without being a libel under civil or criminal law.

I know Ravi Belegere of Hi Bangalore for the last two decades, but not Anilraj of Yelahanka Voice. While the complainant against Ravi is Speaker K B Koliwad of Congress, Yelahanka MLA, who is a BJP member S R Vishwanath is complainant with respect to Anilraj.

I read Ravi’s article against Koliwad. Of course it was bad in taste, but no way would it come on the way of Koliwad discharging his duty. I have read Ravi’s tabloid for decades and at times, I told him point blank that particular article was in bad taste. Going by the precedent set by the committee report, Ravi should have been jailed hundreds of times by now.

When Koliwad filed the complaint against Ravi, he was not Speaker, but Chairman of Privilege Committee. The then Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa admitted his privilege motion and referred it to the Committee. So, he was the complainant and as well as the judge for the case. By the time he became Speaker and handed over privilege committee Chairman Post to Kimmane Rathnakar, the report convicting Ravi was ready.

Kimmane Rathnakar completed inquiry into case against Anilraj and submitted both the reports to house during this session. The conviction has opened Pandora’s Box, with Bengaluru Development Minister K J George moving privilege motion against TV9 and opposition leader Jagadish Shettar, quoting similar reasons.

In my journalism career, I have come across seven speakers, including Koliwad. He is the first Speaker with whom the journalists literally entered into verbal arguments twice. Soon after he became Speaker, Legislature Housing Cooperative Society allotted sites to Koliwad’s daughters. When journalists questioned him, he was upset and said that there was nothing wrong in such allotments. He defended vehemently and even shouted at media.

Secondly, he made a proposal to spend Rs 26 crore for recent Diamond Jubilee celebration of Vidhana Soudha. When the journalists questioned about extravaganza, that’s too when state was reeling under drought, Koliwad argued that it was his prerogative. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah intervened and scaled down the budget to Rs 10 crore.

With above facts, I rest my case.

But, the tussle between legislature and media is nothing new. During the last few years, there were efforts by legislators to gag media. This was in the form of undercurrent, which erupted during last legislature session. Karnataka MLAs took up the issue and debated in the house for hours together, running down on the media, making individual attacks also.

They wanted to form a committee to control media. Cutting across party lines, members from Congress, BJP and JD(S) explained how they were suffering from media reports, while their presence in public life had already ruined their personal lives. They wanted the media to report only the good works they did and the people oriented debate they make inside the house.

One JD(S) MLA, without naming H R Ranganath of Public TV, vent his ire and said: `how a person, who used to walk without slippers in Mysore two decades ago, could own a television channel.’ Recently, the same MLA’s son and his friends were caught on camera, locking up a youth inside his garage, beating him up. This is just a passing reference of the debate.

After Ravi’s review petition was rejected unanimously by Assembly, I spoke to two MLAs.  Suresh Kumar of BJP, who opposed conviction of journalists and Privilege Committee Chairman Kimmane Rathnakar (Congress), who submitted the report. Kimmane Rathnakar is a thorough gentleman. Since I had promised that the talks would be for my academic consumption, I will not reveal the details. However, I told both of them that I expect nothing constructive from more than 10-15 of total 224 elected members of the house, as the quality of people getting elected to Assembly had deteriorated drastically. So is the case with upper house – Legislative Council.

When I started covering Assembly proceedings, Ramesh Kumar was Speaker. The house had stalwarts like J H Patel, Mallikarjun Kharge, M P Prakash, C Byre Gowda, Jayaprakash Hegde, M C Nanaiah, M Y Ghorpade and others. Later in 1999, they were joined by people like S M Krishna, Kagodu Thimmappa, K H Ranganath, H Vishwanath, D B Chandre Gowda and others, while some of the prominent from Janata Parivar, including M P Prakash were defeated. Suresh Kumar was first timer and Kimmane Rathnakar got defeated from JD(S) ticket.

I enjoyed the company of many of these leaders who stood for what they believed in. During our informal chats, I could sense that they pointed out mistakes in our reports and it could be termed as a learning process. Not that all the 224 members were of high quality. However, leaders with quality got due recognition inside and outside the house.

When Ghorpade was Rural Development Minister, Mandya MLA Athmanand wanted to know if the government earmarked local area development funds in local bodies like Zilla Panchayats for MLAs. Mr Ghorpade said that he would not make such provisions and if anyone wants to work at Panchayat levels, they should contest those elections. Legislature was to make legislations and not taking up civil works.

This created a furore and back benchers, cutting across party lines rose to their feet and started demanding separate funds for them in Panchayat Raj institutions also. Ghorpade did not budge. Speaker M V Venkatappa requested Ghorpade to make an assurance to consider their demands, as at least 100 MLAs were up in their arms. Ghorpade was adamant and said that he would not make any false assurances, even if he needed to resign from the ministry. The senior leaders, including Chief Minister S M Krishna remained silent, expressing their solidarity with Ghorpade.

After an hour, the shouting brigade was defeated by handful of silent leaders with conviction.

The change came just after next election in 2004. While Ghorpade retired, most of the so called stalwarts had bitten dust. The new breed of legislators had got elected and entered the house. MLC Gali Janardhan Reddy of BJP had called M P Prakash `Gomukha Vyagra’ and no one came to his rescue also. Both the houses were steadily being taken over by mining barons, real estate agents and other businessmen. The quality of debates and knowledge based discussions slowly transformed into personal allegations and muscling through numbers.

Today, the discussion in the Assembly longue would be about how much is one capable of spending during next election and how much is their opponent is planning to spend. The issues, which are going to stall the house proceedings, major issues that would not be debated at all.

Even inside the houses, the discussion is about allegations and counter allegations, where shouting brigade plays major role. Even the front benchers lack depth and opposition parties bear a lost look.

Even the journalism has witnessed ocean of changes. Earlier, it was era of only print media.  Slowly, electronic media sneaked in. The politicians preferred electronic media to print, as they would show them live and moving. Later, politicians started investing in television media and TRP based news started getting prominence. This forced partial silence among journalists over issues and learning process lost track.

This paved way for creating lot of jobs in journalism involving new breed of reporters, anchors, cameramen and other crew. Many television channels closed down, leaving large number of unemployed journalists and crew. Every day, new channels are coming up and old ones are closing down. The uncertainty has given rise to unhealthy competition for breaking news to survive in the industry. Most of the reporters are always on the search for greener pasture.

After two decades into journalism, I started feeling that this was turning out to be a place of misplaced priorities and privileges. Wonder, where we stand.

Vinay Madhav