Ah! A doze of democracy - Question Hour change allows Elders chance for siesta

New Delhi, July 24: Profound national questions kept many Rajya Sabha members sleepless through the afternoons during the budget session. Thanks to Vice-President Hamid Ansari, the torture is over.

No, the Rajya Sabha chairman did not need to solve all the nation’s problems; he merely switched Question Hour back from 3pm to 11am. Privately, many Elders are deeply grateful to Ansari for giving them back their siesta.

Question Hour, when MPs execute their crucial democratic right to grill ministers, has traditionally been taken up as the day’s first business in Parliament. But last March, Ansari stole Upper House members’ sleep by pushing the one-hour exercise to late afternoon.

His goal was to avoid the chaos that often marks Parliament’s opening hour, with members demanding suspension of Question Hour to take up some emotive issue or the other. The resulting acrimony then goes on to mar the entire day’s proceedings.

For decades, the Chairs of the Houses have failed to rein in India’s raucous MPs either with entreaties or warnings, but Ansari’s move seemed to stun the Elders. It not only meant that those keen to question ministers on specific subjects had to sacrifice their afternoon nap, but also threatened to defeat what is often the real purpose of the exercise.

Since attendance is usually thin in the afternoons and the media and visitors’ galleries are depleted, the 3pm Question Hour robbed members of their chance to grab the spotlight.

So, between March and July, many Rajya Sabha members made written and oral petitions to Ansari, describing how his decision posed serious health threats to them.

Some furnished doctors’ prescriptions that underlined that afternoon “rest” was a must for their well-being. Some pleaded that a snooze recharged their batteries and increased productiveness, and some others took a more political line, arguing a siesta was a democratic right.

According to junior parliamentary affairs minister Rajeev Shukla, Ansari then chose the time-honoured way of tackling the gravest issues: he began consultations with leaders of the various political parties.

Apparently, most of the leaders bristled at the “experiment” launched during the budget session.

So, when the monsoon session begins on August 1, Rajya Sabha MPs will be free to continue with their “routine”: attendance of the House from 11am till 1.30pm followed by a chat session at Central Hall, and then a dash to the cool comforts of their bedrooms.

It’s possible that while Ansari was weighing the matter, one consideration flitted through his mind: you can drag an MP to the House but you cannot force him to stay awake, as the media’s cameras have often testified.

For instance, H.D. Deve Gowda was known for his knack of catching forty winks during proceedings.

Perhaps, some of India’s MPs believe in the age-old theory that democracy works best when it comes in small “dozes”.