Two days from now Parliament assembles for the winter session and the collective wisdom of the Capital's politico-journalistic complex has it that finally we are going to see a "hot" session. The Opposition is sharpening its knives. Sonia Gandhi, now fortified by a 99 per cent mandate within her party, will move in for the kill, and so on. Time for us, in the media, to smack our lips in anticipation. This would mean more walkouts, more adjournments, more "rushing-to-the-well" stories, more headlines using that awful expression, pandemonium. And, unfortunately, rhyming with that there will be more opprobrium for the politician. He, of the pan-chewing, groin-scratching, corrupted and conspiring stereotype so loved by our cinema - Mahesh Manjrekar's latest Kurukshetra being a good example - and so hated by our audiences.But is this characterisation fair? Further, is it prudent for us, the media, and public opinion in general to dismiss Parliament as a mere akhara where this unruly mob plays, as if by no rules? Is it even possible to think of re-examining these stereotypes sanctified by the higher courts during hawala and after and now institutionalised in Hindi cinema? Does the rest of the media take the cue from Bollywood, or can it afford to have a mind of its own?In these politician-bashing times let me dare to put forward some contrarian, if imprudent, propositions:* The politician today, particularly your typical member of Parliament is better educated, more aware, more modern and more responsible than in the past.* Contrary to what you think, the quality of parliamentary debate, in many areas, has improved rather than deteriorated. We have come a long way from the days when senior members would raise questions, while discussing IAF crashes, such as how an aircraft can be called MiG as well as jet?* In contrast, it is the quality of our parliamentary coverage that has declined. The arrival of the electronic media hasn't exactly helped.* Our MPs are perhaps the only members of our establishment subjected to a strong test of accountability. They have already faced three elections in three years and the anti-incumbency sentiment makes theirs the most fragile employment in a system which usually abhors accountability, where the number of top bureaucrats to have lost their jobs for incompetence or dishonesty in the past 50 years can be counted on the fingers of one hand.So, what is the upshot? Two days from now, this session of Parliament would be deliberating on some issues of far-reaching consequence for us and our children. Bank denationalisation, divestment of government equity in so many important PSUs, the new education policy, and so on. But will we be judging our MPs by their performance in any of these debates, or at least the voting record of their parties? Most of the more important - and serious - debates will go unreported. MPs who make headlines would be the ones that protest, make a scene, "rush to the well", and then mouth silly one-liners to TV cameras lined up on the steps of Parliament even if what they say gets denied a day later. We don't complain. Hypocrisy is a quality we presume our politicians to have and we accept it so readily. Is it fair to set the bar so low for our politicians? Is it prudent?It isn't because despite some welcome intervention by the judiciary it is the politicians who govern our lives. From what our children will study in schools and colleges, how much tax we will pay, what many of the essential goods in our markets will cost to deciding how our borders will be protected, it is the same "jokers" who call the shots, irrespective of how corrupt and intellectually challenged they might sound to us. If this is the essence of democracy, we have to learn to judge them by higher standards. We also have to force them to deliver more by way of substance than merely make headlines by "storming into the well of the House".It is ok for a Zia or a Musharraf to contemptuously poke fun at the politicians and consign them to jails or exile while he sets about "cleansing" the system of its "distortions". But such trivialisation is dangerous in a developing democracy like ours. We, the media, have contributed a great deal to reducing politics to infotainment. The new practice of an MP making news not by saying something of substance, even revealing a scandal in Parliament, but by making noise and "pandemonium", the popularity of the adalat (people's court) programmes on our cable TV channels, are all indicators of this trivialisation of politics as infotainment. Politicians, we think, are like Laloo Yadav. Inefficient, selfish, probably corrupt, and good fun as long as they do not control your lives. The fact is, they do control your lives and even the Laloo Yadavs of our politics are not devoid of grey matter or old-fashioned political savvy needed to keep this system together.But we see Laloo as a comedian and he gets away with silly one-liners delivered, sometimes, from his kitchen, by the side of his fish pond or from the back of an elephant. Unfortunately, the others have learnt that trick as well. So they make noise and headlines when cameras are present and then forget what it was all about. Do you remember how much commotion was caused in Parliament over the patents bill? Then it was decided that a fund would be set up to refurbish India's own patents office so our scientists could get value for their knowledge and inventions. Then no one bothered to find out that none of that was done subsequently. Similarly, so many MPs made noises, and will do so again in the winter session, that PSUs were being sold at low valuations. Yet at the parliamentary meeting convened to discuss the very same issue last Thursday, not a single MP turned up.Why would they, when no one, in the media or elsewhere, would remind them of this callousness when they return to grandstanding on the same issue in Parliament next week? And we won't question them because who takes these politicians seriously? They are just clowns, good entertainment, good value for money in television kangaroo courts, so what if they control every bit of our lives and our children's future. Maybe here is one more case for government intervention in these times of deregulation and privatisation. Why can't Sushma Swaraj set up a full-fledged Parliament channel on the lines of C-Span in the US? It will expose MPs to their constituents (remember how the debating standards went up when the confidence votes were televised live?), put them under pressure to perform better inside Parliament and, hopefully, also show up the lousy quality of parliamentary coverage in TV channels and newspapers.Our MPs are perhaps the only members of our establishment subjected to a strong test of accountability, making theirs the most fragile employmentHere is one more case for government intervention. Why can't Sushma Swaraj set up a full-fledged Parliament channel on the lines of C-Span in the US?
