The bronze burnished National Emblem cast was gleaming as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the pressing of two joysticks, unveiled it on the roof of the new Parliament building on Monday. The 6.5-metre-high emblem towered over everyone present and weighs around 9,500 kg; perhaps bigger than any other adaptation of the Lion Capital of Ashoka, a statue from 280 BCE during the reign of the Maurya Empire, I have seen in the past. It has a steel structure shouldering its weight that is 6,500 kg heavy.
Within hours, it triggered political outrage among the BJP’s opponents, bigger in dimension and heavier in poundage than the cumulative weight of the emblem and its support structure, which are set to become part of India’s democratic history.
The first to fire the salvo was AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi. He took to microblogging site Twitter to post that, “Constitution separates powers of parliament, govt & judiciary. As head of govt, @PMOIndia shouldn’t have unveiled the national emblem atop new parliament building. Speaker of Lok Sabha represents LS which isn’t subordinate to govt. @PMOIndia has violated all constitutional norms.”
Constitution separates powers of parliament, govt & judiciary. As head of govt, @PMOIndia shouldn’t have unveiled the national emblem atop new parliament building. Speaker of Lok Sabha represents LS which isn’t subordinate to govt. @PMOIndia has violated all constitutional norms pic.twitter.com/kiuZ9IXyiv
The Congress, through its leader Sandeep Dikshit, said, “Parliament belongs to everyone. Why was no opposition leader present for the ceremony. And why was there no interfaith puja or prayer which is a norm for such ceremonies.”
Soon, the Trinamool Congress joined the chorus. It’s member of parliament Dr Santanu Sen said, “How many opposition leaders were found when Narendra Modi was unveiling the National Emblem today? Weight of the emblem is 9500 kg, which is even less than the weight of arrogance of BJP4India Govt. Isn't this new Parliament for oppositions too? Absolute killing of Federalism.”
For the rest of the day, the government came under fire from Congress and Opposition leaders participating in TV news debates. They termed the ceremony as yet another inappropriate attempt by the Modi government to appropriate national icons and symbols.
In simple terms, the chargesheet on Monday’s event, apart from the now customary “Modi government killing democracy” charge, had three main accusations. One: the Lok Sabha speaker, not the PM, should have been the master of ceremonies and unveiled the national emblem. Second: the Opposition should have been on the list of invitees. And the third: there were no interfaith rituals.
A minister in the government tried to clarify by saying, ‘The new parliament building is under construction. The urban development ministry is the nodal ministry. The building is still not with the Lok Sabha. That will happen when the government hands over the building. That’s why the PM as the head of the government broke no protocols.”
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In PM Modi’s tenure since 2014, there have been two major constructions ordered inside the Parliament complex.
The first was the extension to the Parliament Annexe building which stood since 1975 inside the complex towards the All India Radio building on Parliament Street. It was inaugurated by PM Modi on July 31 in 2017, in the “presence of Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.”
Next was the foundation stone laying of the new Parliament building on December 10, 2020. India was limping out of the first wave of the Covid pandemic and the lockdowns which had crippled the economy. Also, a potent protest against the three farm laws was on at Delhi’s borders. The ground breaking was attended by the Lok Sabha Speaker, top industrialists and foreign dignitaries.
The unveiling of the national emblem on top of the new Parliament building was the third event which saw the Prime Minister performing the role of master of ceremonies, with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha Harivansh Narayan Singh watching.
Opposition leaders argue that when it comes to Parliament, the Prime Minister performing the role of the ‘master of ceremonies’ depicts the hegemony of the current executive over the legislature, a contravention of Article 79 of the Indian Constitution, which lays down that, “There shall be a Parliament for the Union which shall consists of the President and two Houses to be known respectively as the Council of States and the House of the People.”
Next they quote Article 53 (1) of Indian Constitution on Executive power of the Union, which says, “The executive power of the Union shall be vested in the President and shall be exercised by him either directly or through officers subordinate to him in accordance with this Constitution.”
MN Kaul and S L Shakdhar, in their Practice and Procedure of Parliament (Chapter II, Composition of Parliament), say that, “Parliament of India is a bicameral Legislature and is composed of the President, the Council of States (Rajya Sabha) and the House of the People (Lok Sabha).”
Putting these pieces together, the constitutional jigsaw puzzle defines, “President is the head of the Executive, and (s)he is a constituent part of Parliament.”
Drawing from this, the Opposition claims that the office of the Prime Minister has no function in the management of the Parliament and the primacy occupied by PM Modi at the foundation laying ceremony or the unveiling of the national emblem is violation of the letter and spirit of the constitution. They argue that it’s the President who has powers to summon, prorogue or dissolve Parliament while in comparison, the Prime Minister has no position in Parliament except as head of the council of ministers or as leader of either House.
In the order of precedence, for any ceremony or event, the President of India is number one, followed by the Vice President. If the president is not available, the vice president is the boss.
Third in the order is the Prime Minister, and the Speaker is sixth in the order, sharing the space with the Chief Justice of India. For the three events inside Parliament complex, both President Ram Nath Kovind and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, who is also the chairman of the Upper House, were not present.
That’s when the PM was the senior-most functionary as per the precedent list to lead the ceremonies. The Opposition claims that the whole affair was managed in a way that none above the prime minister in precedence was present.
The Opposition’s other charge is that the speaker is the administrative in-charge of the Parliament complex. And by virtue of that, he should have been the one leading the ceremonies.
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But is the shock and outrage a response to a first in history? The answer is no.
The buildings in the Parliament complex have milestone etched on their walls.
The oldest legend is on the wall between Gate No 1 and 2 of the circular original Parliament building. It states that the buildings foundation stone was laid on February 12, 1921, by Prince Arthur, the Duke of Connaught and the inauguration was by the then Viceroy and Governor-General Lord Irwin, both royal representatives of the British.
After covering Parliament for over 26 years, I have found that a large number of MPs and even the visitors to Parliament pay little attention to the history that breathes around them.
I recall meeting socialist leader George Fernandes almost every day inside the Parliament library. Old timers used to relate stories about another socialist leader Madhu Dandvate, that if there were 130 sittings of the houses in a year, his attendance in the Parliament library used to show 150-odd visits. But that has changed. Very few MPs visit the Parliament library, one of the richest in the country in terms of books and history available or spend very little time there.
And that is why what’s there in the archives or on the walls of buildings in Parliament is fading from collective memories.
Parliamentary records show that the so called crossing of the lines drawn by the Constitution in terms of prime ministers leading the unveiling ceremonies in Parliament is not a recent phenomenon. PM Modi is not the first.
For example, the first portrait to be installed in the central hall of Parliament was that of Mahatma Gandhi. On August 28, 1947, India’s first President Dr Rajendra Prasad unveiled the 4 feet by 4.1 feet portrait painted by Oswald Birley and donated by A P Pattani.
The second portrait to be unveiled in the central hall was that of Lokmanya Balgangadhar Tilak on July 28, 1956. The 7.3 feet by 4.3 feet portrait painted by Gopal D Deuskar and donated by the Tilak Centenary Committee was not unveiled by the President or the first Lok Sabha speaker Ganesh Vasudev Malvlankar. It was then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who unveiled it.
There are 25 portraits in the central hall and 20 of them were unveiled by presidents of India, starting with Dr Prasad and ending with Ram Nath Kovind. Two were unveiled by Pandit Nehru and one each by former prime minister V P Singh and Chandra Shekhar Singh. Only one portrait in the central hall -- of Dadabhai Naoroji -- was unveiled by a Speaker. That means since March 13, 1953, after Mavlankar, no Speaker has unveiled a portrait in the central hall.
In fact, Jawaharlal Nehru is the only PM to have even unveiled a portrait in the Lok Sabha chamber or inner lobby of Parliament. Dr Manmohan Singh had unveiled seven portraits in the Parliament Museum and archives during his tenure, while Atal Bihari Vajpayee unveiled two. Between P V Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, seven busts/statues were unveiled in the waiting rooms of Parliament House.
The first big construction in Parliament complex took place post 1970. Then President of India VV Giri laid the foundation of the Parliament Annexe Building on August 3, 1970. But the Sansadiya Soudha building was eventually inaugurated by then prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 24, 1975. That was exactly four months after she had imposed an Emergency, curtailing fundamental rights and ordering detention of most opposition leaders.
That’s not all. The second big construction in the Parliament complex, too, had the prime minister of the day occupying the centre stage. On August 15, 1987, PM Rajiv Gandhi laid the foundation of the Parliament Library building. It was seven years later that Lok Sabha Speaker Shivraj Patil led the ground breaking for the building on April 17, 1994.
So, on Monday, inside the Parliament complex, if PM Modi breached the constitutional protocol by unveiling the national emblem, he was in line with a “parampara” or precedent set by his predecessors. If his was an act of the executive taking over the legislature’s privileges, then it is a sign that bad precedents started way back in the 1950s have turned into a habit.
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Pictures of the unveiling sent out by the Centre only had the Prime Minister, the Lok sabha Speaker, the deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha and = Urban Development Minister Hardeep Singh Puri. There was no one from the Opposition.
The Opposition’s charge is that Parliament doesn’t belong to the treasury benches only, and that those who have voted against the BJP or for another political outfit need to find space at such ceremonies.
The charge is logical. This was perhaps among the few occasions I have seen the Opposition missing from a ceremony involving Parliament. The last time, it was the foundation stone laying for the new Parliament building on December 10, 2020.
It is not clear if invites were sent out to opposition parties for Monday’s unveiling. But for the foundation stone laying in 2020, invites were sent out to opposition leaders like Rajya Sabha MP Ghulam Nabi Azad and Lok Sabha MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. Both boycotted the ceremony. In fact, barring a few MPs from the BJD and AIADMK, no other party chose to register its presence.
On that day, Congress’s chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala had said, “History would record that when farmers were fighting for their rights by protesting on the streets, Prime Minister Modi was busy laying the foundation stone of the new Parliament. Dear PM, Parliament is not mortar and stones. It envisions democracy. It imbibes Constitution. It is economic-political-social equality. It is compassion and camaraderie. It is the aspirations of 130 crore Indians. What would a building built upon trampling of these values represent?”
Former finance minister P Chidambaram said, “The foundation for a new Parliament building was laid on the ruins of a liberal democracy.”
Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury accused the prime minister of indulging in “diabolic doublespeak” by attacking democracy and dissent in practice.
Trinamool Congress Parliamentary party leader Derek O’Brien targeted PM Modi with a jibe: “Another photo opportunitywhile the real heroes of our country, farmers, are spending wintery nights in protest for their lives and livelihood.”
In November 2021, 14 opposition parties boycotted the Constitution Day function in the central hall of Parliament after alleging that the government was riding roughshod over the constitution in governance and law-making. The event was attended by President Ram Nath Kovind and PM Narendra Modi among others.
Congress leader Anand Sharma later addressed a press conference and said, “It is important to remind the government that mere observance of this day as a government function, and disrespecting the spirit and essence of the Constitution, is a very poor reflection on the state of affairs.”
PM Modi didn’t hold his punches. Even in his Constitution Day speech, he targeted political rivals with a jibe, saying, "Party for the family, by the family. Do I need to say more? If a party is run by one family for many generations, then, it isn't good for a healthy democracy."
BJP spokesperson Tuhin Sinha, during a debate on India Today TV, defended the “absence” of Opposition from the Monday event by saying, “The Opposition boycotts important functions. It complained that Covid period was the wrong time to lay the foundation stone of Parliament. In that period, the construction of highways didn’t stop. In fac,t the daily construction of highways had gone up to 35 km daily.”
A senior journalist who has covered Parliament for almost three decades said, “There are two sets of problems impacting Parliament. One, the Modi government is blurring the legislative and executive lines. It has staggering numbers compared to the Opposition. Then the Opposition is frustrated and divided as many parties are vying for the same space. The breakdown between the government and Opposition is so acute that the lines between politics outside Parliament and inside are disappearing.”
No one in the government responded to the queries if invites were sent out to opposition leaders. But the question to be asked is, if the Opposition has boycotted some events in the past, should the government stop sending the invites?
The Opposition accused the government of giving a customary interfaith ritual and prayer for such events a go-by. In the pictures circulated by the Centre, two priests could be seen performing what seemed to be a Hindu ritual with chanting of hymns, around a vessel with coconut and flowers and rose petals.
In December 2020, PM Modi had performed ‘bhoomi pujan’ for the new Parliament with six Hindu priests. He sat alone with the priests, worshipping Lord Ganesha and Lord Vishnu. Lok Sabha speaker and the deputy chairman, senior ministers in the government, MPs and foreign dignitaries had watched the PM perform the rituals from a distance.
Later, there was a prayer session involving holy persons from different religions like Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Islam, Baha’i, Jews and Parsis. I tried to find if there were similar prayer session at Monday’s event but no one in the government answered that query.
The acrimony prevailing doesn’t augur well for the new Parliament building. Twice, priests have performed the rituals to ward off the ills that could come in the way of its construction, but the road to a parliament with members who need to work together to deliver for the voting public has become tougher.
On Monday, PM Modi wound up his outing for the national emblem unveiling with a brief chat with the constructions workers. When he asked them if they feel that they are making a building or history, they said in a chorus, “History”.
The fissures between the government and the Opposition are sullying the moments that make history.
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