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The Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi, has done invaluable service by bringing out Parliament for the People , a compilation of the speeches of Mr Era Sezhiyan in Parliament, during a period of 22 years he served as a Member of one or the other House. Mr Sezhiyan is one of those rare breeds of an era that is now past recall, who was an exemplar of the very best in values and virtues it stood for.
Long ago, on March 7, 1935, to be exact, The Right Honourable V.S.Srinivasa Sastri, the only Indian member of the Privy Council, and the silver-tongued orator of the British Empire, gave a talk in which he posed the question, “Can a politician be a gentleman?” and listed the qualities that would make it possible: Constant efforts at honing one's faculties by study and reflection; always devoting oneself to public service; training oneself systematically to put the society's and nation's interest above one's own or that of any section of the public; diligent attention to duties; showing chivalry, consideration and respect for others and their points of view; and regarding political opponents as allies, brethren and friends.
Mr Sezhiyan comes closest to this definition of a politician who is also an erudite scholar and public-spirited gentleman.
This is the constant refrain in the tributes paid to him — and included in the book — from the likes of the former President of India, R. Venkataraman, former Prime Ministers, Messrs Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Inder Kumar Gujral, and former Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Mr Somnath Chatterjee.
R.Venkataraman calls him a role model for younger members, always observing decorum and conducting himself with dignity and humility.
Somnath Chatterji refers to him as a scholar, with simple habits, dedicated to the purest norms of public life and deeply committed to uphold democratic traditions, and says: “I have seen very few members who have been as knowledgeable, as hardworking and as committed and capable as Mr Era Sezhiyan.”
Encyclopaedic range
Mr Sezhiyan evoked universal admiration for the thoroughness of his preparation on the subject of the debate and his strict compliance with the time allotted for him and the rules of procedure.
The publication of the book will certainly help in the propagation of the principles Mr Sezhiyan stood for. It also celebrates the presence in our midst of one who lived up to the high standards expected of persons in public life and, in the words of Mr Chatterjee, “represented in full measure a generation of Parliamentarians which was fully dedicated to Parliament and all that it represents”.
Coming from one like Mr Sezhiyan, his speeches too take in their sweep an encyclopaedic range of subjects, all the way from Constitutional issues and budget proposals to Centre-State relations, foreign affairs and the language problem.
His prescience is such that you can transpose what he uttered in 1969 on the demand for Telangana to the present day without changing a word: “What has happened in Telangana is a crisis of confidence…the members of the Congress party do not have any unified approach….a stage will soon be reached when it would be difficult to resist the demand for a separate State”. It is in fighting the rigours of the internal emergency that was in force during 1975-77 that he is at his courageous best, moving in the thick of it a motion demanding its immediate withdrawal, release of the leaders in detention and restoration of the “rightful freedom” of the Press, declaring proudly: “I may fall, I may be felled, but I refuse to crawl”!
The book is aptly titled Parliament for the People , echoing Mr Sezhiyan's conviction that in a democratic polity, every institution, including Parliament, subserves the people and not vice versa.
In a memorable speech during the Emergency, he says: “It is said again and again that Parliament is supreme. I do not accept that concept. The Constitution should be supreme, the people of India should be supreme”.
Altogether, a book that should be made compulsory reading for every youth of the country.
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