The manual sets such a high standard for the lawmakers that some words that are traded even in respectable circles have been banned from use.
NEW DELHI: In 2002, the Congress party’s S Jaipal Reddy set off a row in the Lok Sabha when he characterised a statement made by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, then Prime Minister, as “humongous fraud”.
The term ‘fraud’ in the colossal derision, laid on Vajpayee’s reply on Ayodhya did not sting the treasury benches as much as the unfamiliar ‘humongous’. Word mavens among that group discerned unspeakable slurs lurking in the polysyllabic insult and launched a frantic etymological inquiry.
Unable to find accessible synonyms of humongous, NDA members demanded expunction of the word and an apology from Reddy. At that point, the sporting Renuka Chowdhry got up and said: “I am humongous.”
The day was saved, but the word was killed in the fracas. The updated and enlarged edition of Unparliamentary Expressions, which was released recently, plays it safe and bans “a humongous fraud” altogether. Some allowances have been made to use the article in innocuous collocations.
Unparliamentary Expressions is a 900-page book divided into two sections — English and Hindi. The manual contains words and expressions declared unparliamentary in the Constituent Assembly, Central Legislative Assembly, Provisional Parliament, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, legislatures in India, and parliaments in the Commonwealth, including the British House of Commons.
“The key words selected from the relevant expressions are not unparliamentary unless read in conjunction with the expression,” said GC Malhotra, former Lok Sabha secretary-general.
Malhotra is also the head of the editorial board that oversaw the publication of the manual. While some lament the erosion of quality of debates in Parliament, others point to the rich repertoire of abuses and imprecations that have enlivened parliamentary patois.
At any rate, the manual sets such a high standard for the lawmakers that some words that are traded even in respectable circles have been banned from use in certain contexts. A sample of the struck-off terms: false, fraud, gang, mind, disregard, drama, mockery, bad, hello, and selfish. For instance, a member cannot say, “Apply your mind if you have any.” Similarly, a member cannot use the word "hello" to attract the attention of the Speaker.
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