The nominated members of Parliament are meant to be the ornaments of the House. Parliament honours itself by having them in its midst. No one expects them to grapple with serious issues, represent the people’s grievances, discuss political ideology or direct the nation’s course. Such tasks are expected to be fulfilled by the elected members of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.
There are only 12 nominated members in the Rajya Sabha, which has a strength of 245. The presence or absence of any or all of them really would make no difference on any given day. The President nominates 12 people who are eminent, and who may have special knowledge and practical experience in the arts, literature, social work, sports, public affairs and so on. They are generally non-controversial persons.
We have had in the past Rukmini Devi Arundale, Khushwant Singh, ‘Sivaji’ Ganesan, Harivansh Rai Bachchan (whose son is Amitabh Bachchan), Salim Ali, M.F. Husain, and many scientists, engineers and so on. Sometimes less well-known personalities have been nominated, including Dr. Balachandra Mugekar, and Scato Swu, a social worker from Nagaland. None of them made much of an impact on Parliament. R.K. Narayan of course made one speech that reverberated for a decade.
This healthy tradition of appointing eminent persons was broken by G.K. Moopanar when he had Tindivnam Ramamurthy, a State-level politician with no particular claim to scholarship, nominated to the Rajya Sabha. Now it has become a common practice to appoint party operatives.
There is no point in blaming Sachin Tendulkar for not attending Rajya Sabha sessions regularly. In the first place, he never asked for it. The privileges associated with such membership may in fact be peanuts for him. The fact is that he was gracious enough to agree to be a member of the Rajya Sabha. TV anchors are but being petty when they ask: “Will he enjoy perks and not do his duty?”
An MP has multiple duties. Attending Parliament is one of them. He or she could be interacting with other members of either House in the Central Hall, or lobbying with Ministers for some work for the constituency, or meeting officials regarding some works in the constituency.
The MP’s presence might be required in his or her own constituency. He or she could be engaged in committee work, or gone abroad with an official delegation. He or she could even be digging up some reference in the library, or planning, discussing and following up on matters connected with the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme.
Anyway, one can read the minutes of the days’ proceedings, which would be printed and delivered to MPs’ homes the next morning. Contrary to what people imagine, it is very difficult to even get an opportunity to speak in Parliament. Nominated members do not get priority. Even ‘Cho’ Ramaswamy, when he was a nominated member, found it tough to get a chance, in spite of being a good speaker, satirist and humorist. The Speaker would promise to call him in the afternoon but would only call him a day later. Sachin Tendulkar, even if he wants to speak, may have to await his turn.
Another misconception is that the best parliamentarian is one who attends the maximum number of days and raises the maximum number of questions. The Right to Information Act has made everyone an MP: what an MP can ask, an RTI applicant can ask too, and get an answer.
Even the political parties do not expect all its MPs to attend sessions all the time. They have a whip system to ensure attendance when necessary. When an important matter comes up, the Whip would issue a letter. When there is no whip, an MP is free to do work other than attending the session. If this is so for even elected party members, what is to be said of nominated members who cannot be issued any whip?
While visiting the House of Commons in London, I was given a pamphlet describing the functioning of parliamentarians. The strength of the House of Commons was 650 but the seating capacity was only 437. The note, written by the Speaker of the House, said that all the parliamentarians were not expected to attend the session as they might have other parliamentary duties. That is how the Mother of Parliaments functions.
Therefore, to judge a member by the number of days he or she has attended Parliament may not be right.
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