India known for her democratic form of government and parliamentary form of government is also known throughout the world for the undemocratic behaviour of the members of the parliament and state legislative assemblies. Thanks to the new era of satellite television and live telecast of parliament proceedings, the people are often ashamed at the unruly and childish behaviour of their representatives.
Things were not like this in early years. Previously tickets were distributed on the basis of merit, educational background, and social status, but today almost every political party distributes tickets on the basis of money and muscle power of a candidate. The unruly, indecent, behaviour of politicians everywhere indeed supports the cause of opening schools for them.
In the early days, veteran parliamentarians like M.G. Ranga, Hiren Mukherjee and Indrajit Gupta were known and respected for their decent behaviour. But today the scene is totally different. On many occasions, members of parliament are warned by the speaker for many vulgar, parliamentary words.
Way back in 1990-1991, the then Vice-President of India and Chairman of the Rajya Sabha Late Shri Shankar Dayal Sharma unable to stop some unruly members and began to cry helplessly and it was shown live on Doordarshan, the official television channel of India.
The scene in various state assemblies is no better. Often the State Legislature Assembly of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar turn into a battleground when members of the assembly are shown throwing chappals, microphones at each other.
These unpleasant and shameful incidents indeed support the view that there should be a school for politicians.
The former speaker of Lok Sabha Late P. A. Sangma once admitted in an interview that he received a number of letters from common citizens of India urging him to ban the telecast of parliamentary proceedings because the people find it embarrassing and shameful to watch their elected representatives behaving worse than small school going children.
The people are often horrified when they watch members of the parliament forcing the helpless speaker in case of Lok Sabha and Chairman or Vice Chairman in the case of Rajya Sabha to adjourn the proceedings of the house for the whole day, following the unruly behaviour of the MPs. Several lakhs of rupees being lost in the process and whose money is it? The poor taxpayers of the country.
It has been proved that even law is not enough to educate the unruly politicians, stop electoral malpractices, booth capturing and corruption. The only solution is to train politicians from the grass root level by opening special schools for them. These schools should be run by veteran politicians known for their conduct both inside and outside the parliament or state legislature assemblies.
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