Analysis: Speaker's actions taint Jaya image

The Nargis B. Dutt award is presented every year to the film that does most for the cause of national integration. Some enterprising soul should gather all the television footage of Speaker Kalimuthu's recent appearances, splice them all together, and present it to the awards jury. It is almost guaranteed to win the prize. After all, it has already succeeded where lesser movies failed – bringing together everyone in India on the same side!

At last count, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress (I), the Left Front, and even the likes of Laloo Prasad Yadav – not to mention the media and the judiciary were backing the cause of The Hindu after the Speaker of the Tamil Nadu Assembly ordered the arrest of five of its journalists for alleged breach of the legislature's privileges. Frankly, I cannot imagine any step that he could have taken which would have roused such ire against his own party, the All-India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. So much so that even Jayalalithaa herself was publicly removing herself from the line of fire! (How else can you explain away the Speaker's hasty 'clarification' that the Chief Minister had not been involved in her individual capacity in getting such an order passed?)

Evil wind

There is clearly some evil wind blowing across the southernmost parts of South Asia, because Speaker Kalimuthu's ill-timed order came hard on the heels of President Kumaratunga's equally mistimed manoeuvre against her Prime Minister. Could there possibly have been a worse occasion to stage a constitutional coup than when the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka was meeting the President of the United States in Washington? Nothing could have assured that the attention of the world would be more concentrated! Even if Kumaratunga had been moved solely by the fear that Ranil Wickramasinghe was conceding too much to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, she has done more to harm the Sinhala cause than anything her Prime Minister might have done.
There is, however, one major difference between Kumaratunga's coup and the order passed by Speaker Kalimuthu. Even her foes admit that her actions, no matter how unethical, foolish, or politically damaging, pass the test of legality. The jury is out, however, on the legality of the Tamil Nadu Speaker's orders. Just how far does 'legislative privilege' extend?

Students of constitutional history may recognise the irony. 'Legislative privilege' began in Britain as a response from Parliament to the Stuart monarchs, especially after King Charles I was stupid enough to go to the House of Commons in person to arrest five Members of Parliament who had annoyed him.

I have been an avid reader of The Hindu for over fifty years. But I can barely remember the offending sentences which drew the Speaker's wrath. Had it not been for the Speaker would anybody have remembered them? The whole drama has been so counterproductive that I wonder whether Kalimuthu wasn't correct when he absolved the Chief Minister. Jayalalithaa is one of the best administrators in the country, whether it is a matter of disciplining government servants or attracting investments. In my opinion, in some ways she is actually doing a better job than even Chandrababu Naidu or S. M. Krishna. Would someone so intelligent really do something so precipitate?

Sadly, the Speaker's actions have smirched the Chief Minister's image. But it may not be too late to restrict the damage. She could, for instance, in her capacity as Leader of the House move a resolution rescinding the order to arrest the journalists. Isn't mercy proverbially supposed to be the ornament of the strong?