Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra made a passionate speech in the Lok Sabha on Thursday (February 3), but alleged that the chair of the house cut her off before her allotted 13 minutes were over. Later, she protested against the chair by completing her speech outside the Lok Sabha in front of the media.
Here is the full text of her speech, in which she raises pressing issues including a number of human rights violations and alleged executive excesses during the last few years of the Narendra Modi government.
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Honourable Speaker, my esteemed colleagues, I stand today to respond to the Honourable President’s address on behalf of my party, the All India Trinamool Congress.
The President’s address is the Government’s assessment of the state of the Union today. I stand before you to vehemently disagree with that assessment and to ask the most important question that faces us all – what kind of India do we want?What is our idea of India that we are willing to stand up for, fight for, be abused for, get jailed for?
Ours is a living constitution – it breathes as long as we are willing to breathe life into it. Otherwise it’s just a piece of paper, black and white, that can be smudged into shades of grey by any majoritarian government. An elected government bears the people’s trust to uphold the constitution both in letter and in spirit. If the government fails, we all fail. So it is not enough for Indians to sit back and watch and wish each other a Happy Republic Day!
This government wants to alter history. They are fearful of the future and they mistrust the present. Robert F. Kennedy, in the 1960s, had warned of such hateful forces 50 years ago.
The Honourable President early on in his address speaks about freedom fighters who secured India’s rights. He mentions Guru Tegh Bahadur, V.O. Chidambaram Pillai and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. But this is just lip service. In reality, recalling India’s past – a past of decency and plurality and secularism – makes this government very, very insecure.
They disallow Republic Day floats from West Bengal, from Tamil Nadu, from Kerala – floats on Netaji, who taught us to say Jai Hind, floats on Subramania Bharathiyar who said even if Indians are divided they are still the children of one mother, floats on V.O. Chidambaram Pillai who refused stop his political revolts even if it meant being imprisoned on charges of sedition, and floats on Sree Narayana Guru who picked up a rock and consecrated it as Ezhava Shiva.
The invocation of an imaginary past, however, goes on and on. This government has reinvented Savarkar as a freedom fighter (the apology letter he wrote to the British begging for release is now being recast as some strategic masterstroke); the appropriation of Bhagat Singh, who was staunchly anti-fascist; the appropriation of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who banned the RSS after becoming home minister.
The President’s address refers to Netaji on multiple occasions. I will remind this Republic that this is the same Netaji who said, “The government of India should have an absolutely neutral and impartial attitude towards all religions.” Would Netaji have approved of a Haridwar Dharme Sansad that issues bloodcurdling calls for a Muslim genocide? On June 14, 1938 he said in Comilla, now Bangladesh: “Communalism has raised its ugly head in an all-out nakedness.” Netaji’s Indian National Army’s insignia was Tipu Sultan’s springing tiger – the same Tipu Sultan you erase from our textbooks, after whom you cannot bear to name sports stadiums or roads. The INA’s motto were three Urdu words – ittehad, itmad aur qurbani – unity, trust and sacrifice. The same Urdu language that this government is so delighted to replace with Hindi as the first and official language of Jammu and Kashmir.
The President’s address refers to khadi being a symbol of consciousness under the leadership of Bapu. But the unholy Dharma Sansads issue calls to kill Bapu all over again. You have already succeeded in glorifying Gandhi’s assassins. But just for the sake of those children who will grow up to beating the retreat without his favourite hymn, let me remind you of some of the lyrics:
Come not in terrors, as the king of kings;
But kind and good, with healing in thy wings:
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea;
Come, friend of sinners, abide with me.
The President’s speech lauds these great personalities for fighting for our rights but in reality the masters of our republic fear their own irrelevance if in future, India and Indians are actually guaranteed their constitutional rights and liberties. The Freedom House Report 2021 changes India’s status from free to partly free. In the World Press Freedom Index, India retains 142nd spot out of 180, remains one of the most dangerous places globally for journalists today. The Human Freedom Index 2020 measuring personal, civil and economic freedoms puts India at 111th spot out of 162 nations.
You fear a future India which is comfortable in its own skin. Which is comfortable with conflicting realities. So you fear an India where a Jain boy can hide from home and enjoy a kathi kabab on a street cart in Ahmedabad. So you forbid non vegetarian street food in Gujarat’s municipalities. You fear a future where on the eve of an election, you may not be able to arm-twist government agencies to raid opposition leaders. So you need to extend the tenure of the CBI and ED chiefs depending on how they do your bidding. You fear a future in which bureaucrats in a state cannot be bullied by the Centre, so you amend the IAS cadre rules. This fear of irrelevance in the future makes you behave the way you do. You are not content with just our vote. You want to get inside our homes even our heads. To tell us what to eat, what to wear, who to love.
But your fear alone cannot keep the future at bay.
Jis subah ki khatir jug jug se hum sabh mar mar key jitey hai
Woh subah kabhi to ayegi.
In bhukhi pyasi ruhon par ek din toh karam farmayegi
Who subah kabhi to ayegi.
Kennedy tells us that people who want to stop history in its tracks mistrust the present. This government mistrusts the very soul of our republic when it brings in an Act to link Aadhaar cards to the right to vote, creating enormous possibilities to disenfranchise genuine voters. You mistrust our annadatas who repeatedly told you not to bring in the farm laws. Even when you rolled them back, it was more your fear of losing 70 seats in western UP rather than any remorse you felt at the death of 700+ farmers. You have still not guaranteed MSP in writing – one of their main demands. You mistrust the Jats, the Sikhs – anyone who stands up to you. And yet the minute elections come around you shamelessly don pugrees and put out offers of alliances.
But this time the Chaudhurys will not forget that the son of a sitting minister of this government mowed down five farmers and it took three full days to arrest him, and that too after a horrified Supreme Court stepped in.
I stand here today and ask you to remove the minister of state, the Member of Parliament from Kheri, from office. Every minute that he continues in his chair is an affront not only to democracy but to the very decency and self-respect of our polity. I shouldn’t be standing here saying this, your conscience should be telling you this. Jab naash manush par aata hai, pehle vivek mar jaata hai.
The way the masters of our republic mistrust the present is most acutely illustrated by the Pegasus mess – and yes, I am going to say it, because those who are now the treasury benches brought down an entire government on 2G when 2G was still sub-judice. So don’t give me this ‘sub-judice, sub-judice, sub-judice’. I will bring it up.
The government stands accused of having spent taxpayers’ money to buy technology to spy for years on its own citizens! To paraphrase a leading journalist – New York Times is lying, The Wire is lying, Amnesty is lying, the French government is lying, the German government is lying, the US government is lying, WhatsApp and Apple who have sued NSO are lying. Only this government is in splendid isolation with the truth on Pegasus. One minister calls it ‘supari media’. Another stands up in this house and lies to us blatantly. The government misleads even the Supreme Court.
How does this government justify introducing a Data Protection Bill which empowers the state to exempt itself from every privacy obligation that the law imposes? You have little respect for the most fundamental aspect of India – that it is a union of states, with a federal structure – how else can you explain your patently illegal extension of the BSF jurisdiction 50 km into state territory?
You mistrust journalist Siddique Kappan to such an extent that you arrest him before he has even visited Hathras and before he has written his report. You mistrust comedian Munnawar Faruqui for a joke he is yet to crack. The President’s Speech says this government has made a beginning to liberate Muslim women by removing Triple talaq and Haj restrictions. But on New Years Day 2022 Muslim women in India awoke to the reality of being auctioned as ‘Bulli Bais’, version 2.0 of of 2021’s Sulli Deals. It was only after a huge backlash that the government took action and a few arrests were made
Muslims are denied houses on rent, accused of being spreaders of Covid in India, economically boycotted, forbidden from praying in designated spaces. The battle of 80% vs 20% that this government risks ruining 100% of our republic. And it is not just rampant Islamophobia. According to the United Christian forum, there have been 460 attacks on Christians in 2021 alone – violent mobs have attacked churches, Christian congregations in prayer and Christmas celebrations in at least 16 towns and cities.
I am filled with horror and shame as I repeat to you what Monirul Sheikh, an old man in my home of Karimpur, Nadia told me last year – Maa eta tomader nitir lorai. Kintu amader baanchaar lorai. Maa this for you is at best a battle of ideology, for us it is a war for survival.
Par woh subah kabhi to ayegi
Haq mangne waalon ko jisdin suli na dikhai jayegi
Who subah kabhi to ayegi.
It is ironic that the Ministry of Finance talks of Amrit Kaal while its agencies are guilty of misusing its powers against citizens. The Supreme Court had to finally reprimand the Enforcement Directorate to use PMLA reasonably, otherwise the Act will lose relevance. You mistrust small MSMEs and use the rampant powers of GST officials, to arrest individuals and seize their accounts and assets. In our nation, the process to justice itself is the punishment for innocents.
India’s GDP this year i.e. 21-22 is at a similar level as 19-20. [Contraction of 6.6% = 93.4% and growth of 8% on a base of 93.4 = 100.8%,] The masters of our republic ask us to celebrate the highest ever GST collection of almost Rs 14 lakh crore for the month of January 2022. That is a 25% increase in GST collection and a 51% increase in revenue receipts vs January 2020. What does that mean? It means that the GDP of the country remained the same, the only success we had was to make big corporates rich and the government itself richer. It has made our country more unequal than ever. CRISIL recently reported that household savings are at 11% of GDP, 2% lower than they have been for a decade. Inflation and joblessness are sky high – especially in the services sector which has seen the highest contraction as per the Economic Survey released by the government. The spite for the poor by slashing MNREGA by 25% in these trying times shows the kind of Amrit Kaal this government is portraying.
You think of yourself as rulers – that the BJP is India’s ruling party – forgetting, as Justice Gautam Patel so eloquently pointed out in a recent speech, that “India is not ruled and so long as the Constitution exists, it never will be. It may be governed – for a limited period of time – but never ruled.”
But today we, as Indians, all need to realise one thing. If we are to save this republic, the onus lies on us. I have met members of civil society, lawyers, activists, journalists, businessmen who lament to me – “what is happening to this country, something needs to change”. But when I ask them to enter public life everyone feels they have the luxury to say no. One says I am sitting out this election and watching, one says I need to sort out my business first, one says I will lose credibility as a career journalist, one says I have pressing personal issues. To all of you I say, you cannot choose the time of battle. The bugle has sounded – true citizens of our republic need to fight now, no matter what your personal and professional circumstances are.
Yeh subah hamin se ayegi.
To the judiciary I use my parliamentary privilege and say – you are all that this country has, as last recourse and remedy. Do not fail us. Do not think of sons and sons-in-laws and post retirement sinecures and how many years before your elevation to a higher court. Step in proactively to save our republic.
Yeh subah hamin se ayegi.
To the opposition I say, we do not have the luxury to wait and watch. We need to reincarnate ourselves in whatever form we need to in every state, across this nation, to put up a fight. On this side of this house are ex chief ministers (just one bench has three of them, Farooq Abdullah, Francis Sardinia, Mulayam Singh Yadav), countless ex cabinet ministers (Mr. Balu. Mr Raja, Mr Maran, Arvind Savant, Shashi Tharoor, Saugata Roy), people who have spent the prime of their lives in service to this republic. As people that Indians have voted in as their representatives, we should possess softer qualities but now it is time for us all to roar:
Sahanshilta, kshama, daya ko tabhi poojta jag hai
Bal ka darp chamakta uska peechey
Jabh jagmag hai
There are about 200 seats in southern and eastern India, 200 seats from Bihar to Kerala where the saffron horde with all its might has still not been able to win more than 50. If we reincarnate ourselves in the North and the West, we are on the path to reclaim our Republic.
Uss subah ko hum hi layenge
Woh subah hamin sey ayegi.
Jai Hind.
(Courtesy: The Wire.)
