IN the first week of September 1970 in Parliament the old royalty of India fought the new royalty of India—and democracy lost, or almost! The Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi and her Indicate have de-recognised democracy. It is no single isolated individual committing misdemeanour, a lapse or a slip, but a whole chain of incidents during the discussion on the Privy Purses, which protends that Mrs. Gandhi will cling to power through democracy if possible, without it if necessary.

Dishonesty is the best policy

In these fateful four days—between September 2 and September 5—Indicate men and their socialist supporters have voted for colleagues who were absent during the Lok Sabha debate; they have committed what Dr. R.S. Singh called “impersonation”; they have coerced and threatened party men who wanted a free vote on grounds of conscience; they have cut deep at the credibility of the institution by which democracy hangs in the country. The idea was—as in the Presidential election, Congress split, Rabat and elsewhere—to succeed, for nothing succeeds like success.

The grave implications of these incidents were realised in the Lok Sabha on September 3 when Morarji Desai, who usually sits sphinx-liked during the proceedings, interrupted the same of give out the startling information in his possession. “It is a matter of the Lok Sabha voting; it is a very serious matter,” he said. A commotion followed inevitably when Desai said that it had been discovered that five supporters of the Bill had recorded a ‘double vote’, both through the recording machine and through the teller. Their names according to their Division Nos. are : Ishaq Sambhali of the CPI (382), Pannalal Barupal (123) Mohammed Sayeed Padantha (262), P. Sivasankaran (363), and Molahu Prasad (323).

Voting for an absent member!

One Ramshekhar Prasad Singh of the ruling Congress had voted for Dr P. Mandal (Div. No. 50) who was not present in the House. It appears that Singh pressed the button for Mandal and recorded his own vote through the teller—man who moves about collecting votes unrecorded by some fault in the machine. Next day Singh explained : “I told the gentleman to correct the mistake. He might not have heard clearly what I said because there was lot of noise in the House. My correction was made by the gentleman but unfortunately he could not correct the wrong vote.” There was pandemonium as communists claimed the issue was closed and nothing could revive the Privy Purses. The Socialists subordinated their love for Parliamentary democracy to their love for Nehru socialism and the Speaker reflected the feelings of the winners when he said “In any case the result of the division... is not materially affected.” He advised the Opposition to accept the verdict “gracefully”.

That the Opposition was willing to do—and that it did. But what it refused to accept was the loss of credibility of the Lok Sabha voteing. Said Balraj Madhok : “There has been tampering with voting.” When CPI's S.M. Bannerji kept interrupting, a distressed Piloo Mody asserted that the house was under a cloud. He lashed out at the comrade : “Mr. S.M. Bannerji is the type of goonda who would not mind if truth was falsified and a false vote made, if it suited his purpose.”

Demand for inquiry conceded

The choice of the word was a comment on Mr Mody's utter sense of horror at what had happened to the highest institution. When the SSP and the PSP also came round to the Opposition point of view the Speaker accepted a suggestion by Madhu Limaye to institute an inquiry into the whole affair. The whole nation, said Nath Pal, is watching us. And wondering too! ... —September 12, 1970