During the last session of Parliament, the speaker, Balram Jakhar, vexed beyond endurance, exasperatedly gave voice to the sentiments of many by suggesting that 'political parties and politicians could go to hell'; or words to that effect. Eyebrows of parliamentary propriety were immediately arched and there was not inconsiderable tut-tutting about such uninhibited utterances from the Chair. All wholly unnecessary, I thought; we tend to be needlessly squeamish about a robust use of language in Parliament — or in print. After all, our Parliament, like all others, has its own share of 'nonsense', which as Narasimha Rao aptly and wittily pointed out, "being so common inside the House, can hardly be termed unparliamentary"

But all this is pretty feeble stuff when compared with what passes for 'parliamentary' were in similar other institutions. Recently, in the House of Commons, the deputy speaker ruled that the expression "weak-minded" (even if exactly describing the cerebral capacities of MPs), could not be termed an 'unparliamentary' expression. He advised the ruling Conservative Party members to "not be so sensitive to criticism from the Opposition"

This, alas, cannot be said for our Parliament where chairmen are renowned for their over-protectiveness of the Treasury benches and for constantly advising the Opposition to treat the Prime Minister's juvenile jibes as scintillating examples of Parliamentary humour, expecting all of them to roll in uncontrolled mirth on their benches whenever it is demonstrated.
The Australians, quite appropriately, not only excel at this game, but by my reckoning, are the current world champions in this field. Recently, in their House of Representatives, a complaint was made that their Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, was using unparliamentary language by relying on words like "wank" or the phrase "boot up the bracket". The nearest that our Parliament has ever come to that kind of reference is when your columnist once used the expression coitus interrupts. Attendance on that occasion was thin inside the House, the silence that followed was more of incomprehension than outrage, until a lady member softly suggested that such interruptions were by themselves unparliamentary.

]ohn Howard, the leader of the Opposition in the Australian Parliament, has given a list of what one of their ministers has by now accumulated as his stock of parliamentary abuse. According to Howard, this minister has by now called MPs "harlots, sleeze bags, mugs, clowns, pimps, corporate crooks, tax cheats, clots, fops, perfumed gigolos, hilly-billies, dullards, dummies and hare-brained aristocrats". Now, that is what you would call a mouthful of sturdy debate: not very much or" that variety in our Parliament, I am afraid; much greater reliance on volume than on content.