When accountability becomes a game of “but what about them?”, questions replace answers and responsibility disappears. Deflection is the resort of the coward.
This seems to be the new way of having a conversation in India. Instead of addressing the issue, people dodge it, change the subject, bring up someone else’s mistakes, or throw another question back at you. New India, perhaps we no longer need answers; we can simply keep asking questions until everyone forgets what the original question was. Accountability has been replaced by whataboutery, genuine discussion by deflection, and facts by narratives. As long as we can point fingers at someone else, apparently, there is no need to answer for ourselves.
Saw this analogy and it struck a nerve. Forget for a moment which party is protesting, which party is in power, and who started what. MPs are elected and paid to represent citizens, debate legislation, scrutinize the government, raise constituency issues and actually conduct parliamentary business. Yet we repeatedly see sessions disrupted by sloganeering, adjournments and political theatre. Protest and dissent are absolutely part of democracy. But so are debate, accountability and doing the job you were elected to do.
If Parliament loses hours or entire days to disruption, should there be some form of accountability for MPs on **all sides** who deliberately prevent proceedings?
Or is disruption itself a legitimate parliamentary tool when normal debate fails?