The debate on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address in parliament that took place on February 4 and 5, showcased the seemingly unbridgeable chasm that exists between the ruling party and the opposition in the country. The former is driven by a mixture of the arrogance of power; the impunity that comes from such arrogance; and the determination to never cede even an iota of space to the arguments of political rivals; the latter seethes with the frustration of having the whole weight of the system of political domination brought to bear on them, along with the twisting of every rule and norm in ways to disadvantage them and render them voiceless – quite literally so.It was never meant to be like this. Parliament, as envisaged by the founders of the nation, was to be an arena for free speech and the healthy exchange of views. In fact, the draft constitution of India submitted to the president of the Constituent Assembly almost exactly 88 years ago, specified that “subject to the rules and standing orders regulating the procedure of parliament, there shall be freedom of speech in parliament”.The evidence from two days of listening to our parliamentarians respond to the President’s Address indicates how far the present parliament has drifted from that foundational idea. The ruling party’s appetite for censoring speech, so blatantly manifest outside parliament – whether in universities, at protest sites, on online news portals and even during literary festivals as the de-platforming of Anand Teltumbde at the Kala Goda festival would indicate – has now found its way into the very seat of parliamentary democracy. The censorship works in several ways and at multiple levels. Notice, for instance, the silencing of leader of opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi on the floor of the Lok Sabha as he was replying to the Motion of Thanks to the president’s speech, and sought to speak on the contents of former army chief. M.M. Naravane’s memoir, Four Stars of Destiny. The memoir was published by Penguin in April 2024, but has yet to appear on Indian bookshelves nearly two years later. The reason for its animated suspension is supposedly because it has not got clearance from the defence establishment; which in turn may have something to do with the nature of its contents. According to Sushant Singh, writing on the memoir in The Caravan, the book “raises unsettling questions about how little Indians know about the Ladakh crisis” and the Galwan clash of 2020, in which the lives of at least 20 Indian soldiers were lost. Among the aspects the Indian public are not sufficiently aware of is, what Sushant describes, as “the troubling absence of political accountability at a moment when the country stood on the brink of war”, something that comes through clearly in Naravane’s account.The extraordinary activity that we saw in parliament among Treasury benches recently was driven precisely because of the import of these revelations. In their anxiety to shield a government that has always claimed strong nationalist credentials from accusations of failing to protect India from incursions by the Chinese military, MP after MP of the ruling party leapt to their feet to shout down the LoP. Among the first off the block was the Union defence minister Rajnath Singh. He wanted to know if the book had been published: “If it has been published, then he can quote from the book. But if the book has not been published then there is no justification.” Too clever half, this statement, because after all, it was his ministry that was sitting tight on releasing it for publication! Union home minister Amit Shah, was also clearly agitated, citing chapter and verse to establish that Gandhi needed to be silenced. What possibly lent an even keener edge to their anxieties was the fact that it was the prime minister himself who had claimed in June 2020, after news of 20 casualties of the Indian army came in, that all was well, that “neither is anyone inside our territory nor is any of our posts captured” (‘Galwan Valley: India PM Modi says military will keep borders secure,’ June 20, BBC). Additionally, as Sushant points out in The Caravan piece, “The real value of Naravane’s memoir lies elsewhere: in the clarity it brings to events long obscured by official evasion.” This was why all the king’s horses and all the king’s men were hard at work to stop any parliamentary scrutiny of this subject.Also read: Rahul Gandhi Acted Within Parliamentary Norms When He Brought Up Ex-Army Chief’s MemoirsThe Indian parliament had already been a victim of informational non-transparency when it came to Galwan. The gagging of Gandhi this time was just the latest in a list of calculated evasions on it. In fact, as Sushant Singh reveals, every parliamentary question on the subject had been “denied in the name of national security.”But among all the personalities from Rajnath to Kiren Rijiju who participated in the silencing of the LoP in the Lok Sabha, nobody emerged more invested in the process than the speaker himself. Now the person occupying the post of speaker in parliament is required, most of all, to be unbiased in his or her handling of the proceedings of the House but whatever Om Birla is, nobody could accuse him of being disloyal to the ruling party. He took refuge in Rules 349 and 353 to stem Gandhi’s defiant attempt to quote from the book. A sub-clause of Rule 349 states that “Whilst the House is sitting, a member (i) shall not read any book, newspaper or letter except in connection with the business of the House.” But as constitutional expert P.D.T. Achary told PTI, the issue of Galwan could have a connection with the business of the House since it had to do with the security of the country, and once the source is authenticated by Gandhi, which it was, the Speaker’s role ends. The onus is then on the LoP to defend the book on pain of contempt. Unfortunately, Birla did not back off but went a step further by accusing women opposition members of hatching a plan to attack the prime minister, and advising the prime minister to skip his motion of thanks on the President’s Address in the Lok Sabha. The charge got embroidered by a coalition partner of the government, who when responding to a television anchor, argued that while these women MPs may not have weapons in the House, they could have used their teeth in their attack. If this strains credulity, it should!Even as parliament convened on February 6, the speaker had to adjourn it for the day. In a bout of self-pity, he exclaimed that he cannot run “such a House”. He should try being less partisan and then perhaps he can do a better job. Censoring speech in parliament amounts to blindsiding the country, and he should know this.§A budget for the upper crustUnion finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman had a “big picture” in her mind when it came to Budget 2026-27, she told The Indian Express in a post-Budget interview. And what may that be? Well, nothing really to do with the immediate requirements of the small, invisible people of today’s India. Her gaze is, she says, on Vikshit Bharat, 2047. She says she is after “stability”: “The government is in its third term, continuing with the same Prime Minister, that’s the assurance businesses get. And this government has been very responsive to the wish list of industry.” There you are, straight from the horse’s mouth. The wish list, please note, is not that of the 16.4% Indians who are “multidimensionally poor” according to the UNDP. It is of “industry”, a hold-all term which, should it be unpacked, would have Messrs Adani and Ambani prominently represented.How has the media interpreted the Budget? The Times of India pushed forward an intriguingly supportive line, arguing that the Budget followed the principle of if “it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” According to its editorial, “consumer demand has moved up a gear post-GST 2.0. Economic Survey pegs private final consumption expenditure at 61.5% of GDP this fiscal – it’s highest level in almost 15 years. So there’s minimal tinkering with it.” There was not a word in the editorial about the millions going through rough times, whether they were jobless young adults, MGNREGA workers, displaced tribals or the ASHAs struggling for their rights on the streets in various cities of the country. Not a word over health outlays remaining stagnant or education, which according to the National Education Policy should comprise 6 per cent of GDP, remaining presently at 0.35 per cent of GDP.Also read: Four Questions Beyond ‘Jo Uchit Samjho Woh Karo’ Raised by Ex-Army Chief’s MemoirsSitaraman in her ninth avatar as Goddess Lashmi has in fact presented one of the most elitist of such exercises that the country has ever seen. While media commentators praised it for its uncompromising pursuit of growth, some held out. Pulapre Balakrishnan, writing in The Indian Express was direct, concluding that it does not address the pressing needs of the people. (Strangely, the headline for this piece in its print format had read, ‘It is an elitist Budget, does not address people’s needs’, but this was changed in its digital format to ‘This is an elitist Budget. But it may still yield growth’ – some government loyalist on the desk looking for brownie points?) In The Wire, Jayati Ghosh makes the important point that the key area of social spending has stagnated (‘Chart: Union Govt Didn’t Spend What it Promised on Social Schemes in 2025-26’, February 1); Yamini Aiyar noted in Hindustan Times (‘Social sectors get the short shrift as structural tensions in economy play out against global churn,’ February 2) that flagship schemes had either seen dramatic cuts or broadly stayed stagnant, with the Jal Jeevan Mission, committed to providing safe drinking water by 2024 to all rural households, has had its budgeted expenditure of Rs 67,000 crore revised downward to Rs 17,000 crore. Guess, this government has learnt little from the Indore toxic drinking water imbroglio that has claimed at least 18 lives and led to over 300 hospitalisations. Dipa Sinha in The Hindu (‘Pushing welfare towards the States’, February 2) rightly asked why the government did not care to prioritise employment intensive development expenditure and the fight against pollution when these concerns which were clearly the need of the hour. By and large, these dissenters were voices in the wilderness, drowned out for the most part by salutations to a “growth-oriented Budget” from very loud television channels.Interestingly, given the plummeting confidence in mainstream media, interest groups took to putting out their own assessments. In Delhi, the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights addressed a press conference to decry the fact that there was very little for groups like Dalits and Adivasis. Despite the visible increase in caste atrocities the allocation for the implementation of the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, and the Scheduled Castes and The Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, was negligible and as for allocation for schemes related to the rehabilitation of manual scavengers, there was nothing to write home about. Similarly, the NREGA Sangharsh Morcha also issued a statement emphasising how the Budget reveals the Modi government’s lack of transparency on its move to scrap MGNREGA and replace it with VB-GRAM G. It noted that “the finance minister did not utter a single word on MGNREGA or VB-GRAMG.”Clearly, it is hard not to conclude from all this that the media in general have failed not just to capture the social dimensions of the budgetary exercise that is supposed to positively impact the lives of all Indians, it failed to flag the innumerable ways in which so many find themselves left out of Sitaraman’s “kartavya”. § Readers write in…Some possible job openings for the Assam CMThe public speeches of Assam chief minister Himanta Biswas Sarma has upset many across the county. Rizwan writes a sarcastic rejoinder:“It is good to see the Assam chief minister spewing venom against Muslims, and for many years now. It’s ironic but he is ending up doing the same work that Mohammed Ali Jinnah did so many years ago. Jinnah divided society in a way that ultimately ended in Partition. “The Supreme Court should either have Sarma dismissed from his post and made to serve time for making life hell for so many in his state. If the Supreme Court does not want to do this, then at least the Government of India should do the right thing and award Sarma with its highest honour – a Bharat Ratna – for using obnoxious language against Muslims and bulldozing their homes. “This way, at least the silence pm this matter would end. Eventually, the man should be made the Prime Minister of the country so that he can openly spew his venom on 140 crore Indians!” §A matter of public interest We received a mail from Kishor Kumar (kishor2k@gmail.com) on a personal hospital tragedy: “I am reaching out for help and coverage in a serious public interest matter from Samastipur, Bihar, involving Kamla Emergency & Multi-Speciality Hospital (Mohanpur, Samastipur). I have submitted an FIR application to SHO, Samastipur regarding alleged assault and intimidation, and requesting urgent action for CCTV preservation and complete medical records, along with an independent medical enquiry.“My name is Kishor Kumar and I write on behalf of the complainant, my brother Mukesh Kumar (Ward No 6, Kamarawan, Samastipur, Bihar). The complaint involves the patient, late Chandramukhi Kumari (67), my mother. On January 1, 2026, she was admitted for treatment of burn injuries. From the first day itself, we repeatedly asked for the burn chart and the exact TBSA basis (percentage of total body surface area involvement). We were not given these details. The approximate TBSA percentage was shared but it kept changing verbally. We also asked for complete records and reports. After repeated requests, we got a PDF report, but it has multiple wrong entries and inconsistencies. We have requested investigation into the correctness and authenticity of the records and billing. On January 4, we were told my mother did not need ICU and would be treated in an isolation ward. However, she remained in the ICU. Later we saw the isolation ward was not in proper condition. On Jan 7, she was shifted again to ICU and her condition worsened. On Jan 8, she told us that she felt unsafe with the staff scolding and humiliating her. She refused the food and water offered by the staff for this reason. We were not told about this and no arrangements were made by us to assist in her feeding and hydration. On Jan 8, we asked the doctor in charge to prepare discharge and transfer papers so we could shift her for better care and a second opinion. We were told to take the patient and leave, but we were not allowed to go inside the ICU to meet her or assist with water and feeding. When we protested and requested at least one family member be allowed inside the ICU, the ICU door was locked from inside and we were prevented from access. We called Emergency Helpline 112. While we were waiting near the ICU door, around 10 to 12 men came from inside the hospital and attacked four of our family members. Only after the police arrived, were discharge papers provided. We found them incomplete and incorrect, but due to the critical condition, we immediately shifted her to another hospital. My mother passed away on Jan 9 in a new hospital. We need the media to urgently report on this case since CCTV footage and records are time sensitive and can be overwritten or tampered with. Public coverage can help ensure evidence is preserved and a fair enquiry happens.Do hope you can assign a reporter or even guide us. This will help protect evidence and prevent similar incidents with other families.§TailpieceInteresting to see the frenetic participation of online commentators during the livestreaming of Supreme Court proceedings. February 4 was a busy day for the court, made even more crowded with the personal appearance of the Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, who came to take on the Election Commission of India which, she argued, was targeting Bengal. Her case came up well past mid-day but even as the court was listening to matters related to egregious practices of Reliance Communication and Reliance Power Limited, with their fat cat lawyers making their pitch before the CJI’s court, the focus of the internet jousters was fixated on the Mamata versus Modi electoral battle. It was a virtual M versus M free-for-all, with one side screaming: “Arrest her and put in jail for the sake of the country”, while the other full-throatedly demanding that India be saved from the BJPi. Write to ombudsperson@thewire.in