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Lok Sabha to seek Azam Khan apology over sexist remark
Azam Khan’s remarks towards deputy speaker Rama Devi on Thursday resulted in the newly elected Lok Sabha’s Me Too moment, with the House on Friday passing a unanimous resolution authorising the Speaker to act against Khan.
Samajwadi Party member of Parliament Azam Khan’s remarks towards deputy speaker Rama Devi on Thursday resulted in the newly elected Lok Sabha’s Me Too moment, with the House on Friday passing a unanimous resolution authorising the Speaker to act against Khan.
In a meeting of floor leaders of all parties chaired by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, it was decided that the Speaker will ask Khan to apologise on the floor of the House for his remarks against Devi, parliamentary affairs minister Prahlad Joshi said on Friday.
As with the global movement that gathered momentum in 2017 and ‘18, in which women shared personal testimonies of workplace harassment revealing the entrenched nature of gender inequality, the Lok Sabha on Friday witnessed a heated debate over Khan’s remarks that were found to indignify Devi.
Parliamentarians across parties, including finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Baramati MP Supriya Sule of the Nationalist Congress Party, Mimi Chakraborty of the Trinamool Congress Party, Bhartruhari Mahtab of the Biju Janata Dal, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of the Congress Party, Asaduddin Owaisi of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s Kanimozhi, raised the issue during Friday’s Zero Hour.
“Wherever a woman comes from, whatever position she may occupy... she continues to be insulted and made to feel small,” Kanimozhi said, adding that the government should adopt the Women’s Reservation Bill — pending since 2008, it seeks 33% reservation for women — to empower more women to enter Parliament.
“This very House has passed the [Prevention of] Sexual Harassment at the Workplace bill. We cannot sit quietly and remain mute spectators [to what happened]… We need to send a message that no matter which party a woman MP belongs to, the privilege of this House will not be misused to insult a woman,” women and child development and textiles minister Smriti Irani said.
While Parliament has a prevention of sexual harassment committee, it can only look into complaints against staff and not MPs.
“This is not a decision to be made in the spur of the moment. Taking into account the rules and regulations, you must show that this House can act judiciously,” Mahtab said, calling for exemplary action.
On Thursday, during the debate on the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) 2019 bill, Khan made comments that other MPs, including parliamentary affairs minister of state Arjun Ram Meghwal and law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, took umbrage to.
Devi, who was occupying the chair of the speaker, ordered his comments to be expunged, and also asked Khan to apologise. Khan, however, said that he had meant no disrespect, and was ready to immediately resign if his remarks were found to be objectionable.
As the remarks have been expunged, they cannot be published in this newspaper.
“You are my sister. I have had a long political career, it is not possible for me to say anything bad. If there is a single unparliamentary word in what I said, then I declare my resignation from Parliament,” Khan said on Thursday.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav defended Khan, stating that he had not intended any disrespect.
Both Khan and Yadav were not present in the House on Friday.
SP spokesperson told HT, “Our national president is in Delhi and he has already spoken on the issue. We are not in a position to say anything on it as the matter is pending before the Lok Sabha Speaker.”
On Friday, the Bihar State Commission for Women issued notice to the SP lawmaker, demanding an apology for his comments and asked him to explain his actions.
Devi, who is a Bharatiya Janata Party member of Parliament from Sheohar in Bihar, has demanded that Khan be suspended for the entire term of the Lok Sabha, the Press Trust of India reported.
This debate comes days after the reconstitution of the Group of Ministers (GoM) entrusted to look into strengthening the legal framework to prevent sexual harassment at the workplace.
In October 2018, the government constituted a GoM to examine the legal and institutional frameworks to deal with sexual harassment at workplace, in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against the then minister of state for external affairs MJ Akbar.
The newly constituted GoM, headed by home minister Amit Shah, comprises Sitharaman, Irani and human resources minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’.
Owaisi, who spoke during the Zero Hour, raised the issue of MJ Akbar — who has filed a criminal defamation case against one of his accusers, journalist Priya Ramani — and enquired about the report of the previous GoM.
Speaking to the HT, former secretary general of the Lok Sabha, PDT Achary, clarified that Article 105 protects the freedom of speech of parliamentarians in the House, and members are subject to the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Lok Sabha.
“Normally when objectionable observation is made by a member, then that is expunged from the record. Sometimes when the remark is highly objectionable, and the House feels that a mere expungement is not enough, and the member should apologize to the House, then the Speaker can ask him to withdraw (the remarks) and apologize. Suppose the member doesn’t apologise, the Speaker could ask him to go out of the House and not attend that day’s proceedings,” Achary explained the procedure.
These regulations, however, pre-date the sexual harassment law by several decades.
