Tag: Debate

Ten things Sugata Bose said during his speech in Lok Sabha

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Trinamool MP Sugata Bose today earned praises from all quarters for his speech during a discussion on the current situation in universities specially JNU and University of Hyderabad.

Even as he was speaking, he started trending on Twitter with users praising his eloquence and erudition.

During his 20-minute speech, the Trinamool MP quoted several great luminaries and quoted effusively from history, while speaking about nationalism.

Here are ten things Sugata Bose said in Lok Sabha today:

1. We have a heartless government that refuses to listen to the cries of despair coming from the marginalised sections of our society

2. I deplore the brand of nationalism espoused by the members of the treasury benches that I find narrow, selfish and arrogant

3. The idea of India is not so brittle as to crumble at the echo of a few slogans

4. It is not a crime to seek freedom from caste oppression, freedom from class exploitation, freedom from gender discrimination

5. We must give our students and youth the freedom to think, the freedom to speak, the freedom to be idealistic and yes the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them

6. I condemn the acts of vigilantism by self-appointed protectors of the nation which foments a climate of fear. The government must end the witch-hunt for anti-nationals and the shameful scape-goating of university students

7. The nationalism that is being talked about from the other side of the House, represents centralised despotism and it is talking about rigidly imperial State

8. I fear that those who are defining nationalism so narrowly would brand Rabindranath Tagore, the composer of our National Anthem, as anti-national

9. Free our universities. Free our students. Let our youth dream a glorious future for our country

10. Let our freedom be the freedom of the souls and let us remember the admonition of our great sentinel that what is huge is not great and pride not everlasting

 

Click here for the full transcript of his speech 

Trinamool MP’s speech in Parliament receives praise from all quarters

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Twitter broke into thunderous applause for Trinamool MP from Jadavpur, Sugata Bose, and praises poured in from all quarters after his eloquent and hard-hitting intervention on the issue of recent incidents at universities.

While some users praised Trinamool for fielding Sugata Bose for the debate, others praised the oratory skills of the Harvard professor and thanked him for taking the debate to the next level.

What he said

Speaking on the subject, Sugata Bose condemned the government heartless reaction to the death of Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad. “Rohith Vemula left us a poignant message when he chose to leave this world. Rohith is not dead, he lives in the heaven above like a star,” he said.

Accusing the government of living under the impression that it has a monopoly over nationalism, the Trinamool MP went on to say, “The idea of India is not so brittle as to crumble at the echo of a few slogans.” In contrast to the Central government, West Bengal government knew how to defuse tension in Jadavpur University and not overreact, he added.

The Jadavpur MP contended that students freedom to think, speak, make mistakes & learn from them. He condemned the vigilantism of self-appointed custodians and urged the government to end the witch-hunt for anti-nationals and scapegoating of university students.

Here are some reactions from Twitter to Sugata Bose’s speech:

Trinamool Govt is always there to provide constructive opposition: Derek O’Brien | Transcript

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Full transcript: 

Sir, I will just take four minutes to make four points.

Sir, the basic thing which we are saying is that we want to make some constructive suggestions.

The first one is the extension of the area of mining and the second one Sir, is to do with Clause 18 and 20 where the Government has made a lot of statements about Cooperative Federalism. So the point which we want to make is that please take the State Governments into confidence. Please work it out in such a way where the State Government will not be harassed, will not be run over.

If this can be assured by the Government we have no issues and on that point on going along with this Bill. But this needs to be addressed; the State Governments have to be taken into confidence. However, Clause 18 and 20, there is some issue on that.

Then we come to the District Mineral Foundation and the National Mineral Exploration. That overall is a good idea, but you have not told us in detail how this will be organised. What is the organisational structure?

Our constructive suggestion are these, please consider putting this in the rules so we all know how that is going to be constructed. How it is going to be made up.

In fact while on that point there is an issue of the welfare of the tribals and no doubt this has to be addressed in the most serious manner possible in the DMF – should the Adivasis and the tribals have a decisive management in that DMF, so that they feel that they are a part of this. These are constructive suggestions you will get from Trinamool.

It is not that we will sit here and oppose everything; we are opposed to certain sections. We have issues on the way you handle federalism. We have other bigger issues on how you handle communal issues of the country. We are telling you to tread carefully on federalism and please take the states into confidence. You are doing a lot of talk on federalism, once we see that the talk comes into action on the ground, we will be with you. You will have to be very careful to see that you do not run roughshod on the States.

The Adivasis is a big issue. We have given you a concrete, solid, actionable way where you can get around them, because 40% of those mining districts are of the Adivasis.

The last is an ecological point. On the ecological point, you haven’t addressed the issue of closure of mines which the UPA II Bill had done very well in the 2011 Bill. If you can address the ecological issue, because it is a very open ended question on the closure of the mines, and once the mines don’t shut down there are sustainable development issues and ecological issues. I urge the Government to quickly address the issues in the best way possible.

Trinamool is always there to provide constructive opposition and we will continue to do that.

Thank you.