The Rajya Sabha Chairman, Krishna Kant, pointed to a key factor in India's bicameral parliamentary system where the role of the Rajya Sabha and the relationship between the upper and the lower Houses had assumed a new dimension, specially after the end of the single party dominance and the emergence of smaller parties in coalition governments at the Centre and in the States. He made it clear that the Rajya Sabha, at present dominated by the Congress and its allies, was not a secondary chamber. In matters of ordinary legislation it had equal powers with the Lok Sabha.

Most reassuring were the sentiments of the ideologically differing sections of the two Houses, led by the leader of the Lok Sabha like Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and the Opposition leader, Sonia Gandhi. The Prime Minister clearly stated that the basic structure of the Constitution will not be changed and the leader of the Opposition cautioned the nation against attempts by communal forces to strike at the foundation of the Indian democracy. These were voices of wisdom and sanity. Sonia Gandhi rightly recalled that democratic India had travelled a long distance but the biggest threat could come from the fanatical and communal forces.

As a young volunteer, this columnist had the privilege of working as an information assistant and a researcher with the Bureau of Parliamentary Research of the Congress party-in-Parliament during the First Parliament. And more than 50 years later one cannot help but look at those days with nostalgia.

We had the privilege of watching with awed admiration one of the greatest presiding officers of the Lok Sabha ever, M. V. Mavalankar, to seek whose advice even the great Nehru had to walk personally to his chamber. He had set the rule that the Lok Sabha was presided over by the Speaker and not the prime minister, howsoever great he might be.

The standard of debates in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, during the First Parliament, was very high and memorable. The people's representatives, elected from different political parties, were great and eminent people, every one of them in his and her own right. They were no petty-minded office seekers.

Interestingly, Pandit Nehru was the one who gave many parliamentary norms and traditions to the new Parliament of Independent India. It was on his instruction that a committee of eminent poets and scholars, including Ram Dhari Singh Dinkar, Raghuvira, Seth Govind Das, Kaka Kalelkar, Balkrishan Sharma Navin and the party secretary, Ram Subhag Singh, was set up to introduce the use of Hindi in parliamentary affairs. The Congress Party in Parliament also brought out the first weekly Hindi publication called Sansad Samachar for educating its MPs on legislative programmes and processes. The Hindi word Sachetak for the English
wordwhip was also coined by the Congress Party under the literary influence of the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Satya Narain Sinha.

Parliamentary Standing Committees to train the newly elected MPs into the mysteries of the functioning of an active and responsive parliament were Nehru's great concern.

And I cannot resist the temptation of quoting from a speech of Nehru in the Lok Sabha on May 22, 1952, where he had responded to a question raised by the great Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. Nehru said, " Mukherjee raised a question about Kashmir's constitutional status and he wanted to know if Kashmiris were Indians. Of course they are Indians, constitutionally and legally. If they want to go abroad they must have an Indian passport. When the question of merger of states was first considered four or five years ago, almost all the States acceded in three subjects only - foreign affairs, defence and communications. A little later, when there was a raid on Kashmir, it also acceded in respect of three subjects. During this period we have had a conflict with Pakistan in regard to Kashmir because of the raids and the war....Kashmir has acceded in the basic subjects and is a part of India"