The Parliament was in session, and a no-confidence motion had been moved. Aditya Sundaresan sat purposefully in the Speaker's chair as members assembled in the hall, which resembled the session chamber of the Indian Parliament. Clad in a jacket and with a mild tossing of his long tresses, Aditya was in full control of the office.
With every call, members stood up from their seats, carrying name tags of the constituencies they represented and spoke out on the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack and its implications. Some were vociferous, some accusative, some explanatory, but all were emphatic. Aditya listened to all and then managed the voting process deftly. The Parliamentarians sat or stood in order and allowed the session to move on properly.
The mock Parliament held at Saraswathi Vidyalaya on July 2 and 3, organised by CII’s Young Indians, bore an air of decorum. “We were sitting in chairs where the nation’s policies are shaped. What if it is a replica? The dignity must be maintained,” says Harsith N, from Sarvodaya Central Vidyalaya. A Class 9 student, he represented the Delhi West constituency and was on the ruling side, as he defended the government.
Aditya believes such activities are learning grounds, but are often made out to be competition arenas. “The academic pressure on students is just too much these days, so such activities take a back seat once a student enters Class 11. Look around, I may be one of the few science students here. The rest are likely from the humanities or commerce streams,” says the Class 12 student from Greenvalley International School, Peyad.
Though there was an online orientation given to the 131 participants from 16 schools in Thiruvananthapuram, “the debates were impromptu. The topic was given on the spot, and though we did look up the Google, the final draft of our speech had to be readied fast, and right here,” says Prarthana Balakrishnan, a Class 10 student from Lecole Chempaka, Serene Valley, who donned the Home Minister’s role at the mock event.
Just minutes ago, she was braving stirring questions and statements from her counterparts. A bunch of teenagers debating is indeed a tsunami of sharp, steely opinions.
“Exercises such as mock Parliaments help to channelise this vigour. There is a need for more young people to know about democracy. Too many of them are turning their backs on constructive, nation-building politics now, perturbed by the show of chaos dished out to them as politics,” Sujatha Rajeev, a higher secondary school teacher, observes.
Young Indians’ aim was also the same, says Sankari Unnithan, chair of the forum’s Thiruvananthapuram chapter. “We have organised mock Parliament nationally once, but in Thiruvananthapuram, this is the first time. Twenty students who are selected from the city level will move to the regional level, where schools from South Indian cities will participate. It will be held in Thiruvananthapuram in August. There are scopes for real interaction with Parliamentarians. At the valedictory of this session itself, Attingal MP Adoor Prakash was sitting amidst them, listening and observing, as they enacted his ilk. The winners at the national level will also be taken to Parliament,” she says.
For a basic onlooker, however, this version of the Parliament was far more decorous than the visuals brought to us on the national network from the real portals of democracy.