(This story was first published on 13 August 2018 and has been reposted from The Quint’s archives to mark Somnath Chatterjee’s first death anniversary.)
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“I have absolute confidence in myself, and the fact that when I sit in the chair of the Speaker, I shall do my best to fulfil my role in a manner that will not raise any doubts in anybody's mind. I am fully confident of that.”
Former Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, who has served for nearly 40 years in active politics, passed away on Monday, 13 August at 8:15 am, in a Kolkata hospital.
In a career spent observing, participating in and shaping India’s polity, Chatterjee won respect from all parties alike – a near anomaly in the history of Indian politics.
He gained public favour through his zeal for transparency and an iron-will where he put his weight behind the side he truly believed should win. It was a characteristic which even made him lose ground with his own party, the CPI(M), in 2008.
Outside the Parliament, Chatterjee was a football fanatic. He told The Telegraph in an interview, that while he was a fan of Lionel Messi – much like every red-blooded Calcuttan – he found Ronaldo “too arrogant”.
True to his Bengali heritage, he was a connoisseur of Rabindranath Tagore’s literature and continued his family’s legacy in becoming the third generation to practice law – his profession before he entered Indian politics.
Before being a lawyer, he studied at the prestigious Presidency College and the University of Calcutta in Kolkata and later, obtained a law degree from Jesus College in Cambridge.
The first instance of Chatterjee’s popularity – both within and outside the House – was when he was appointed as the 14th Speaker of the Lok Sabha on 4 June 2004. The Motion which was moved by the then-Congress president Sonia Gandhi and backed by the then-defence minister Pranab Mukherjee was supported unanimously by 17 leaders of the other parties, who had all proposed Chatterjee’s name.
During his felicitation, where he thanked those who had proposed his name, Chatterjee had famously said,
Chatterjee went on to serve as the Speaker of the Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2009.
One of the greatest challenges that Chatterjee had to face as Speaker was during the Trust Vote of 22 July 2008.
After the CPI(M) had decided to withdraw its support from the UPA-led government in mid-2008, it inadvertently added Chatterjee's name on its list of MPs who would follow suit – despite his non-partisan position as Speaker.
Chatterjee was left with the difficult choice of having to choose between his party –which would mean voting against the government and aligning him with the right-wing Opposition party BJP – or continuing as the Speaker of the House.
He chose the latter.
With this, Chatterjee’s association with the party, which spanned over four decades, came to a bitter end.
Chatterjee’s determination to not be swayed by his party’s decision, even after pressure from its then-chief Jyoti Basu, however, won him appreciation from some quarters across the country, and even overseas.
In an interview with Frontline magazine, Chatterjee had once said,
Chatterjee had been extremely active during his long reign as an MP. Over the years, he had served on several parliamentary committees as chairman and as member.
He served two terms as the Chairman of the Committee on Subordinate Legislation and Committee on Information Technology, and three terms each as the Chairman of the Committee of Privileges, Committee on Railways and Committee on Communications.
In an interview with the Caravan magazine in 2017, the former Lok Sabha Speaker was asked about his views on the Narendra Modi government and the rise of a ‘nationalist identity’ which it had brought about.
Calling Modi a “good actor” and a “ruthless showman”, he had said,
He had added that the present BJP regime, which was the last one he was to witness, made him “despondent” and realised that the “expectations, the hope, the honour to be an independent country” that Indians had dreamed of on 15 August 1947, had not been fulfilled.
Chatterjee created an enduring legacy in the field of Indian politics and law – whether with his dry Bengali wit which lightened the chaotic Parliamentary sessions or his insistence on the Parliament’s responsibility to the public.
And when he did leave, he offered yet another straight-faced, sardonic explanation that left no one guessing. In his last formal session as Speaker, he said,
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