Dear reader, In her Sunday column in this paper, Tavleen Singh put it well: New India, and its Parliament, she says, defines itself by "small things, and big grievances about small things". Singh was referring to the disruption of Parliament over the last few days by the loud furore over a remark by Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, though Chowdhury apologised almost immediately, and even as the House is still to have a discussion on pressing matters like rising food and fuel prices and unemployment. We wrote an editorial pointing out why the outrage over Chowdhury's use of "rashtrapatni" for President Droupadi Murmu is good. It holds out hope that we will mind our language more when we speak about women, and call out more frequently the everyday misogyny braided into words. After all, Chowdhury's "slip of the tongue" comes in a larger context of habits and practices of discrimination and inequality that are so normalised that they are rarely noticed and seldom flagged. Electoral data tells us that more women are voting, sometimes their turnouts overtake that of men. And we can see around us how education and technology, apart from politics, are helping women to become more visible in public spaces and spread their wings across sectors. And yet, in many ways, language remains a terrain mined with resistance to the gathering - and irreversible - force of the women. Our editorial welcoming the brouhaha over "rashtrapatni", therefore, makes a much-needed point. But so does Tavleen Singh's lament about that brouhaha then bringing Parliament to a stop. Because, in Parliament, the "rashtrapatni" row plays out not as a necessary discussion on language and misogyny, or the language of misogyny, that our editorial talked of. It flares, instead, in Tavleen Singh's words, as a "big grievance" about a "small thing", as an old political feud that gleefully, opportunistically, seizes upon a new trigger - it's BJP versus Congress, Smriti Irani versus Sonia Gandhi, all over again. The intent of those who seek to ratchet up the noise on Chowdhury's remark in Parliament is transparent - to keep tempers high. And to inflate the outrage not to make a point, but to prevent a point from being made. Because making a point in Parliament, according to the rules and conventions of parliamentary debate, would mean speaking but also listening, disagreeing but also engaging with each other's views with reciprocity and respect, on an equal footing as people's representatives, not just as majority and minority. In parliamentary democracy, "majority" and "minority" are fluid roles, not impermeable spaces carved in stone. There are checks and balances to ensure that majority rule does not turn majoritarian, no one is permanently excluded from conversation and power, and the rule of law is always higher than, it always trumps, rule by the law passed by a majority. That the row over "rashtrapatni" is so easily raising the heat and shutting out the lights in the House is, of course, not a surprise. The decline of Parliament is not a recent phenomenon. It is part of the ebbing of idealism in a country that is turning 75. It has affected all institutions, not just Parliament. At the same time, this moment is especially difficult for Parliament. It was always supposed to mirror the politics of the day, but today, it seems depleted of all its institutional resources and reserves to transcend the polarisation and divisiveness outside the House, in order to keep the conversation going inside it. Today, a ruling party that sees its electoral mandate as a ticket to stamp its dominance on all spaces, and an Opposition that is left with only a sagging sense of its own self, and almost none of the institution, cannot be expected to come to the rescue of a beleaguered Parliament. Till something gives, Parliament will change its building, and move from the old premises to the brand new, but it will be a space where the debates from a much older time echo reproachfully and the possibilities of new conversations are stillborn. Till next week, Vandita | 
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