'Banana Republic' unites online to protest Parliament logjam

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Since last Saturday, a silent protest has invaded our PCs.

It’s definitely not a new malware or ransomware, but a unanimous effort by more than 15,000 Indians from the Banana Republic who have taken to the Web to protest the Parliamentary logjam.

The online protestors have kick-started a signature campaign urging the MPs to allow the Parliament to function so that important bills such as GST, land bill, etc can be debated upon and legislated.

The campaign on change.org is spearheaded by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), has already garnered support from leading industry captains such as Rahul Bajaj, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Pawan Munjal of Hero MotoCorp, Adi Godrej, Kiran Majumdar-Shaw, GVK's GV Sanjaya Reddy, GE India Head Banmali Agrawala, Anu Aga of Thermax, and doctors (Naresh Trehan and Ashok Seth), academicians (IIT Madras' Ashok Jhunjhunwala and IIM Ahmedabad's Piyush Kumar Sinha) and diplomats.

"Parliamentary protests are not unknown. The stalemates can never be permanent. Parliamentary paralysis can lead to weakening of India's democracy. There is a spread of political power between the opposition and the government in Indian Parliament. Both have an important role to play. Both have responsibility to discuss and resolve political issues. Political consensus represents the best practice in Indian democracy," the campaigners wrote in a petition, which has been displayed on change.org.

Capturing the mood of India Inc, Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII, said that the industry has been restless for the past few years and was hoping that the election of the Modi government would help revive the faltering economy.

"But the series of disruptions since last year, and the latest stalemate in Parliament prompted the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to launch the campaign. Industry feels that you must let Parliament do its business because the impact goes beyond business and affects the people," he lamented.

Underlining the importance of GST and its link to the country's growth, the petitioners wrote, "GST has taken a long time in coming and has taken years of consensus building, and CII has time and again reiterated that this could significantly contribute to India's and States' growth. India has to grow in order to alleviate poverty and create jobs. Parliament did not get an opportunity to discuss important issues, like floods, security issues, other economic priorities, etc. It is only a debate which brings out the facts to enable people to form a fair and objective opinion on important matters."