New Parliament: The need

NEW PARLIAMENT 

"Powerful people make places powerful"

A new era of India ushered in May 2023 with Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurating the new Parliament building and placing Sengol beside the chair of Lok Sabha. 

I say that a new era has begun as India is learning to stand on its feet, it is not on the stands anymore, India is not going to be judged, and a new, powerful India has emerged which requires symbols, symbols of strength, not of slavery, symbols of righteousness, not submission. 

There are many arguments by intellectuals and the opposition that there was no need for a new parliament building, but I would like to take a moment to point out the dire necessity of a new parliament.

 December 13th, 2001, is a date no Indian can forget when terrorists attacked the temple of democracy, the epicenter of Indian lawmaking, our parliament. This attack rocked the nation and symbolized us as people who couldn't protect their parliament. Again symbolism defines the strength and power of a country.

The old parliament was built in the 1920s and was such an old construction with no modern technologies like earthquake resistance despite New Delhi being in the high seismicity zone. So the parliament building wasn't safe in case of an earthquake or terrorist attack. 

Third, symbolism: the old parliament wasn't built by Indian Government and was gifted to us by the Britishers, constructed with the money stolen from us. It represented our colonial mindset, that even after gaining sovereignty, our minds were restrained and our souls slaved.

Fourth, the seating capacity of the old parliament was grossly inadequate as the last census of MPs to population was done in the 1970s when India's population was merely six crores as compared to the present 140 crores. Hence, it was imperative to improve the number of representatives in the parliament vis-a-vis the population.

To conclude, of course, numerous hospitals and schools could have been built and still are being built, unfazed by the construction of the new parliament, but the new parliament was the need of the hour to symbolize India as a powerful nation, undeterred, unfazed, unfettered and standing strong and proud.