**It is all rather painful, all this continuity of indecency in the House. You do not expect members of parliament to be uncouth, to go down to a use of plain gutter language. Any MP who does so should haue his or her membership suspended or even cancelled.

The prime minis-

ter is not the only one who is worried about the use of indecent language in parliament.

We all are. When not so long ago two women lawmakers from the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party went for an indecent assault on the person and reputation of Sheikh Hasina, it was a whole nation that was left reeling from the shock thus engendered. Here we were, at home with our children and grandchildren, watching the proceedings on television. Those two women left us with red faces before our families. It was the eyes of the children that said it all. Is this politics? That was the question they seemed to ask. And we had no answer but a load of shame to offer them in response.

The prime minister is aggrieved and so are we. And yet this concern on the part of the head of government ought to have come when, a fortnight or so before the BNP women's indecency exposed itself on the floor of the House, it was a woman lawmaker of the ruling Awami League who inaugurated the whole process of bad manners being part of political culture when she unleashed a tirade against former prime minister Khaleda Zia. She questioned Begum Zia's character; she raised questions about the paternity of her children. We wished then the earth would crack open and swallow us all. More galling was the fact that the deputy speaker of the Jatiyo Sangsad, who happened to be presiding over the session, made no effort to bring that bad-mouthing lawmaker to heel. He even gave her an extra few minutes to tear Begum Zia's reputation to shreds. It is all rather painful, all this continuity of indecency in the House. You do not expect members of parliament to be uncouth, to go down to a use of plain gutter language. Any MP who does so should have his or her membership suspended or even cancelled. Neither, however, seems to be happening in Bangladesh. A few years ago, when the BNP was in office, one of its lawmakers, given the opportunity to express himself on the budget, clearly lost his head and began to heap abuse on Sheikh Hasina and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The speaker at the time did what the deputy speaker in

these times has done: he enjoyed the lawmaker's demonstration of ugly manners. We are not quite sure how many lawmakers felt embarrassed about the wicked behaviour of their colleague. But we do know it was citizens across the board who nearly died from shame.

Sit back and reflect awhile on the systematic decline in manners and mannerisms in diverse areas of life in Bangladesh. Reflect too on an era -- and that is fundamentally the 1960s and early 1970s -- when Bengalis were noted for their cultural sophistication and political secularism. And not just Bengalis. In the old Pakistan, Justice M.R. Kayani took constant potshots at Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan, and rightly too, in his writings and lectures. And yet that was no reason for Pakistan's first military ruler not to write the foreword to Kayani's book, Not the Whole Truth. In the old days, you see, political rivalry did not translate into personal enmity. Good behaviour mattered.

And good behaviour, indeed morality, has patently gone out the window. Ignore the fact of Begum Zia's birthday being a matter of national scrutiny. But what you cannot, must not ignore is the reality of what she and her followers do on August 15 every year. We do not choose to argue that Begum Zia was born on August 15, but we do take issue with her when on a day when a whole nation recalls the Father of the Nation -- because he and his

family were murdered on the day --the former prime minister opts for a public celebration of her birthday. Doesn't she feel sad on that day? Doesn't she remember the kindness heaped on her by Bangabandhu in her younger days? Doesn't she realise that it is in sheer bad taste to celebrate her birthday, in public, when we recall the old anguish which wound itself into our lives on August 15, 1975?

In all these years, morality has taken a beating. It is hard to find decent men and women around us any more, but when some decent people are spotted, we are left surprised. Why are they yet decent? Why does a sense of morality yet underpin their lives? A judge of the High Court has declined the offer of an upgrading of his seat on Bangladesh Biman. This should not be happening, you say. The circumstances ought to have been quite something else, especially when you remind yourself that not everyone else is like this judge. That moment of surprise passes and then you inform yourself that such is what truly should be happening around us, that good men and women should be stepping out of their homes to teach us through precept and practice.

An absence of good manners is a sign of the rise of little men in our society. When a respected figure in Bangladesh takes it upon himself to assure the prime minister that she could end up getting the Nobel Prize in two years if she does a good job, you have a simple question for him: does the country or the prime minister need his advice? Likewise, when another well-known figure decides to enlighten us on a new truth -- that this nation went to war for freedom and not at the call of any particular individual, he makes us question his sense of history. He is wrong. And he is wrong because this nation did wage war for liberty at the call of one man and only one man. That man, just in case anyone is inclined to forget, is Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

It is a strange country. Men who have served military dictators today strive to be the conscience keepers of our society. Women who know nothing of politics end up polluting parliament with the foul odour spewed by their language. The leader of the opposition, too angry to remain in parliament unless it is that ninety-day matter of renewing her and her party's hold on membership of the legislature, turns her back to the prime minister and stalks off as soon as the latter takes the floor.

That spectacle is not exactly edifying.

The writer is Executive Editor, The Daily Star.