Vikram Seth - some problems

[Alec McAllister]

On 27 Sep 96 at 16:21, Dominik Wujastyk wrote:

>On Fri, 27 Sep 1996, Jan Dvorak wrote:
>
>> 3. order papers (p. 254 - middle of the chapter 5.7): in a Parliament:
>> "Several members of the House were on their feet, waving their order papers,
>> and no one, not even the Speaker, could be clearly heard."
>
>"paper showing order of deliberative business" -- Chambers 20th Cent.
>Dict.
>
>These are what members of parliament have when attending a debate in the
>House, like meeting agendas, to show who has the Speaker's permission to
>speak, etc.
>
>Best wishes,
>Dominik

Supplementary to the above.

There are certain conventions in the UK parliament which might also
be in force in the Indian context. It is considered "unparliamentary"
to applaud, because the proceedings are supposed to be a debate, not
a performance. It has therefore become a custom to wave order-papers
instead, in order to indicate strong emotion, usually approval, but
sometimes demanding the Speaker's attention. (For the benefit of
those familiar with the US system, in the UK the Speaker is a sort
of neutral umpire and chairperson, deciding who should speak next and 
ensuring fair play.)

Cheering is also banned, but it is permissible to say "Hear, hear"
(or possibly "here, here" -- I've seen it written both ways) loudly,
so as to indicate strong agreement. When this is combined with
waving order-papers, the resulting din is not unlike the behaviour of
a rowdy football crowd waving scarves and cheering. :-) 

Alec.

Alec McAllister
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