Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury caused a stir after he referred to newly appointed president Droupadi Murmu as ‘Rashtrapatni’ and later tendered an apology, blaming the error on the proverbial slip of the tongue. Murmu is the first tribal woman to occupy India’s highest constitutional position. The Parliament also released an updated booklet of unparliamentary words, which the opposition described as an attempt to muzzle criticism.
In this curated package, Dr. Aditi Narayani Paswan identifies a silhouette of patriarchy in Chowdhury’s erroneous reference to Murmu, while Bijayani Mishra and Harsh Vardhan examine the pitfalls of translating official designations from one language to another. Kaveri Mishra, in another piece, wonders whether Sarna, a tribal religion, will get its due.
The package opens with a story which puts in context the interesting debate around unparliamentary words and expressions with interesting anecdotes, including one about how the word ‘Godse’ was struck off the Parliament’s list of unparliamentary jargon.
