Wedding Over Oath: People Being Too Quick To Judge Nusrat Jahan

Actor and MP from Basirhat, West Bengal, Nusrat Jahan got married to businessman Nikhil Jain in Turkey on 19th June. Incidentally, that was also the day she was supposed to be at the Parliament for her oath-taking ceremony. The fact that Jahan missed out on her crucial first day as an elected MP hasn’t gone down with many people who have criticised the actor for choosing to wed over the duty to her constituency. Twitterati is having a field day blasting Jahan, calling her approach callous, as if Jahan is going to miss out on the rest of sessions in the upcoming five years and do no work for the constituency.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• MP from Basirhat Nusrat Jahan is being trolled for skipping her oath taking ceremony at the Parliament.
• Jahan got married to businessman Nikhil Jain that very day in Turkey.
• Celebrity weddings are planned in advance, so perhaps Jahan had no clue that these dates will clash.
• Isn't it too quick to call Jahan insincere, while she still has an entire term to justify her election?

Nusrat Jahan is being trolled for choosing to get married over taking her oath as an elected Member of Parliament. But does this actually display her insincerity?

It is not as if Jahan can’t take her oath if she has missed the official ceremony. Secondly, celebrity marriages do not get planned at the drop of the hat. The wedding must have been in making for quite some time, and it is highly likely that Jahan couldn’t have known when the first session of Parliament will begin while she was planning her wedding. Should she have cancelled all her plans, ones which may have been in making for months and must have cost a considerable amount of money? Besides, hasn’t Jahan been elected for the coming five years? If she is missing out on these initial days, should we hastily conclude that she is irresponsible and uninterested in her duties as a Member of Parliament?

This is the level of respect they have for the parliament and the public which voted them in. As if we needed more proof about how serious they are about this whole thing.

First time MP Nusrat Jahan gets married in Turkey, misses taking oath as MP https://t.co/NBd63Hq814

— Tanzila Anis. (@aaliznat) June 21, 2019

This is your MP Bengal!!
I feel pity of you all for choosing her who cares a little to attend the first session of Parliament. I wonder one who consciously misses the oath taking session can ever become voice of Public that choses her!! 😐😑 https://t.co/Fpx78SLKoW

— 𝓗𝓪𝓻𝓼𝓱𝓲𝓽 𝓢𝓻𝓲𝓿𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓪𝓿𝓪 (@Harshit_Adv) June 20, 2019

While it is easy to point fingers at Jahan, do we have any idea about the attendance sheet of all our MPs, in the last five years for instance? How many MPs claim 100% attendance? None actually. An analysis by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW) says that seven MPs from Delhi have the highest average attendance in the 16th Lok Sabha. On an average they have attended 289 out of 312 sittings. So just seven MPs managed to keep their attendance over 90 per cent. Besides, have none of our MPs taken any leaves from their duty to attend personal matters ever? Do we judge them on basis of their work or the number of days they have been present at the parliament, sometimes sleeping, watching questionable videos or whatever Kirron Kher was doing in the viral video from last year? Missing out on the oath ceremony can’t certainly be the parameter to label Jahan as an insincere politician.

We have begun to consume everything in the 280 characters that come our way. We are short on patience and will to thoroughly observe our leaders and pass a more measured verdict.

I am neither defending Jahan’s politics, nor advocating her work as a politician. All I am saying is that it is too soon to pass a verdict just yet. This instantaneous verdict that social media tends to pass on everyone and everything these days is problematic on many occasions. It clouds the vision of the voters and colours their opinion. For a country which perennially complains about the attitude of its politicians, this incident puts forth the electorate’s own shortcomings. We have begun to consume everything in the 280 characters that come our way. We are short on patience and will to thoroughly observe our leaders and pass a more measured verdict. The good and bad from the lot can’t be separated so easily, politics is much more complicated than that.

Besides, marriage still remains one of the most crucial occasions in any woman or man’s life, whether one approves or not. We are not in a position to Jahan that she prioritises events in her life as per our sensibilities. None of us is Nusrat and thus we do not know her circumstances in this matter or her opinion. So instead of trolling Jahan so impulsively why not pay more attention to her work and conduct as an MP for the coming five years, and that of every other politician for that matter. It is too soon to begin passing verdicts already.

Also Read: Kabir Singh And The Romanticisation Of Misogyny On And Off Screen

Yamini Pustake Bhalerao is a writer with the SheThePeople team, in the Opinions section. The views expressed are author’s own.