In our imagination, as also in the formal scheme of things, Parliament is supreme. It can hold the executive accountable, even overrule judicial pronouncements. That being the constitutional power vested in it, a summons from a Parliamentary committee is no small matter. A non-serious response to one, as seen in the case of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, is tantamount to an insult to the people of India. Equally, a summons on frivolous grounds chips away at the stature of Parliamentary institutions. 

Anurag Thakur, chairman of the standing committee on IT, should have pondered over these aspects before issuing a peremptory ‘appear before us’ order to a global leader of a social media platform because of a complaint of bias from a group called the Youth for Social Media Democracy. Thakur, who fashions himself as a youth leader of the BJP, may have seen this as a rightful response to an allegation emanating from a favourable constituency. But can Parliamentary panels become an inquisition body acting on partisan suspicions? Allegations that right-wing voices are being suppressed, or that the identities of shadowy Twitter handles are being revealed? 

Not that social media, Twitter in particular, is above scrutiny. As a platform, it’s not exactly known for pure, ideologically neutral dissemination of information or for providing a voice to the voiceless. Abuse is a default state, and anonymous handles routinely target women with an independent opinion. Not to mention algorithm editors making calculated choices for you. Has Thakur’s panel raised any of this? Did it react when women journalists and their families and children were threatened, abused, trolled? Move against bots and fake news? Not quite. A Parliamentary panel cannot be the site of partisan issues. People may have lost followers in recent months as part of what Twitter projects as a cleansing of fake accounts. That’s not a serious enough issue for India’s Parliament.