False morality in midst of immorality (PO)

M D Nalapat

During her younger days, the present Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha (House of the People, or Lower House in Parliament) Sushma Swaraj was a modern woman, definitely in step with the most progressive elements of the 20th century. Originally a Socialist before she joined the conservative Hindu-centric Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 1990s, Swaraj championed the right of a woman to her own lifestyle, earning for herself condemnation from those who believe that a woman’s role is what has been described by the ancient Indian lawgiver Manu: as a slave of first her father, then her husband and finally her own son. She dressed soberly but attractively, and refused to observe “purdah” and avoid contact with men. In the modern world, men and women need to work closely together, so it was understandable that Ms Swaraj (who is happily married) functioned in close proximity to such socialist giants as former Defense Minister George Fernandes and former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, steadily rising in stature as a woman politician who understood the need for India’s society to modernize and move away from ancient restrictions and prejudices. However, once she took over as Information and Broadcasting Minister in the BJP-led government in 1998, Sushma Swaraj had a transformation, even demanding that female newsreaders in the state-run broadcasting service cover their arms fully while on air.

Clearly, this new avatar of a once-progressive woman politician would have been comfortable with the dress code enforced in Iran, where a woman has to be fully draped even in the privacy of her own home when men are present who are not husbands and sons However, Ms Swaraj should not be blamed for such a return into the medieval past. She naturally wishes to someday become the second lady PM after Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi, and has calculated that only a Saudi-style adherence to “modesty” and to its enforcement will gain her the support of conservatives in the BJP, many of whom marry off their daughters at a young age and are against the teaching of English to the young. These days, she demurely covers her head and modestly lowers her gaze when men are present, a very different avatar from her bold, pathbreaking past, a past that energized and motivated hundreds of thousands of young Indian women to follow her example and break free from the fetters of convention into a lifestyle that is closer to that followed in Europe or China.

Cost of an Indian life $500 (PO)

M D Nalapat Prime Minister Rajiv Ratna Birjees Gandhi’s political future was permanently darkened by the 1987 revelations about illegal payments made for purchase of Bofors guns. At the time, there were suggestions that the media frenzy in India was being fuelled by leaks from a competitor of Bofors that had lost the gun contract. Whatever the source, the information about illegal payments was so detailed that Rajiv Gandhi spent his last two years in office firefighting, his effectiveness eroded despite an overwhelming majority in Parliament. The Bofors wave resulted in the Congress Party’s defeat in the 1989 Lok Sabha (Lower House) elections,resulting in the formation of a government headed by Rajiv’s former Defense Minister V P Singh, whose main campaign slogan was that he would bring the guilty to book within a year. Of course, nothing of the kind happened. As soon as V P Singh began to occupy the Prime Minister’s spacious office in South Block, his enthusiasm for Bofors died, perhaps because quite a few of his allies were also implicated in the scandal. Instead of seeking to clean up the administrative machinery of the Government of India (where people turn from paupers to billionaires in a year’s time), V P Singh decided to let loose caste fury across the country, by pushing for a higher reservation for “Backward Castes” in government jobs. This group ranks just above Dalits in the traditional Hindu hierarchy (which incidentally is largely followed by Christians and Muslims as well, who are each divided into “high”, “middle” and “low” castes, although not on paper. The resultant uproar led to his resignation and replacement by political rival Chandra Shekhar, who in his turn was quickly overthrown by Rajiv Gandhi, who sensed that his party could return to power in the elections. The Congress Party did get close to a majority in 1992,but this was due to the sympathy wave that followed the assassination of the young leader by the LTTE, in revenge for his having sent an Indian military force to Sri Lanka four years earlier.