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.
