Power of ‘parkati’ women

From Mandalised intellectuals (both male and female), to RSS patriarchs, to brahmanical poll pundits, to superior television anchors, to jeering, sneering male MPs, all are united in their loathing for the “parkati aurat”. It is a brutal hatred, dressed up as political analysis, and can be described as the “Mandal mindset”. The Mandal mindset is an attitude that considers Vasundhara Raje and Sheila Dikshit politically irrelevant, not because of their achievements or ideology, but simply because of the families they come from, the clothes they wear or the educational institutions they may have been fortunate enough to attend.

But the Indian voter, praise Mirabai, has never been as narrowly judgemental as the sneering intellectuals in the cities. As far as the Indian voter is concerned, when princesses hit the dirt track, he first turns up to watch. And, if he likes them, if he is moved by the quality of their work or the sincerity in their voice, he gives them his vote.

Urban psephologists poured scorn on Vasundhara’s parivartan yatra, ridiculed her costume changes and yelled that she would never be able to learn better Hindi. But the voter turned up in great numbers from Ganganagar to Barmer to Alwar to listen to her speeches. Media czars scorned Sheila Dikshit in her first term saying she would never be able to survive in a bitterly divided party like the Delhi Congress or ever be able to take on local warlords like Sajjan Kumar or Jagdish Tytler. But the Indian voter listened to Dikshit’s no-nonsense speeches and gave her a second term.

Intellectuals unleashed venom on Vasundhara. She doesn’t know Rajasthan, they will never accept an aurat, she’s rootless, she’ll never be able to touch a chord, she’s nothing but a Delhi socialite. But the Indian voter made no such judgments. The Indian voter heard her say that she would represent not just Hindus but also Muslims. They heard her say she would try and provide jobs. They heard her say she would strive for Rajasthani handicrafts. More than all this, they saw, that when most male politicians were snoring in air-conditioned rooms during the summer, Vasundhara Raje was touring the districts in her parivartan yatra, and however tokenist her costume changes may have been, the voter saw that here was a woman who was trying, and trying very hard, to win their hearts. For the first time ever in Rajasthan, a state with one of the most chilling social indicators in India, where a feudal culture of obeisance stamps out female liberty, the voter was being given a progressive choice. They didn’t care whether Vasundhara was English-speaking or Hindi-speaking or Dutch-speaking, whether she was salt of the earth or sugar of the earth, whether she was wearing nylon or chiffon or khadi, all they cared about was the promise of development held out by the lone woman on stage. Nowhere is the savage gap between the hate-filled metropolitan pundits and the Indian voter more apparent than in the sharply contrasting treatment given to Vasundhara Raje, a five-time winner from her constituency, a conscientious minister and diligent MP.

Male politicos detest Sheila Dikshit. Nothing but a tail of Sonia Gandhi, they say dismissively. An elite woman with no grassroots support, bah, who cares about Aunty Sheila? The Delhi voter does. The voter doesn’t care that Sheila Dikshit wears handloom silk, or that she speaks convent-educated English or that she lives in genteel Nizamuddin. The voter only cares about the fact that Sheila Dikshit has pulled off visible development in Delhi. No empty promises, no cunning caste combinations, no soft hindutva, no temple-visiting or mosque and gurudwara -tourism, but simply development that is visible. New flyovers, the metro, the CNG buses, Bhagidari scheme, the anti-pollution drive and privatised power. The voter noted the pathetic contrast provided by Khurana, who remained associated with an older sleazier type of politics. However “rooted”, “authentic” and “male”, Khurana may be, the voter made no mistake about choosing the ‘parkati’ woman who holds the key to Delhi’s future.

Elite women have played a tremendous role in India. In the 19th century, Kadambini Ganguly became the first woman to address the joint session of Congress. Kalpana Joshi and Pritilata Waddedar were crucial participants in the Chittagong Armoury Raid. Later, there was Mridula Sarabhai, Sucheta Kripalani, Sushila Nayar, Aruna Asaf Ali and Tarakeshwari Sinha.

It has been acknowledged that hindutva has been marginalised in these elections: the voter has shouted that only when the BJP is moderate and development-oriented will they vote for it. But another stereotype has also been defeated in these elections and this is that women who are not backward caste are politically irrelevant. Privileged women have an undoubtedly unfair advantage and the biases of party bosses like Laloo Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav are natural. But these elections have shown that the voter doesn’t care too hoots about gender or background if governance is at the heart of a speech, whether the speech is delivered in fluent or broken Hindi.