Nehru-Gandhi family

By M L Kotru

Only the other day the BJP trumpeteer Pramod Mahajan had told us that the saffronites did not believe in political dynastical/heirarchies. Nor did he, by implication, accept transplants from such heirarchies. In fact so obssessed was he with one such family that he went on record saying that Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, grand children of Indira Gandhi and heirs, therefore, to the Nehru-Gandhi legacy, cannot hold any constitutional office because both their parents were not of Indian origin.

Unusually for him, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who sees himself built in the Nehruvian mould and would indeed like to be remembered as such, also joined the Mahajan bandwagon asserting that his party did not impose leaders but allowed them to grow from within the party fold. The obssession with the Nehru-Gandhi family, or, say, running it down, has been a full time occupation of the saffronite parivar ever since the BJP got a taste of power, thanks to its partners in the National Democratic Alliance.

But history has a tendency of softening the bitterness of memories and the BJP can well argue that it is time for it to move on and steal some teeny, weeny bit of the Nehruvian aura. So, it was perhaps not so surprising to see the BJP leadership going gaga when one of the Nehru-Gandhians (one and a half as a matter of fact, because the half is yet under age and therefore unable to contest) formally made it the safedronite camp.

Party President Venkaiah Naidu and Mahajan- the latter had managed the ''coup'' flanked Menaka Gandhi and the twenty something son Varun were obviously overjoyed while presenting the mother-son twosome at the largely attended Press conference with TV crews, informed in advance, in full attendance. Naidu even chose to fill their primary membership forms himself, with cameras whirring, to capture the historic moment-link-up of the BJP with the Nehru-Gandhi parivar.

Forgotten was the agony of the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi of which we have been given vivid accounts by many, not excluding the venerable Lal Krishen Advani, who had even penned down a diary of those agonising days in a prison cell. Don't you forget that Advani, the Deputy Prime Minister, did not very long ago make the journey to the cell in which he was incarcerated during the Emergency, with the usual TV crews in tow.

The 'mudda' (issue) of the BJP campaign, Mrs Sonia Gandhi heading the rival Congress campaign, was forgotten in the hour of BJP's ''triumph'' when it had finally roped in Maneka and Varun. Not that Maneka had been very far from the party. She did serve stints in the Vajpayee Government before quitting, not without throwing a tantrum a la J.Jayalalitha. But then how could the party overlook the significance of the occasion when parading the junior bahu of Indira Gandhi and her grandson as their very own.

Sonia's Italian origin may meanwhile continue be to trotted out as a major issue by the BJP. We already have Mahajan saying a firm 'no, to Rahul and Priyanka, Rajiv Gandhi's children. Mahajan, always very eloquent, with that other master of the twisted word, Law Minister, Arun Jaitely, have been telling us these past few months with boring regularity of the redundance of the Congress Party and its servility to the Nehru-Gandhi parivar. Truthfully, though it would seem that the induction of a blue-blooded scion of the Nehru-Gandhi clan, Varun Gandhi to wit, may have the potential of weakening the BJP's argument against the dynasty. The BJP may not have been the only party to have railed against the Nehru-Gandhis but its problem becomes ununderstandable given the fact that it has over the past few years projected itself as a national alternative to the Nehru-Gandhis. Some see a large republican principle having been put at stake in the revalidation of the Nehru Gandhi family, But BJP sees a tactical advantage in the Varun Gandhi induction. And the Congress cannot but watch gleefully at the legitimisation of the dynasty's credentials by Prime Minister himself when he received Maneka and Varun immediately after their well publicised induction.

The Varun entry into the BJP, signifying a virtual negation of what the BJP had been preaching for long should indeed be seen as a set-back to democratic principles. It must at the same time remain uncertain whether Varun's presence in the party ranks will make any difference to its fortunes. A direct scion of the Nehru household, the Allahbadwallahs, Arun Nehru, hardly added anything to the overall weight the last time over. In fact Arun Nehru has been all but forgotten; he now keeps himself busy now writing about political fortunes of various political parties.

But you have the word of Venkaiah Naidu informing us that the BJP did not live in the past. That was while answering a question at the glitzy cremoney at the BJP office. Someone asked him if he did not find it uncomfortable to be in the company of Nehru-Gandhis (Varun and Maneka were onstage with him) who had imposed Emergency, or uncomfortable with the though that Maneka's husband and Varun's father, Sanjay Gandhi was generally scene as the villain during the months the Emergency lasted.

By this logic it would seem that there is nothing wrong with those who are striving hard to cash in on the Nehru-Gandhi legacy, namely the Congress party headed by Indira Gandhi's senior 'bahu'. Sonia Gandhi. A natural corollary would be for Priyanka Wadra and Rahul Gandhi to come out into the open stand up to be counted. In fact they should have done it a year or so ago.

For, don't we have Laloo Prasad Yadav proclaiming that there is nothing wrong in building up political dynasties. If a lawyer's son can be a lawyer why can't a politician's son or daughter be a politician. If a businessman's son can inherit his father's business why should a politician's son be barred from taking over his father's or mother's legacy? Isn't Mulayam Singh Yadav assiduously building up his young son's (an MP already) political career? Did'nt the Shuklas of Madhya Pradesh rule the roost in that State for many long years? Hasn't Arjun Singh ensured his son's victory in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls when his party was nearly wiped out ? Or, Natwar Singh working overtime to put his son on a political gaddi. You have it happening all over the country with the sole exception perhaps off West Bengal where the Marxists have by and large managed to keep to the straight path.

Remember the crisis which Karunakaran, well into his 80s, created in Kerala and would be satisfied only after Chief Minister Antony inducted his son into the Cabinet, and the old man is now busy building up a political nest for his daughter. Speaking of daughters I am reminded of Mehbooba Mufti, the Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed's daughter. Hers must remain a singular instance of a son or daughter bulding up a constituency all her own. The PDP of which she is now the President and which heads the coalition in the States is largely a creation of hers. Her total identification with the sufferings of the people in the valley caught in the cross-fire between the Security Forces and Pakistani terrorists did not go unrecognised. Even today, with her own party's government in power Mehbooba has made it her business to serve as a watchdog of people's right sand their concerns. But such exceptions are very rare indeed in our polity which has largely become a handmaiden of a political class so immersed in the task of feathering its own nest.

Are women the worst sufferers?
Men and Matters

By B.L. Kak

Unabated are the noises against man-made problems the women have been subjected to. This has been true of India. And this is equally true of countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. In these countries, the administrations do talk of democracy, but they are doing little to improve the lot of their women.

Indian women, by and large, may not be as miserable as the womenfolk in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq continue to be, for example. But the fact remains that there has been, in recent times, a phenomenal increase in the cases of sexual assaults not only in Delhi but also in several other areas of India.

It is not unknown that the Law Commission recommended changing the focus from rape to 'sexual assault'. The Commission's report on the Review of Rape Laws recommended the deletion of Section 155 (4) of the Indian Evidence Act, which would prevent a victim of rape from being cross-examined about her ''general Immoral charactor'' and sexual history. It suggested graded sentences, with higher punishment for rape committed by the relatives and persons in ''trust and authority'', public servants, and superintendents, management and staff of hospitals.

The Law Commission suggested that the law relating to sexual assault be made gender neutral- that is, men and women can be charged with the rape of men, women and children. This meant that for the first time the sexual assault of minor boys was made prosecutable under the law. It asked for Section 377 of the IPC to be dropped, thus decriminalising sodomy. The Commission raised the age of consent of the wife from 15 to 16 years, after which the woman is not protected from the rape by the husband.

The 2002 winter session of Parliament witnessed an important event, with the Government enacting an amendment, which deleted Section 155 (4) and inserted a proviso to Section 146 of the Indian Evidence Act. It, clearly, meant that a victim of rape can no longer be questioned about her past sexual conduct and her 'general immoral character'.

Honour killings have no justification; they need to be stopped in Pakistan with an iron hand. But little has been done to check this crime. It is fairly widespread in the rural and feudal areas of Pakistan. Gen Parvez Musharraf has not introduced any laws that take away from the rights of women.

But he cannot deny the fact that he has done nothing to check those like the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) who have introduced the Sharia law that works essentially against women in their states. Gen Musharraf will have to admit yet another reality that he has taken no official action to check honour killings. Foreign television networks have actually carried interviews with those who had killed their womenfolk as if their murder was totally justified.

While these people are not arrested and tried under the law, it appears that they escape official attention and live to brag about the murders committed in the name of their honour. Worse, indeed, is the situation in the neighbouring Afghanistan.

Oppressed for years under the Taliban, Afghan women did expect official steps to ensure better living conditions with the installation of the civilian rule in the country. But the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, has been able to do little for his country's women. Pretty disturbing is the phenomenon these days: Warlords in Afghanistan are targetting women in burqa. And some of the warlords have been identified by the women as being worse than others, but are part of the Loya Jirga and the circle close to Hamid Karzai.

Undisputed fact of the recent history: A woman member of Loya Jirga was thrown out of a meeting when she tried to focus attention on this aspect, and demanded that the warlords be tried for the crimes they had committed against the women of Afghanistan before they were inducted into the Loya Jirga. The revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (PAWA) has let it be known that oppression of women are becoming institutionalised and kidnappings and rape are on the increase.

Americans should be proud that they ousted the Taliban. As US President, George W Bush, declared in his 2002 State of the Union address, ''Mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captives in their own homes... Today women are free''. But they are not. More than two years later, any Afghan women are still captives in their homes.

Life is better in Kabul than under the Taliban. But in many areas, as proclaimed by The New York Times the other day, American triumphalism ''is proving hollow''. Some instances in support of this finding: When a man was accused of murder recently, his relatives were obliged to settle the blood debt by handing over two girls, ages 8 and 15, to marry men in the victims family; second, the Afghan Supreme Court has banned female singers from appearing on Afghan television, banned married women from attending high school classes and ordered restrictions on the hours when women can travel without a male relative.

Third, a 16-year-old girl fled her 85-year-old husband, who married her when she was nine. She was caught and recently sentenced to two and a half years' imprisonment; fourth, in Herat, Afghanistan's major city, women who are found with an unrelated man are detained and subjected to a forced gynaecological examination. At last count, 10 of these 'virginity tests' were being conducted daily; fifth, a woman in Afghanistan now dies in childbirth every 20 minutes.

Honour killings of girls and forced early marriages are deeply ingrained. An Afghan proverb says : ''A girl should have her first period in her husband's house and not her father's house''. And the American publication insists that the women in the now Afghanistan, oven, are being kidnapped, raped, married against their will to old men, denied education, subjected to virginity tests and imprisoned in their homes.

Iraq under US occupation does not provide a rosy picture in relation to women there. Iraqi women, who were well educated and relatively free, are being compelled to remain indoors, stop working and wear the hijab. There is enough evidene to suggest that fundamentalism has taken hold of Iraq. Taking the situation as it is, the Bush administration has very little room for manoeuvre in Iraq. If it opts for federalism, it would annoy Shia community, which has been patiently waiting for power.

If the Bush administration makes concessions to the Sunnis, there will be a regime that will be a Baathist one for all practical purposes but without Saddam Hussein at the helm. The Bush administration may ultimately prefer a Sunni-dominated authoritarian regime to a popularly elected Shia-dominated Government. The Iraqi women, under one regime or the other, cannot expect wonders in their favour.

The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), which monitors the global progress in meeting the Education for All (EFA) targets, has painted a dismal picture through its report titled 'Gender and Education for All--The Leap to Equality'. It makes a pointed reference to the unfulfilled targets and also highlights the undeniable link between poverty and enrolment levels in schools.

The UNESCO report has also made a pointed reference to the prevalence of social norms and cultural practices that work against the enrolment of girls. The 415-page report says that if the Governments are not able to meet the goals by 2005, they are less likely to fulfil the rest of the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) by 2015, the eradication of poverty being one of them.

And if the report is any guide, there has been a shift towards a greater gender parity, particularly at the primary level, where the ratio of girls to boys enrolled increased from 88 to 94 per cent between 1990 and 2000. The report points out that 60 per cent of the 128 countries for which data were available are unlikely to reach the gender parity goals by 2015.