Daughters of the East

JYOTI MALHOTRA
The Telegraph, April 2007


Time was when the East was red and its daughters, fiery and fearless, led the charge of their respective national brigades. Indira Gandhi was synonymous with India, Benazir Bhutto had discarded the Oxford bags of her youth (pictures of her walking down the Mall in Shimla in 1972 along with her father are testimony of a simpler time) to become prime minister of Pakistan, while Chandrika Kumaratunga swore, the assassinated body of her husband as witness, to keep alive her father’s political legacy in Sri Lanka.

Over the years, Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh neatly divided the country between themselves, and around the BNP and Awami League. Megawati Sukarnoputri, named by Biju Patnaik, a friend of Mega’s father, Sukarno, because she was born on a wind-and-rain-swept night, had taken up the reins in Indonesia. Meanwhile, as Burma gave way to Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi married an Englishman but returned to fight – and win, then lose again – the good political fight in Rangoon-Yangon.

Meanwhile, in the hurly-burly at home, in political houses where the men gossiped and plotted over tea and more male company, the women were beginning to make their presence felt. Uma Bharati, Vasundhara Raje and Sushma Swaraj in the BJP, as different as chalk from cheese, Mayawati in the BSP, Jayalalithaa in the AIADMK, Mamata Banerji in the Trnamool Congress, and as little as two years ago, Brinda Karat, the first Politburo member of the CPI(M).

Wives and widows, daughters and mistresses, all these women sat squarely on top of the Asian landscape, defining both fashion and politics, and refusing to be defensive about the difference.

These were Asia’s tigresses, and as many an anonymous male commentator refusing to rise above the cliché put it, they didn’t hesitate to flaunt their unsheathed claws.

Clearly, Asia’s women leadership had collapsed the spectrum between the `devi’ and the `devadasi.’ They had arrived.

Or had they?

In retrospect, it seems as if the dreams died first. Khaleda Zia, who took power after her husband was assassinated in 1981, and ran her party and the country for many years since, fell prey to the doting-son syndrome, Asia’s worst endemic disease. It is said that she loved watching the Indian ``saas-bahu’’ serials at home, while her elder son, Tarique Rahman, ran the country in her name, amassing untold wealth. Two weeks ago the army-backed government in Dhaka threw him in jail. Khaleda is now said to be finalizing a deal wherein she and her sons will live happily ever after in Saudi Arabia, in return for the promise that she will not return to politics in Bangladesh.

Sheikh Hasina, meanwhile, has already gone one better. Having left for the US last month to be with her son and ailing daughter-in-law, she is now said to have postponed her plans to return. In Dhaka, they say, Hasina’s already cut a deal with the army to stay away permanently.

``Their hatred and enmity for each other, typical of a shabby, Bengali, middle-class mentality, destroyed the country. Instead of behaving like politicians, they behaved like silly women, thereby allowing the Army to take the advantage of the situation,’’ said a Bangladeshi journalist.

So what happened ? Why were Asia’s women leaders unable to transform the political dynasties they had inherited on a platter, into national ideas of their own making? Why did they fall prey to the idea that they did not have what it really takes to keep winning?

Benazir Bhutto, for example, would rather sit in airconditioned comfort in Dubai and London and continually complain about Musharraf’s dictatorship – instead of taking the first flight back to Pakistan and risk the fact of being arrested and sent to jail.

If Benazir was really a political animal, she would know that the salt of her sweat in the heat and grime of Sind would smell sweeter than all the perfumes of Arabia. And what better way than to revamp her political party than from behind the bars of Karachi jail?

Former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, who has served in Indonesia as ambassador, points out that ``it is not enough to have name recognition, you must be able to govern as well.’’

Megawati may have encashed in on her surname and liberal Muslim family values when she won, but she lost to Yudhyono because she was unable to properly govern Indonesia. In her time, the troublesome province of Aceh continued to burn with separatist desire, but Yudhyono was able to persuade Aceh’s chief rebel to become governor. Similarly, Yudhyono has seemed to walk the fine line between Islamic fundamentalism and liberal views in a much more able way.

Some say that women leaders, like Chandrika Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka, despite their impeccable political lineage (after her prime minister father was assassinated, her mother became the first female prime minister in the world), are unable to let their political rivals take credit for political processes.

So when Ranil Wickeramasinge became prime minister in 2001, Chandrika as president was not able to put aside her political differences with him and take the peace process with the LTTE to its logical, bi-partisan conclusion.

``Chandrika failed to carry the opposition with her, she couldn’t let Ranil take credit for ending the civil war in Sri Lanka,’’ said one analyst. When the peace process began to falter, Chandrika had to make way for Mahinda Rajapakse. The current president prefers to deal militarily with the LTTE, rather than politically. Today the peace process seems just as dead as the Mauritian dodo.

Nasim Zehra, a Pakistani analyst, points out that women leaders are often unable to sustain their victories not because they don’t have it in them, but because threatened patriarchies gang up to pull them down again.

In fact, the CPM’s Central Committee as recently as December 2005, had to tell its own cadres ``to uphold democratic practices like registration of marriages… equal treatment to their daughters and sons..’’ The party document pointed out that sometimes, when two comrades got married, the marriage ``becomes a barrier for the woman’s advance, because once married, she is expected to play the role of a housewife, giving up her political life.’’

Uma Bharati’s alleged idiosyncrasies as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh may be the subject of many a joke and a sneer, just like the derogatory ``kitchen Cabinet’’ used to describe Indira Gandhi’s inner circle. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who was PM of Sri Lanka three times, was often referred by her detractors as a ``kitchen woman,’’ someone who knew lots about running a kitchen, rather than running a country.

Coomi Kapoor, Contributing Editor to the Indian Express, points out that Mayawati is a classic case of a woman leader who hijacked the BSP from under her patron, Kanshi Ram’s nose, even before he was disabled by his stroke. Today, Mayawati, seems all set to storm Uttar Pradesh in the coming elections.

``It is much easier to pillory women politicians like Mamata Bannerji and Uma Bharati as strident and hysterical, but when male leaders like Laloo Yadav do the same, its considered such a joke,’’ says Kapoor.

Sushma Swaraj’s phenomenal memory and ability with languages makes her a natural politician, commentators say, pointing out that with her big red bindi and full `sindoor’ she nevertheless remains a victim of her own ``karva chauth’’ image. On the other hand, the wresting of the party mantle from MGR’s wife, Janaki, by Jayalalithaa shows the stuff she is made up of. Many observers felt that in the next elections in Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa and her AIADMK would be back with a bang.

Clearly, no one symbolises the pros and cons of the dynasty Vs grassroots debate as well as Sonia Gandhi. As the ultimate outsider, in the 2004 elections, the Gandhi widow delivered the country to the Congress party. Rahul, who remains the reluctant heir, has been propelled into the political limelight, even though Priyanka, who all of India acknowledges is a political natural like her grandmother, has chosen not to compete with her beloved brother.

Like everything else, then, the truth about Asia’s women leaders also lies somewhere in the middle. While dynasties remain an advantage, and offer brand recognition in the madding crowd – like the Gandhis, Bhuttos, Kumaratungas and Sukarnoputris – women leaders like Mayawati or Jayalalithaa or Mamata will make the grade only when their audiences feel they can deliver.

ENDS