Sexism rules, ok!

Don’t sweat the small stuff; it’s the big picture that really matters

When it comes to sexism and misogyny in politics – or indeed in public life – I can’t help but feel that we tend to miss the wood for the trees. We are so busy protesting and outraging against the slings and arrows of everyday political discourse that we completely miss the big-ticket discrimination right under our noses.

Take the recent brouhaha over Vinay Katiyar’s sexist comments about Priyanka Gandhi. Asked what he thought of Priyanka as a star campaigner in the UP Assembly election, Katiyar scoffed that there were much prettier stars campaigning for the BJP. To her credit, Priyanka retorted with good humour: “He’s right, they do!” But then she added for good measure: “If that’s all he sees in my colleagues, who are such strong, brave, beautiful women, who have battled through all sorts of hardships to get where they are, then he makes me laugh even more…”

Priyanka may have laughed it off, but the media were not amused. No sooner were Katiyar’s remarks reported than social media skirmishes began clogging everyone’s timelines as those attacking the BJP leader came up against the full fervor of the Bhakt Brigade. That evening’s prime-time news bulletins devoted hours to debating how awful these sexist remarks were and how Katiyar should be forced to apologise. (True to form, Katiyar refused to do so and even walked out of Nidhi Razdan’s show on NDTV when he ran out of excuses for his behavior.) And the next day’s newspapers headlined the Katiyar remarks, and Priyanka’s retort, asking other women politicians to weigh in on the issue.

All of it left me asking myself some tough questions. Did Vinay Katiyar’s comment offend me? Yes, it did. Should he have objectified both Priyanka and his own party’s women leaders in the way that he did? Of course not. Was it really that big a deal that every TV channel should lead on it? Well, I was not so sure about that one.

Sexist man makes sexist remark. Should we allow that stray remark to dominate the headlines? Or should we go with that old saying: “Dog bites man is not news; man bites dog is.”

Yes, sexism and misogyny are woven into the very fabric of our public life. And it behoves us to call them out whenever we can, as loud as we can, and as often as we can. But should we continually get distracted by the ‘dog bites man’ spectacle and talk of nothing else? Or should we look past these incidents to focus on stuff that really matters?

So, what does matter? Is it that women are constantly being objectified and commodified by male chauvinists? Or is it that women are so rarely seen and heard on our political scene (unless, or course, they are related to male politicians)? Is it that people are too focused on their looks? Or that they are, at the end of the day, virtually invisible?

Let’s take a quick look around. As of this writing, as Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls, of the 324 candidates that the SP has announced so far, only 24 are women (and one of them is Aparna Yadav, Mulayam’s daughter-in-law). The BJP has 36 women among the 304 candidates it has announced. The Congress has announced the names of 43 candidates, of which only two are women. And even the BSP, which has a woman leader in Mayawati, has only 18 women among its 401 candidates.

In Punjab, the number of female candidates in the fray is also abysmal. The Shiromani Akali Dal has five women among its 94 candidates. AAP, which is contesting 112 seats has only nine women candidates. And of the Congress’ 117 candidates, only 11 are women.

The absence of women is, if anything, even more marked in Goa. Here, AAP is fielding five women, the Congress has three female candidates while the BJP has just the one.

Now, here’s an issue that I would like to see debated in prime-time TV news shows. That is the headline that I would like to see in my newspaper. Where are the women? Why are they missing in action? Why do we see so few female faces on the campaign trail?

I really don’t care whether they are pretty or not. Or how Vinay Katiyar – or any other male politician, for that matter – rates their looks. These are minor irritants. Let’s not allow them to distract us from the things that really matter. Men commenting on women’s looks is small stuff; men depriving women of opportunities is what we should be outraged about.

And no, don’t go waving the red rag of the Women’s Reservation Bill at me. You know as well as I do that it will never get passed. But there is nothing preventing political parties from reserving a third of their seats for women off their own bat. So why don’t they put their candidate list where their mouths are, and show us the tickets?

I don’t think this will happen any time soon. But until it does, let’s outrage about it as loud and clear as we can.

Family matters

We may rave and rant about dynasty in politics: but we think nothing of building up our own

Are you in the mood to conduct a little social experiment this Sunday? Well, if you are, I have something for you. Ask your friends and family what they hate most about Indian politics. If I am guessing right, then most of the respondents will answer: dynasty.

Strange, isn’t it? There are so many things wrong with Indian politics and our system of governance. There is an ever-widening gap between rich and poor. We claim to be a putative superpower but plead helplessness when it comes to feeding our starving millions with grain that is rotting away in government godowns. Both the Kashmir imbroglio and the Naxalite problem seem to rage on without an end in sight.

Our politicians make money off everything from the Commonwealth Games to arms purchases to the IPL. But it seems that corruption is now so endemic that it does not even occasion comment. So, our politicians are corrupt. Well, yes, and the sky is blue. No need to hold the front page then.

But dynasty? Now, that’s different. That’s the one thing that we middle-class folk can get all worked up about. Why is it that every politician’s son and daughter regards it as his or her god-given right to enter politics? Why do political parties treat parliamentary seats as something that can be passed down from one generation of a family to the other? Isn’t it a shame that we the electorate keep voting in members of the same family again and again? India has always had a slightly feudal mind-set, but frankly, this is ridiculous.

If this goes on for much longer, we mutter ominously, all political power will soon be restricted to a few hundred families who will control all our resources and rule over us with impunity. And soon no outsider will be able to breach the system, no matter how good he or she is. How on earth will our system throw up a Barack Obama-type figure, we wail, when it restricts entry to family members only?

All of this is entirely true. And none of this is good for India. But, as always, there is more to this story.

It is a measure of our hypocrisy as a people that even as we moan and groan about dynasty in politics, we see no contradiction in building up dynasties of our own in our own backyards. In fact, we actually thrive on it, draw pride from it, and treat it as a measure of our success as parents.

Look around you. Chances are that if your friends are lawyers, their children are studying law as well (and will inherit the practice in due course). If they are doctors, then the kids will probably follow them into medicine (and yes, inherit the practice). In the media, too, children tend to follow the lead of their parents, becoming journalists either in print or in television – though, unfortunately, only a handful are lucky enough to inherit a media empire.

And that’s just the professionals. In the world of business, things are even worse. Even if families own a minuscule fraction of the company, it is taken for granted that the children will take over as CEO or MD in due course. With privately-owned companies, the sense of entitlement is even worse. Rare is the Narayan Murthy or Nandan Nilekani, who builds up an empire and does not leave it to his kids.

But dynasties flourish in other areas as well. Films are the most visible example where every hero of yesteryear treats it as matter of macho pride to launch his son in a blockbuster movie (somehow the same macho pride does not extend to the daughters, though).

Look at the film industry today. With the exception of Shah Rukh Khan, every other leading actor is a filmi kid. Salman Khan’s father is Salim of Salim-Javed fame; Hrithik Roshan’s father is former hero Rakesh Roshan; Ranbir Kapoor is the son of Rishi and Neetu Kapoor; Bobby and Sunny Deol are the sons of Dharamendra. Even among the heroines a fair proportion of them are filmi kids: Karisma and Kareena Kapoor, Esha Deol, Kajol, etc.

So, what’s wrong with that, you say. Everybody has the right to choose the profession of their choice. And if it happens to be the profession of their parents as well, so what? They still have to make it on their own terms don’t they?

In the case of the doctors and lawyers, they have to work hard for their qualifications. Journos have to go out looking for jobs like everybody else (though conceivably their parents’ contacts would help – though, if you ask me, it is more likely that they would it hard to find someone Dad hadn’t rubbed up the wrong way). And the industrialists are just leaving what they had built up themselves to their kids.

But if you are going to put forth justifications, you could equally argue that politicians too have to earn their stripes like everybody else. It doesn’t matter how big a minister your Daddy is. You still have to win an election to get into Parliament. It doesn’t matter for how many generations your family has held the same seat. The voters still have to vote for you.

So, honestly speaking, what is the difference? It might be something to think about the next time you feel inclined to rage on about dynasty.

True to type?

Is it really necessary to slot people into one box or the other?

It never ceases to amaze me how quick we are to stereotype people. It could be based on how they dress, where they went to school, in which area they live, where they holiday, the accent in which they speak. In fact, almost any – and every – detail about a person is used to slot him in one category or the other.

If you went to a posh boarding school like Doon or Mayo, then you must be a child of privilege, a spoilt rich kid coasting along a path smoothed by Daddy’s millions. If you studied in an Ivy League college or in either Oxford or Cambridge, then you are an elitist snob who could never understand the concerns of common folk.

If you dress in a salwar-kameez or a sari, then you must be a behenji; if you wear a short skirt or a tight top then you must be a slut who is up for it; if you are into computers you must be a nerd; if you are fat you must be greedy; if you wake up late in the morning you must be lazy.

At one time or another, all of us resort to this kind of shorthand. Punjabi = loud and crude (I guess I can say that without fear being a loud and crude Punjabi myself). Bengali = ineffectual but intellectual. South Indian = brainy bureaucrat. Sindhi = crooked businessman. Gujarati = canny stock-exchange whiz. And so on.

Our propensity to stereotype people was brought home to me anew lately, thanks to my recent experiences on Twitter.

A couple of Pakistan-related tweets (I am as hawkish on the subject as you can get without turning into Arnab Goswami – no relation, I hasten to add) brought in such a flood of responses from rabid Hindutva types that I spent the rest of the day explaining that in my book anti-Pakistan does not equal anti-Muslim.

A series of anti-Shashi Tharoor tweets elicited much abuse on the lines of “You bloody BJP so-and-so, what do you know anyway?” as if nobody could have an independent view on the subject without subscribing to one political party or the other.

But what was far more disturbing was one lengthy exchange I had with another tweeter about a post on my blog. The piece was about my reaction to the ban on the burkha in some European countries and this lady wrote to say that she couldn’t believe that someone who wrote about Hermes scarves and Louis Vuitton bags could also write about such serious issues as the burkha.

Well, why ever not?

Why should we slot people into these little categories and take the view that they couldn’t possibly do anything else? It is possible to be interested in both fashion and finance, to have a view on both peep-toe shoes and politics, to be moved by both babies and Bach, to be a champion of women’s rights and yet oppose the Women’s Reservation Bill.

And yes, it is possible to write about both bags and burkhas.

Nonetheless, many of us find it hard to wrap our minds around the fact that every person is a sum of many parts. And while one of these parts may lust after a pair of red-soled pumps, another might want to embrace a red-hued political philosophy; one part may like the uplifting sound of a choral opera, another might be a fiend for hard-core heavy metal; one might have a strong streak of political activism while the other loves trawling glossy magazines for the latest celebrity gossip.

But few people are willing to take this idea on board. After all, it’s so much simpler to just stick people in one bracket or the other. It makes life much easier, doesn’t it?

So, those who read romantic novels must be frustrated in love and looking for the excitement they could never find in real life within the pages of a book. Detective stories and thrillers are for worthless, frivolous folk who would benefit for having their noses stuck in an improving biography or two. And classics of English literature are for those with intellectual pretensions, who like to pretend that they are too good for pulp fiction.

I should know how this goes. Over the years, I have taken a fair amount of flack over my reading habits. One former employer went into paroxysms of laughter when he saw me reading Georgette Heyer at an airport lounge. Only when no less an author than Amitav Ghose told him (much later) how great Heyer was at evoking an era, did he stop taking the mickey out of me. (Not that I cared; I am the kind who feels no shame in reading a lurid paperback in public.)

These days, some of my more politically-correct friends make much fun of the fact that among the many news sites I visit every day (Times Online, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, Huffington Post among others) is the Daily Mail’s online version. Suffice it to say that the words ‘Enoch Powell’ have been thrown around and on one occasion I was even likened to the Sikh who joined the BNP (no, seriously, I kid you not).

But you know what? I really don’t care. As far as I am concerned, this kind of stereotyping says more your prejudices than mine. And no, I wouldn’t dream of sticking you into one box or the other.