Nirmala Sitaraman has clearly been the highlight of the day. Some twitter handles even went to the extend of comparing Sushama-Nirmala-Smriti as Lakshmi-Durga-Saraswati . Interestingly, I guess none of these names actually directly indicate a goddess' name - perhaps these names mean "beauty", "purity" and "memory". The one lady in the cabinet with actually a goddess' name - Uma - made it to some posters featuring all 4 of them, but most postures were about the 3 .. Clearly, the generation who perhaps looked up to Uma for her heroics (or whatever is the feminine of that) during Ayodhya movement is dwindling, or more likely, even among them "performance with soft-hindutva" scores better than hollow hindutva - signs of the aspirations of India-2020 and beyond ....
Now, there is another school of thought - the whole idea of seeing gender in everything , itself is a leftist notion. So why congratulate Nirmala for being the "first real woman Defence Minister", just congratulate her on getting to one of the top-most positions on her merit.. Remember Indira Gandhi, all said and done, was thrust-in as a heir apparent - though later she may have proved to be good (in some sense). What if she were not born into an "aristocrat" family as the Nehru's ?
Yet another interesting comment was made by one of the journalists on TV - " This is going to change nothing for the woman who get raped daily in India. For the common woman, this isn't going to change anything". That one is interesting, because if BJP did not have these many women occupying key posts in the cabinet, the typical comment would be "Look, typical patriarchal party". And now that the party did entrust these women, it suddenly becomes "tokenism" for these journos !
An RSS friend of mine, who used to volunteer a lot for some of Seva Bharati's charity activities (including trying to raise funds) used to tell me - people used to tell (in the 90s..) that instead of trying to build a temple in ayodhya, or oppose valentines day, why doesnt the RSS do some charity ? And now with RSS (and affiliates) as one of the biggest Seva networks in the world, when the same people are approached for funds, the talk goes "Oh no, I don't want to donate to xyz group because it has links with RSS". Damned if you do, damned if you don't
Alright, I quoted this and that, do I have a view here ? Well, yes, and simple.. India is slowly but steadily heading back to its svabhaava - to its natural self. Its svabhaava it is to have Lakshmi-Durga-Saraswati handle important portfolios. And this, is manifesting in a new pan-India way ... if the AsmaKhanPathans and AnjaliGeorges and SaswatiSarkars are not indications of it, if a JNU educated, Tamil born, wed to a Telugu Nirmala Sitaraman is not indication of it, then what else is ?
Now, there is another school of thought - the whole idea of seeing gender in everything , itself is a leftist notion. So why congratulate Nirmala for being the "first real woman Defence Minister", just congratulate her on getting to one of the top-most positions on her merit.. Remember Indira Gandhi, all said and done, was thrust-in as a heir apparent - though later she may have proved to be good (in some sense). What if she were not born into an "aristocrat" family as the Nehru's ?
pic from: http://www.teluguone.com/vanitha/content/nirmala-sitharaman-944-29139.html#.WawQeWeHqWk
Yet another interesting comment was made by one of the journalists on TV - " This is going to change nothing for the woman who get raped daily in India. For the common woman, this isn't going to change anything". That one is interesting, because if BJP did not have these many women occupying key posts in the cabinet, the typical comment would be "Look, typical patriarchal party". And now that the party did entrust these women, it suddenly becomes "tokenism" for these journos !
An RSS friend of mine, who used to volunteer a lot for some of Seva Bharati's charity activities (including trying to raise funds) used to tell me - people used to tell (in the 90s..) that instead of trying to build a temple in ayodhya, or oppose valentines day, why doesnt the RSS do some charity ? And now with RSS (and affiliates) as one of the biggest Seva networks in the world, when the same people are approached for funds, the talk goes "Oh no, I don't want to donate to xyz group because it has links with RSS". Damned if you do, damned if you don't
Alright, I quoted this and that, do I have a view here ? Well, yes, and simple.. India is slowly but steadily heading back to its svabhaava - to its natural self. Its svabhaava it is to have Lakshmi-Durga-Saraswati handle important portfolios. And this, is manifesting in a new pan-India way ... if the AsmaKhanPathans and AnjaliGeorges and SaswatiSarkars are not indications of it, if a JNU educated, Tamil born, wed to a Telugu Nirmala Sitaraman is not indication of it, then what else is ?
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