20 July,2009 08:15 AM IST | | Amit Kumar
Allow me to prove that they're trying too hard to prove. Who, you'd ask. Everyone, from Mayawati to Rita Bahuguna, Jayalalitha to Mamata Banerjee, and Uma Bharti. But it was Indira Gandhi who set the trend, even though she can hardly be called a 'role model'. The charisma of that salt-pepper streaked lady can be aptly summed up in one sentence there was only one man in the Indian cabinet, and that was Indira Gandhi. The recent Mayawati-Rita Bahuguna Joshi controversy has only gone further to show how more and more women politicians in the country are going that extra mile to prove themselves like the Iron Lady, albeit coming too hard on. While the young Priyanka has always been compared to grandma Gandhi, others have involved themselves in petty politics, for nothing more than cheap thrills.
How can one forget Amma's revenge raj, when men in uniform marched down Karunanidhi's Oliver Road residence late at night, and broke open all doors. Her political rival, clad in all but a lungi and his signature black glasses, was grabbed by a stout police official and raped of all dignity. An instance of unforgettable power play.u00a0
Mamata, on the other hand, is yet to prove her mettle, and no one will believe she's changed for the better until she completes her present stint as railway minister successfully. On December 11, 1998, she held a Samajwadi Party MP, Daroga Prasad Saroj, by the collar and dragged him out of the Lok Sabha to prevent him from protesting against the Women's Reservation bill. Unarguably, political feminism at its fiercest.
More recently, in a recent parliament session, beast-woman (yes, irony intended) Maneka Gandhi snubbed Mulayam Singh Yadav over his, erru2026 English. A simple request to speak in Hindi, made by the latter, evoked a rude retort: "Mulayam Singh ji, I will speak in whatever language I wish to speak in." Even if that's one of violence, as in the case of fiery Sanyasin-politician Uma Bharti. The president of Bhartiya Janashakti Party (BJS) had slapped her party's district general secretary Anil Rai in full public view near the Government Circuit House in Chhindwara in November last year.u00a0
But no controversy, no aggression has gone far to bring any one of them closer to the ideal picture of a woman leader. There's hardly a name that fits the serious, modern, progressive, innovative individual picture. Each one is afraid of making health, development, education and welfare the centre of her politics, barring a few, like perhaps Sushma Swaraj and Sheila Dikshit. Maybe, it is the fear of being seen as 'too much of a woman' to be a man. The balance of yin and yang, well beaten out by power pangs.
