http://www.news18.com/news/india/opinion-dear-liberals-dont-push-your-agenda-over-gauri-lankeshs-dead-body-1513179.html

Gauri Lankesh was gunned down in Bengaluru on Wednesday. Twitter, Facebook and TV erupted within minutes over the brutal, inhuman, murder. Lankesh’s politics was well-known, no surprise then that it didn’t take Lutyens’ Delhi’s news anchors and ‘which caste-art-thou’ liberals much time to blame the BJP and RSS. Their presumptive conclusions and quick closure of Lankesh’s murder was based on troll handles — some of which might not even represent any citizen of this nation!

For a moment, let us forget the glorious legacy of Lankesh — the daughter of a revolutionary poet, a fierce advocate of her own brand of politics, an erstwhile Naxal sympathiser who had helped mainstream more than a dozen Maoists et al. Let us forget that she warned of infighting among her own ideologues. Let us forget her articles against her own ideological kin. 

Let us also forget that she was writing against the state government of Karnataka and was in the process of exposing industry-politics nexus in her state through her writings. Let us forget that she was being threatened. Let us forget the tweet she put out the day she was murdered. Let us forget all this because among other things she was also a hardline Hindutva critic. Let us hijack this last identity within her many identities and heat up our political bakery!

Yes, of course, Gauri Lankesh and I stand at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. So do the Sangh functionaries in Karnataka. But are we rejoicing at her murder? No. Are we supporting trolls who have been rejoicing at her death? No. Soon after news broke of her murder, I called up an RSS functionary in Karnataka and this is what he told me: “Gauriji was never supportive of the Sangh. But she helped society in her own way. We respected that. And we will continue to respect that. Despite her or anyone’s ideological affiliation, we are open to ideas that strengthen the nation, at large, and in the long run.”

So who are the vultures that are hovering around her corpse? Do they belong to just one colour of the ideological spectrum? Who are asking the right questions? And who are raising rhetorical flourish just to shield the real culprits? We need to name and shame one and all.

There are shameless violent handles on Twitter who are justifying Gauri’s death as if it is all part of an ideological war. That she had met a Frankenstein-like fate. I cringe at the thoughts of some of these self-appointed contractors of Hindu faith! I cringe at the mention of the eye-begets-eye narrative. Why is it that we cannot stand up and say united: murders are unacceptable. Period. As a Hindu woman who believes in the ideology that Gauri detested, let me categorically say it: Extremism is extremism. Murder is murder. Whatever the shade. Whatever the intent.

However, does this take away the merit of criticizing the selective outrage surrounding Gauri’s death? You may call it “whataboutery”, but I can’t help ask. Did the ‘what-caste-art-thou’ celeb anchors outrage even once on the death of Rajdeo Ranjan, who was killed by goons of Lalu Yadav’s partyman Mohammed Shahabuddin? Or Jagendra Singh, who was doing a story on the then UP Minority Affairs minister, Rammoorti Verma? Or Rajesh Verma, who was covering the Muzaffarnagar riots? Or M.V.N. Shankar, who was trying to expose the oil mafia? Or Tarun Kumar, a stringer in Odisha? Or Sai Reddy, who was killed by unidentified armed men, possibly Naxals in Bijapur? Or Ramchandra Chhatrapati in Sirsa? Or more than 40 journalists in the Northeast? And why did they not? Can we ask these questions please now?

Is it because none of these journalists wrote in English but in regional or Hindi language? Is it because none of them were as vocal against the Sangh Parivar as Gauri Lankesh was? Is it because they were less glamorous because they did not write for new propaganda foreign groups/citizens’ funded mushroom network of news-views websites? Why has there not been a swell of an uprising so far by the same select coterie? Why is some blood always a tad bit more darker for them?

How did these ‘journalists’ assume that ‘Hindu Terror groups’, as they are being referred to, killed Lankesh? What is the ulterior back channel arrangement or conversation that coaxes them to conceal that Lankesh was under threat from Naxals? Should we be hasty just as they have been and say that Gauri’s death is a carefully orchestrated mystery that surrounds the political reality of elections due in Karnataka in a few months from now? Should we say that the ruling dispensation in Karnataka and these journalists have a collusion that need expose as well?

Let us address sane straight concerns. Law and order is a state subject. Why have signature petitions not been started yet demanding Karnataka CM’s resignation? What stops them from collectively demanding accountability from the state government?

Let us ask questions. Let us demand answers. But let us do that in a tone, which is, sharp yet civil, sarcastic, if you may like, but parliamentary.

(The author is with India Foundation, views are personal)

http://www.news18.com/news/india/opinion-dear-liberals-dont-push-your-agenda-over-gauri-lankeshs-dead-body-1513179.html

Opinion | A Fan Girl's Ode to Nirmala Sitharaman, the Graceful Warrior

http://www.news18.com/news/india/opinion-a-fan-girls-ode-to-nirmala-sitharaman-the-graceful-warrior-1508289.html

In a recent article in the Organiser, decolonising gender discourse, I recalled the Indic way in which nari shakti or women power has culturally been understood and respected. I made an emphatic appeal to go to back to appreciating our Vedic worldview of looking at Indian women and power so that we realise the real impact of westernised model of feminist struggles.

Ideologically, the premise that women are an inferior sex never really held ground in the ancient Indic tradition. And historically, the legends of Rani Lakshmi Bai, Basantalata Hazarika, Tirot Sing Syiem, Rani Gaidinliu, Khuangchera, Rajkumari Gupta, Kittur Rani Chennamaa, Uda Devi, Janaky Athi Nahappan, Accamaa Cherian, Bhima Bai Holkar, Azizan Bai, Pritilata Waddedar, Rani Velu Nachiyar, Bhogeshwari Phuknani and Gulab Kaur among multiple others have proved the enthusiastic presence and mettle of women as frontier defence soldiers and commanders in the freedom struggle. However, it took more than seven decades in post-colonial India to have a woman at the helm of the all-important Defence Ministry.

Nirmala Sitharaman joins Modi's Cabinet as the first ever non-dynast woman Defence Minister after the reshuffle. This elevation is an assertion of many opinions on part of the ruling dispensation. First, that gender will not come in the way of one's merit, irrespective of the historical precedents. Let us have a quick look at the portfolios women have held in independent India thus far.

In Nehru's first cabinet, the sole woman minister Amrit Kaur handled the Health portfolio. In the second, third and fourth Nehru ministries, women were conspicuous by their absence. Similarly, Indira Gandhi – considered as the Durga of India, an epitome of women empowerment, did not allow any woman a ministerial berth in her cabinet in her entire political career. Rajiv Gandhi had one woman minister Mohsina Kidwai who held important portfolios. In Manmohan Singh's first regime, two women made it to the Cabinet. In UPA II too, two women occupied the Cabinet berth. The overall 10% representation of women in the entire ministry made Team Manmohan the most women-friendly cabinet. But in the new cabinet in 2014, women saw a 25% representation in Team Modi – the highest ever.

Second, this reshuffle asserted that women will not be relegated to traditionally considered soft roles of Health, Social Welfare, Women and Child Development, Textiles and Housing alone. With Sushma Swaraj in External Affairs, Smriti Irani in HRD, Uma Bharati in Water Resources and River Development first and Drinking Water & Sanitation now, and Nirmala Sitharaman in Commerce first and defence now, the Modi government has shattered the glass ceiling of ministerial untouchability in certain portfolios. Detractors might dub it symbolism, but this symbolism was much needed in a country obsessed with women in stereotypical roles of scrubbing dishes in popular culture in a primly tied sari with a pallu over her head.

Third, this is an ideological assertion of commitment towards women empowerment that resonates from a Prime Ministerial candidate in 2013 and early 2014 who for the first time called women home-makers and not derisively used the term house wives, in the hey days of his campaign. The carrying forward of that legacy in dealing with women and their role in his team as the Prime Minister is a historic opportunity that all feminists must lay claim to.

I have been a huge fan of Nirmala Sitharaman. I have been fortunate to interact with her at length when she visited Assam in 2015. She visited as the inaugural speaker at the Assam Nirman Dialogue Series that we at the BJP were organising as a part of a public consensus-building exercise for the state vision document.

Her graciousness to dress up in the traditional Assamese sari, her combative and tenacious spirit with which she dealt with detractors who wanted to corner her and pressurize her to accept the demands of business lobbies (she was the Commerce Minister then) and her graceful demeanour in accepting – and blushing at – profuse compliments that students offered her way, has had a huge impact on me.

As a Defence Minister, one is not just required to be hot-headed. One is required to have the maturity and grace to handle situations symbolically and otherwise. One is required to be firm without being too aggressive. And of course, one is needed to be sensitive to the fragility of bilateral ties despite tough defence equations. Nirmalaji has proved herself as a graceful warrior in the recent meeting with the Chinese delegates in trying times.

Here is wishing Nirmalaji all the best for her new innings and here is wishing all the women out there a renewed vigour in different battles we fight to claim our spaces.

(The author is with India Foundation, views are personal)

http://www.news18.com/news/india/opinion-a-fan-girls-ode-to-nirmala-sitharaman-the-graceful-warrior-1508289.html