Till recently, we were ruing the fallout of DMK?s succession tussle between party president M Karunanidhi?s two sons. But then, a pleasant surprise in the form of a poet-daughter was sworn in as a DMK nominee to the Rajya Sabha. As Kanimozhi gets ready for her Parliament debut this week, it is interesting to reflect on the business of being a woman politician in the subcontinent.
However much the compilers of South Asian statistics on maternal mortality, female foeticide and ?gender bias? in South Asia might protest, the fact is that Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are all remarkable for having had elected women heads of state. This fact evokes surprise even in the US, where Hillary Clinton?s lead in the Democratic nomination race may not translate into a clear chance at the White House.
Sri Lanka was the world?s first country to have ever elected a woman head of state, Sirimavo Bandaranaike. This wife of the slain PM of Ceylon took charge in 1960 at the age of 44. She had no previous experience of politics and was a caring wife and mother before being elected. India also chose 49-year-old Indira Gandhi, though in 1966, she had nearly three decades of close working experience with the Congress party and had served as a minister. However, as historian Ram Guha quotes a Delhi journal at the time of her taking over (in India After Gandhi) she was probably chosen as ?the State leaders would accept only an innocuous person for the PM at the Centre?(!)
Pakistan saw the rise of the then-young Benazir Bhutto (educated at Radcliffe and Oxford), who inherited her father?s mantle with her head in a half veil. In Bangladesh, the daughter of the assassinated Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman, Sheikh Hasina made it too, as did General Zia-ur-Rehman?s wife, Begum Khaleda Zia. So how does all this fit in with the larger patriarchal set-up in South Asia? Sociologists have toyed with several explanations, a more popular one being that it is easier to superimpose a woman onto the image of a dead leader, since she is traditionally seen as more of a devoted legacy carrier and thought to have much less of her own stamp; a male successor, in contrast, might have too many of his own ideas.
But apart from the more high-profile heads of state and wives of important people, India has seen robust women leaders like Sarojini Naidu, Aruna Asaf Ali, Subhadra Joshi and countless others who came up through a tough political process during the freedom movement. The tenure of the first woman CM of Uttar Pradesh, Sucheta Kriplani in the late 1950s, is also looked back upon with some interest.
Women politicians in India have come a long way. A quiet revolution 20 years ago at the Panchayat level, with one-third of all seats reserved for women, has ensured greater female participation in rural political processes. You still see visiting cards of husbands of village headwomen that read ?Pati Sarpanch? or ?Pati Pradhan?, intended to indicate where real power is vested, but we now also have a critical mass of women at the village and district levels who wield genuine power.
A generally more liberal view taken by the Indian electorate has also seen the emergence of women who may have been initially ?picked? by their respective mentors, but who are leaders now in their own right?Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee, for example. Mayawati symbolises this very aptly. Nobody doubts that she thinks for herself.
It is in this context that women politicians like Kanimozhi, Priya Dutt and Supriya Sule are lucky to be part of the young generation in. It is an opportune time for them to go beyond the pedigree tag?or maybe use it just enough to leverage the relevant set of values?and ensure that their voices are heard. But they need to be able to make decisions unencumbered by baggage. They also need to have the guts to push for things that need to be done this century.