A few years ago, I was on a TV panel that was discussing — if my memory serves me right — the relevance of Jawaharlal Nehru’s foreign policy tenets in the India of the 21st century. Also in the panel was a venerable former diplomat who was then serving as a special envoy of the Prime Minister and heading a cultural institution that was deemed very important by the chairperson of the UPA. And quite predictably, we took very different positions in the discussion.
After the show, as we walked out of the TV studio, the elderly notable came to me and said: “For a BJP supporter you speak very good English.”
I must confess my utter disorientation at his rather patronising testimonial. Yes, we all conjure stereotypes in our mind, but for a person to uninhibitedly express these so bluntly was a novel experience. I can’t recall whether I replied sharply or merely smiled in bewilderment but the experience was extremely revealing.
The battle between the Congress and the BJP or, more accurately, the contest between the Gandhi family and Narendra Modi is essentially a political confrontation. At the same time, however, there is a parallel culture war that is raging. As the rulers of India for much of the six decades since Independence, the establishment of India has been defined by the erstwhile first family. It is members of that establishment who wield the levers of power and, more important, exercise their dominance over the citadels of intellectual power.
The establishment comes in various guises: as courtiers and flatterers, as professionals and technocrats, and as progressive thinkers. Both Nehru and Indira Gandhi were very successful in enlarging the sphere of their influence by co-opting the “progressives” who played important roles in giving an ideological gloss to the Emergency, the policy of non-alignment and, above all, the control over universities and seats of learning.
An important element in the old establishment’s quest for complete intellectual hegemony was the demonising of what they derisively called “communal forces”. A politically-determined red line was drawn to demarcate what was acceptable and what was beyond the pale. The outlanders were visualised as crude, prejudiced minds that should be confined to their halwai shops. Refined existence which, presumably, also meant the ability to speak in accent-less English was not for them. In Nehru’s and Indira’s days this prejudice was also packaged as a battle against feudalism, but with Rajiv Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, the princely scions have become fixtures of a redefined Congress establishment.
This narration of the class schism that affects non-electoral Delhi politics is relevant in understanding the controversy that has accompanied the appointment of Smriti Irani as the minister for human resources development in the Modi Cabinet.
That Ms Irani’s dramatic rise in the political hierarchy of the BJP would cause heartburn among those who felt that their claims to a Cabinet post were more legitimate is understandable.
Women, especially those who are not backed by dynastic or caste claims, invariably have a tougher time than their male counterparts in negotiating the snake pits of the political world. Ms Irani is no exception to this in-built misogynist streak in Indian politics.
To her credit, she has negotiated these hurdles with grace and dignity and won numerous admirers along the way. More to the point, this former actress has distinguished herself by outperforming many of her male colleagues both in Parliament and in the hurly-burly of grassroots politics. She didn’t win her battle against Rahul Gandhi in Amethi, but she gave the entire Nehru-Gandhi dynasty enough of a scare to force the princeling’s reappearance in the constituency on polling day.
Ms Irani deserved political recognition and Prime Minister Modi wasn’t slow in recognising it.
The envy factor goes a long way in explaining the snide condescension that has greeted her appointment as HRD minister. The ostensible objection is to her lack of educational qualifications: Irani is a college drop-out. How, it is being asked incredulously, can such an individual (and an actress to boot) lead a ministry that is principally concerned with education. Ms Irani, it is claimed, does not possess domain knowledge.
Apart from the fact that there is no direct correlation between university degrees and wisdom or, for that matter, knowledge and performance in a job, there is a larger issue at stake. An HRD minister is more akin to an administrator than an academic director who sets curriculum and determines appointments of lecturers and professors in institutions of higher education and research. There are specialised bodies such as the University Grants Commission, NCERT, ICSSR, ICHR, et al, that determine funding and research priorities. The minister merely determines priorities, oversees the appointment of vice-chancellors and directors of research institutes. The minister isn’t expected to present specialist research papers at conferences and nor is she expected to assess academic work.
A minister is there to ensure that the system functions smoothly and determine policy improvisations. The attributes that are needed to perform successfully as a minister are a broad sensitivity to concerns of academia, a commitment to educational betterment and, most important, robust common sense. It also helps if a minister is politically empowered to take bold decisions and has the ability to stand up to parliamentary scrutiny.
A minister has numerous advisers who provide critical inputs. But like in all departments, the success or failure of a minister lies in the ability to choose her options wisely and ensure rigorous implementation.
Expressed in another way, directing a rocket science programme doesn’t necessarily involve expertise in rocket science. Indeed, past experience suggests that the most academically qualified HRD ministers also turned out to be the least beneficial for Indian education.
The assault on Ms Irani is actually a proxy attack on Prime Minister Modi since it is well known that she was his choice for the job. Just as Mr Modi was greeted with the “chaiwala” taunt, Ms Irani is being taunted for having been a part-time waitress and an actress in a highly successful TV serial. In short, the Irani controversy is all about reinforcing the image of Mr Modi as a philistine. The only possible retort to this social disdain is for Ms Irani to perform and prove her critics wrong.
The writer is a senior journalist
