Copycat #MeToo must take care of concerns for truth, reputation

It would have been difficult even for the Mahatma to survive these times.

#MeToo was rather late in coming. Imagine if it was around in the time of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Chances are it would have, at the very least, denied him the saintly honorific of the Mahatma for using nubile young girls as guinea pigs to test the efficacy of his vow of brahmacharya. Long before the #MeToo warriors, the feminists would have got Gandhi, naming and shaming him for being a lecherous old man.

Come to think of it, in the panoply of pre-Independence leaders, there were quite a few whose sexual liaisons were widely known, but rarely spoken of in public. An unwritten covenant of silence among leaders of all persuasions allowed them to merrily defy the conventional code of morality while lesser folks were expected to walk the straight and narrow for the sake of family honour and fear of social stigma. No stigma was attached to leaders who were above the conventional code of sexual morality.

Lest you think we are committing sacrilege referring to the Mahatma in the context of #MeToo, let me quote the noted author Zareer Masani, whose review of Ramchandra Guha’s authoritative biography, Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World 1914-18, had these nuggets among several more.

“Gandhi’s insistence on goat’s milk prompted the possibly apocryphal story, which Guha does not mention, of Gandhi’s goat Nirmala accompanying him on the ocean liner that took him to London in 1932 for the Round Table Conference on India’s constitutional future. Photos in the British press showed him flanked by a nanny goat on one side and on the other his inseparable British disciple Mira Behn (born Madeleine Slade), draped in a khaddar blanket.” It was an image which prompted a rude limerick—which Guha, alas, never mentions—that is unprintable.

Further in the review of Guha’s book, which recently appeared in Open magazine (27 September), Masani writes, “Gandhi’s strange attitude to sexuality had by this time given rise to widespread accusations of both fanaticism and hypocrisy, which Guha clinically documents without any prurience. Gandhi’s imposition of brahmacharya or celibacy on himself and all his ashramites is well known, as also his penchant for sleeping naked with young women to test his own self-control. Less familiar is his obsession with conserving the male “vital fluid” and stigmatising not only masturbation but spontaneous emissions. Guha quotes several excerpts from Gandhi’s letters to young men on the subject, and also Gandhi’s own crisis of conscience when he woke up one morning with an erection and masturbated, a lapse he then surprisingly chose to share with his female disciples...Guha also notes Gandhi’s misogynistic attacks on modern women for exhibitionism in dressing up and seeking to attract attention of men…”

With such faddish and, shall we say, odd behaviour, I don’t think even the Mahatma would have survived with his saintly sheen intact were he to be living in these times and experimenting nightly with little girls barely out of puberty. Generally, what was kosher in an earlier era for male of the human species is now strictly a no-go territory. The bra-burning feminist movement some half-a-century ago was incomplete, without fully securing gender equality, safe workplaces for women and secure public spaces against sexual harassment and exploitation. #MeToo, the third phase of the movement, may have already put the fear of public exposure in the minds of men.

But does it give licence to any and every woman to up and tar reputations built painstakingly over decades of hard work and a careful career planning? Serial accusations of inappropriate sexual advances against junior Foreign Minister M. J. Akbar by women colleagues cannot stand the basic test of judicial scrutiny. It is remarkable that they have chosen to speak when Akbar has switched professions and is no longer a powerful editor. Self- preservation trumping dignity and self-respect makes one a lesser person.

Speak up, or shut up is the honourable way to handle such incidents. Akbar’s alleged predatory conduct which his “victims” now narrate in great detail, and with greater relish, in print and audio-visual media ought to have been exposed just when it happened, that is, if it really happened. There is this line from a Mohammed Rafi song which goes something like this, “Dard ab ja key utha, chot lagey der hui (I feel the pain now though the injury was inflicted a long time ago)”. I cannot believe that all these women have now realised that they were wronged while the incidents they speak of happened decades ago. If the alleged victims are after some sort of a mental catharsis, they ought not to have bottled it all up for so long as to raise valid questions about motives at this late stage.

Remember how Tarun Tehelka Tejpal’s young reporter complained immediately after he misbehaved with her in the elevator of a Goa hotel. She put her job on the line, but felt that her dignity was far more important. Remember how at least two former judges of the apex court were named by young lawyers after they allegedly made unwanted advances. Or the woman colleague of the all-powerful TERI boss R.K. Pachauri who came forward with a plausible charge against him. Why, even Tanusharee Dutta complained about Nana Patekar “soon” after he allegedly misbehaved. Journalists are supposed to be aware of their rights, of the difference between right and wrong. Their silence then, and a shrill noise now, detracts from their stories. In particular, a woman journalist who is a regular on the nightly tu-tu mein-mein shows seems to be driven by a malicious political agenda to smear Akbar since he had the temerity to join the BJP.

Yes, the arrival of #MeToo, albeit a year after it caused a firestorm in the US, will do some good. Women will be shown due respect, it will encourage voiceless women to come forward and expose their harassers, the sense of male entitlement will be tempered with the knowledge that women too have equal rights and need to be treated with dignity. But what it should not do is to pillory innocent men, misunderstood men, without any basis, without any tangible proof, without any concern for their wives, children and wider families, etc. Akbar may or may not be guilty of what he is now being accused of, but the fact that his traducers kept their mouths tightly shut for decades, not even breathing it out to his and their employers, takes away the vital ingredient of veracity from their stories. Some of the billboards are still there, announcing the planting of five lakh saplings by the Delhi sarkar at 600 places. An expensive publicity campaign preceded the actual event where Chief Minister Arvind Kejirwal led the Green Delhi campaign last month. However, it will be a miracle if even 10% of those saplings still survive. A video depicting how hours after Kejriwal planted saplings with great fanfare at an event in outer Delhi, most lie strewn around on the ground, including on the road. An audit will confirm that the AAP follows only one mantra: Optimum publicity. The noise it makes about performance is in inverse proportion to the actual delivery. Meanwhile, the recent raids by the Income Tax Department on yet another AAP minister raise the question: Are there no aam aadmis in Kerjiwal’s Cabinet, given that those raided seem to be quite wealthy?

The recent attack on Poorvanchalis in Gujarat, forcing many of them to leave the state, to flee back to the safety of their homes in their native areas, could have wide ramifications, both in the forthcoming Assembly polls, as well as the 2019 Parliamentary showdown. Disconcerted and unnerved with the exodus, senior members of the Sangh Parivar have commenced a damage control exercise by assuring community leaders that their security concerns would be adequately addressed with immediacy. The onslaught on labourers from Eastern UP and Bihar took place following an incident where a 14-month-old baby girl was sexually abused by a person from that region. Infuriated by the assault, members of the Thakor caste, unleashed a reign of terror, striking migrants in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Patan, Banaskantha, Aravalli and Sabarkantha.

Although the situation has been brought under control, following the intervention of CM Vijay Rupani, yet fear persists and the labourers are reluctant to return to work. Efforts are on to put in place a mechanism through which the state administration and the political leaders of the affected areas could ensure that retaliatory hate crimes were prevented at all cost.

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and opposition parties led by Tejashwi Yadav have blamed the BJP for not acting on time to prevent a tirade against the Poorvanchali migrants. The hate incidents are already finding an acoustic resonance in the political theatre of the state, known for its highly political DNA. The fallout of the sudden exodus from Gujarat would certainly impact the polls in Madhya Pradesh, which is an integral part of the Hindi speaking belt. To make matters worse, an attempt has been made to stir anti-North Indian sentiments in Gujarat.

It may be recalled that the Poorvanchalis have been targets of hostility even in adjoining Maharashtra, where both the Shiv Sena and its breakaway group, the MNS, have frequently singled out innocent migrants from UP and Bihar, two of the largest states with huge population, but very little to show in terms of good governance. Electorally speaking, political parties are well aware of the fact that they are a force to reckon with and hence engage in various methods to woo them. The Congress, for instance, had earlier appointed Kripa Shankar Singh, a former minister as the president of the Mumbai Pradesh. Its present chief, Sanjay Nirupam also hails from Poorvanchal. The Sena takes an aim at them since it plays on Maharashtrian emotions blaming the migrants for jobs and employment meant for them.

The UP and Bihar influx into various states has also altered both the demographical as well as political equations. In Punjab, the Poorvanchalis can certainly tilt the scales in favour of whoever they support, in at least two Lok Sabha constituencies, including Ludhiana which has a large workforce from the Indo-Gangetic plains. The so-called hard working Punjabi farmer has virtually become a myth, since most of the expansive agricultural stretches are tilled by the migrants, while the land owners busy themselves in other activities.

In the national capital, there is an extremely strong presence of the Poorvanchalis in the local administration and the police, besides large areas in the Trans-Yamuna and West Delhi belts. The current BJP chief, Manoj Tewari, who is an MP from North East Delhi, recently held a conclave of Poorvanchalis, drawing sharp criticism from traditional party supporters led by Union Minister Vijay Goel—a three-time Lok Sabha MP from Delhi Sadar and Chandni Chowk. Over the years, the city’s politics has been dominated by Punjabis, Banias and rural people including Jats, Gurjars and Ahirs.

However in 1996, the BJP fielded Lal Behari Tewari, a minister in the Madan Lal Khurana government, in a byelection from East Delhi. Tewari not only trounced Ashok Walia and H.K.L. Bhagat, who contested as an Independent after being denied the Congress ticket, but went on to win in 1998 and 1999 as well. Incidentally, in 1998, he defeated Sheila Dikshit. There was no looking back, and when the Congress subsequently fielded Mahabal Mishra from West Delhi in 2009, he won hands down. In the 2014 elections, the AAP garnered a large number of votes in areas where Poorvanchalis resided, and Manoj Tewari was apparently attempting to offset their strongholds without recognising the dissent from within.

Undoubtedly, there is a sociological side to the presence of the Poorvanchalis in states to which they have migrated, a right accorded to every citizen as per the Constitution. Their story is similar to that of Indians, who excel when they work abroad, pointing to the necessity of creating conducive working environment in our own country. People from some of the Hindi speaking states also do much better outside their own regions, which are plagued by intense politics and strong caste biases and prejudices. It is in quest of a better life that they venture out to set up home in other Indian states, though many a times they have to bear the brunt of animosity from the local populace.

The short point is that it is the responsibility of any state government to furnish security to all Indians who wish to live at the place of their choosing. Gujarat is a prosperous state, and has been the home of migrants not only from other regions in India, but also from West Asia and Africa. Needless to say that normalcy must be restored at the earliest. Between us.