Teaching 'Third World Politics': Reflections 3

A linear view of history and the human experience makes it possible to place communities along a continuum and label them 'backward' and 'advanced'. All of us do it in the judgments we pass on each other on a daily basis. However, as an intellectual construct, it is hard to accept and harder still to teach.

One could place colonial-nationalist-postcolonial on some sort of a timeline, but what did they mean for the more practical details of everyday life.

• In the 1950s, Jawaharlal Nehru called large multipurpose hydro-electrical projects the 'temples of modern India.' India did benefit from them. But over time, the problems with large projects have become evident as well, whether for their seismic effects as in Tehri or for the displacement of peoples as in Narmada. Are we now moving to the model the Cholas and their Sri Lankan counterparts used--large networks of smaller canals--for irrigation on the one hand and nuclear energy on the other? Is this forward, backwards or lateral movement?
• Allopathy is regarded as the modern system of medicine. So why are more and more people gravitating towards alternative systems that are older, such as ayurveda, yoga, yunani and siddha? Is this retrogressive motion?
• Thousands of young Indians work in high-paying but more or less dead-end jobs in the IT sector. Are they doing better or worse than the tradition artisan who earns less but at least has infinite scope for creativity?
• Or are this last question and others of this sort utterly inappropriate in that they romanticize the past at the expense of well-being today?
  
• What is today's well-being if it creates a less than liveable tomorrow?
  

Because questions like this come around again and again as we travel and discuss Indian history and politics, it seems appropriate to do a course that will ask them formally and systematically.

But that is not what traditional 'Third World Politics' do. The term 'Third World' ties us to development issues, and 'development' is imagined in linear terms. They posit a certain unidirectional journey, in which a large swathe of humanity is condemned to trail the front-runners, fighting neverending battles for unreachable goals. Rostow's four-stage model of growth is an example; as Busybee liked to joke in his Independence Day columns, India was perpetually stuck in the take-off stage.

Women in Politics

Sujata Dutta Sachdeva of the Times of India asked me two questions this week in connection with an article she wrote on women in South Asian politics. First, why is it that women in politics do not devote as much attention to development issues as we expect? Second, why are they judged so harshly for their corruption?

The answer to both questions lies in the expectations we impose on women who enter politics. These expectations are not merely unjustified but also unfair.

The general expectation is that women, as mothers, will have a natural inclination for policy fields relating to nurture (development, health, child welfare and animal welfare) and as homemakers, will excel in hospitality-oriented ministries like tourism. There is nothing wrong with being interested in these spheres and they are undeniably important. But if everyone thinks they are so important, why don't the Arjun Singhs, Laloo Prasads, Dayanidhi Marans and Arun Jaitleys lobby for these appointments?

The gendered division of labour in most homes finds its way to policy-making circles, and the men do the issues that are valorised as serious (defence, foreign affairs, finance, internal security) while women keep the home clean, healthy and hospitable (just women's work, you know!). Just as all women do not have an abiding passion for housework, and there are women who do not feel they must be mothers, so there must be female politicians for whom these ministries are just a place to serve time before they can get a really important government or party post.

And why not?

This is the perfect segue to my answer to Sachdeva's second question. Why should we expect women who enter politics to live and act by a higher morality when the game is by and large dominated and won by those who are conniving and corrupt? Is it because we think women are somehow morally superior? Or is it that we do not expect women to be ambitious and able and willing to take action to further their ambitions?

I think both sets of expectations are traps--and women see variations of them in every professional field. Pedestals are prisons and being idolized is being frozen in stone. Place a woman on a pedestal, telling her she is delicate and angelic, and somewhere you are also telling her: you are too weak, possibly too slow-witted and certainly, I don't expect that you will seriously challenge my right (as a man) to play and win the game. Tell us that women are worshipped as mothers in this civilization, but don't tell us that what that means is that we could not possibly be interested in the intricate detail of defence budgets and tax reform.

If this topic seems like old hat to you, you haven't been paying attention to the tone in which news about Mamata Banerjee or Jayalalithaa gets reported and discussed. Sonia Gandhi is now too powerful to get the same treatment but there are shades of it in the way people respond to Medha Patkar and Arundhati Roy.

As the US prepares for Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign and South Asians gleefully point out, "Been there, done that!" it is a good time to reflect on the degree to which South Asia's women leaders represent a genuine empowerment of South Asia's women and a good time to pay attention to how we handicap these politicians by telling them how much we expect of them.

Postscript: Am I advocating or condoning corruption and poor governance? No, not at all. I am advocating the woman politician's right to ambition and to an interest in all spheres of policy-making. And I am saying, if you don't like the level of corruption you get, change the game so that bad behaviour is penalized across the board.