[lbo-talk] World's largest democracy elects 1st female president

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 7/21/07, B. <docile_body at yahoo.com> wrote:
> [I always hear India called the "world's largest
> democracy," but I'm assuming it's "democratic" in the
> way the US is democratic -- you know, sorta, but not
> really when you hold it to the strictest standards.
> Anyway the post is apparently mostly ceremonial, piece
> says. -B.]
>
> India names first female president
>
> By GAVIN RABINOWITZ, Associated Press Writer
> 1 hour, 16 minutes ago
>
> India elected Pratibha Patil as the country's first
> female president Saturday in a vote seen as a victory
> for the hundreds of millions of Indian women who
> contend with widespread discrimination.
>
> Patil received 65.82 percent of the votes cast by
> national lawmakers and state legislators, said
> Election Commission head P.D.T. Achary. She had been
> widely expected to win.
>
> [...]
>
> The election of a woman to the largely ceremonial post
> continues an Indian tradition using the presidency to
> bolster disadvantaged communities.
>
> [...]
>
> And her comments ahead of the election calling on
> Indian women to abandon wearing headscarves was
> roundly denounced by Muslim leaders and by historians
> — who disputed her assertion that women only started
> wearing them in India to save themselves from 16th
> century Muslim invaders.

The first woman who exercised real power in India was Indira Gandhi,
Prime Minister,  1966-1977 and 1980-1984 (she was shot to death by her
Sikh bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, on 31 October 1984, in
response to Operation Blue Star at the Golden Temple).  Claiming
threats from extremists on the Left and the Right ("I do not believe
that a democratic society has the obligation to acquiesce in its own
dissolution," said she), she declared a state of emergency and ruled
by decrees from 1975 to 1977.  See Vijay Prashad, "Emergency
Assessments," Social Scientist, 24.280-81 (September-October 1996),
pp. 36-68, for an assessment of Indira Gandhi's state of emergency and
its aftermath:
<http://dsal.uchicago.edu/books/socialscientist/pager.html?issue=280-81&objectid=HN681.S597_280-81_038.gif>.

   Her remark points to the central paradox of "liberal democracy,"
especially in the global South where both class contradiction and
cultural conflict are sharper than in the global North, but the same
paradox may very well lead to self-cancellation of "liberal democracy"
in the name of its defense in the North, too, in the age of endless
War on Terror.

As for Pratibha Patil's assertion that the veil was adopted in India
in response to the Mughal invasion, historians disagree:

<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1957758.ece>
>From The Times
June 20, 2007
Fury as presidential hopeful urges women to throw off 'veil of invader'
Jeremy Page in Delhi

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Historians also criticised Mrs Patil, saying that Indian women started
wearing the veil long before the Muslim Mughals invaded in the early
16th century, led by the Timurid prince, Babur. Satish Chandra, in his
book Medieval India, said that the practice became widespread in the
13th century.

B. P. Sahu, a historian at Delhi University, said: "People are not
historically aware that the veil existed in early Indian society.

"It was a way to show respect to the elders. But the idea that the
'purdah' system started as a result of the invasion by the Mughals is
one of the stereotypical ideas that have been taken from the works of
British historians."
-- 
Yoshie