usenet

Herstory's cunning passages

By Rupa Sengupta
Editorial
The Pioneer
Established in 1864

Friday, June 27, 2003

What do runaway bride Nisha Sharma, New York Senator
Hillary Clinton and ex-PoW Private Jessica Lynch have in
common? Apart from the fact all three have been in the
news, that is. Many would say they are inspirational
models for the universal sisterhood. All were victims-
yes, even Amazonian Hillary!-and performed "I will
survive" feats to get out of personal scrapes. Each
fought private battles with public institutions: Sharma
versus patriarchal society; Clinton versus marital
infidelity (as she reminds us in her newly released
memoirs); and Lynch versus the vicissitudes of war, that
manly pursuit par excellence, while fulfilling her duties
in the service of the Fatherland.

Women are always in search of heroines. Sharma became one
when she called the police, complaining about the dowry
her would-be in-laws demanded- at the mandap, no less.
Indian society being linked with Scooter-motor-TV-fridge
pre-nuptial trade, her gutsy display of stree shakti made
great copy. We now know the computer engineering
student's favourite film is Biwi Ho to Aisi-in which
Bollywood diva Rekha pulverises her venal in-laws. Blame
your cynicism if you think this fits too patly with a
media circus. Soon, the girl goes global, with CNN and
BBC talking about the derring-do of a 'middle-class'
Indian role model. Today, Nisha is our most feted
eligible single woman (apart from Aishwarya Rai?): It's
raining men and marriage offers. No doubt it's poetic
justice it's her turn to get the right price for wedded
bliss.

The spotlight on Hillary Clinton has to do with her best-
selling White House memoirs, Living History, which made
history of sorts by setting a sales record for non-
fiction: 40,000 copies lapped up in the first 24 hours of
its appearance. I do not claim to have read the
testimonials for which Simon & Schuster made the Senator
richer by eight million dollars. But all of us know
exactly which bit about her travails and triumphs as
former First Lady makes the book give the Kenneth Starr
report on presidential peccadilloes a run for its money.
The only excerpts salivated over relate to Monicagate,
with Bill Clinton's betrayed wife describing her
devastation on being told about his philandering-from the
horse's mouth. We are privy to poignant details. That
Hillary the homemaker wanted to "wring" Bill's neck at
the moment of truth: "I stood crying and yelling ... He
just stood there, saying ... 'I am sorry, I am so
sorry'..." That, during the darkest hours of the Clinton
pre-sidency, Buddy the First Dog was the "only member of
the family on speaking terms with Bill". And, more, that
she had got to know about the dalliance only two days
before he testified before the grand jury in August,
1998.

Flashbulbs are also in search of "the first US prisoner
to be rescued behind enemy lines since World War II". But
Pvt Lynch is hiding at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in
Washington. Her handlers say she needs solitude to
recover from grievous injuries suffered when taking on
her Iraqi captors like a gun-wielding wildcat. Her story
as the PoW rescued by the US Special Forces is so full of
heroism and high drama that NBC and ABC are battling it
out to grab the 20-year-old army supply clerk's first
soundbytes; Simon & Schuster (again!) has a book deal
offer she simply can't refuse; and Hollywood wants a box-
office quickie that will have Americans feeling doggone
good about having waved the flag in Iraq.

Now, for the other side of the picture. Those who
question Sharma's anti-dowry avatar have been silenced by
the obscene celebration of her 'bravery'. The point is,
her family did arrange for the purchase of a groom, with
two sets of goodies, one for her husband-to-be, the other
for his married brother! It was also said to have coughed
up money running into lakhs. Only when matters
degenerated into a socially embarrassing free-for-all on
D-Day did Sharma hit back. Many seem to think the law was
on her side. But it has been said, and rightly, that both
families should have been booked, anti-dowry laws
prohibiting the giving and the taking of dowry.

True, Sharma's SOS needed guts. But can a woman on her
way to Mrs-hood with cash and electronic goods in tow-
"gifts", she tells us-be a dowry-slayer? The girl acted
to avenge her family's dishonour. Can this admittedly
unusual step be equated with disinterested championship
of brutalised victims of societal greed? Yet a star is
born for a society addicted to tokenism on women's
issues. The synthetic heroine herself revels in the fame
thrust upon her-it brings elevated social status via a
mock-combat, the means to a better match.

Hillary Clinton is the classic wronged wife. But recall
that, when the Lewinsky scandal broke, the strategy of
painting it a 'Republican conspiracy' was hers. Some
former White House voices rubbish her claim to having
learnt of the Lewinsky affair at the last moment-they say
she worked overtime to plot the counter-offensive to save
her spouse's presidency in which she had a personal and
political stake. Yet, the lady did win hearts by backing
the President without breaking her dignified silence.

She was to lose much of this goodwill when she spoke to
Talk magazine in 1999, raking up the issue of her
husband's infidelity even as she resorted to "psycho-
babble"-childhood trauma courtesy his castrating mother
and grandmother!-to excuse it. The timing was right: She
would gear up for her political debut, following the
Clinton term's end at the White House. The recent
autobiographical candour is also telling-the Senator is
on to bigger things, though she denies she is after the
presidency.

Did this feminist dream-come-true ever show discomfiture
over the impropriety of a President misusing the Oval
Office for close encounters of the steamy kind with an
intern? Did the revelations of women -from Gennifer
Flowers, Kathleen Willey to Paula Jones-stop her from
fuelling a gigantic media-projected myth: The perfect
First Couple, going to church hand-in-hand or waltzing in
Martha's Vineyard at the height of Monicagate, with the
cameras clicking their Edenic conjugal piety? Yes, Mrs
Clinton is to be admired for her grit-the very reason she
is caricaturised as Lady Macbeth. But, by milking Monica-
gate, is she not saying pain can be strutted for the
right price and wrong purpose?

And why is Private Lynch silent on the raging debate on
whether or not her 'rescue' from an Iraqi hospital was
stage-managed, for use as war propaganda? Admit-tedly,
soldiers must adhere to stricter rules on going public
than civilians. But isn't it curious the only statement
to be heard on her behalf is that she has no
'recollection' of what happened? Her muteness-cum-amnesia
can mean three things. One, she resists official pressure
on her forced deification. Two, she is colluding with it,
so that a war fought on clearly insubstantial grounds can
serve as an occasion for patriotic chest-thumping. Three,
she is indeed Superwoman who just happens to have
forgotten how she became one.

But, given reports she was well-looked after by Iraqi
doctors and nurses and was found in a hospital with no
sign of Iraqi soldiers, can the "Saving Private Lynch"
scenario be believable sans her own account? Isn't it
hard to swallow that, memory or no memory, she should
play possum rather than be paraded as a trophy by
Pentagon, if her 'exploits', 'torture' and 'unshackling'
were genuine? If the official version is true, why did
Pentagon reject the request of a British scribe for the
uncut version of the heavily tampered video of the raid-
cum-rescue mission? And will Lynch tell us if she's Joan
of Arc-or do we have to take Hollywood's word for it?

So, what do the three ladies have in common? At the risk
of being accused of misogyny, the answer is: Bad faith.
This is the bad faith of women who collaborate with the
system of which they claim to be victims; of those who
resist the system only when the personal costs of
complicity become too great or painful; and who then
encash the focus on their 'revolt' and 'he-roism'. Women
thus get a good name and men a bad name, via concealment
of their equal partnership in the perpetuation of
injustice and/or falsehood. By valorising inauthentic
mutineers, the system works their renewed cooption, even
as it pays lip-service to the very causes it trivialises.

Countless women are after the same things men are, having
a cynical stake in the world they say men created. The
difference is, they get to wear the halo.

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Jai Maharaj
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Om Shanti

Panchaang for 28 Jyeshtth 5104, Friday, June 27, 2003:

Shubhanu Nama Samvatsare Dakshinaya Nartana Ritau
Mithun Mase Krishna Pakshe Shukr Vasara Yuktayam
Rohini-Mrgashir Nakshatr Shool-Ganda Yog
Vishti Karan Chaturdashi Yam Tithau

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