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ShareWould you believe it, a gori behenji plonk in the middle of the currently feverish American political landscape!
Watching the freshly-anointed, pertly pugnacious vice-Presidential candidate of the Republican Party on the campaign trail this week I could not help but think of our homegrown behenji, Mayawati. Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska and Mayawati, CM of India's most populous state, may just be sisters under two very different skins.
Both have blown in from the cold. Looked down upon by the elite and establishment in their respective countries, the two small-town gals have made it to centre stage on their own steam and grit, not to forget propelled by their outsize ambition. Neither of them has had the benefit of political lineage; neither one married into a political dynasty.
While Palin married her high school sweetheart, who is a bit of a hunk and a sportsman who is a commercial fisherman from Alaska, our Mayawati is a single woman.
The intellectual elite in the two of the largest democracies in the world probably turn their noses down on the two women. The educational record of Palin, a former beauty queen, is nothing to write home about: she is far, far away -- in another galaxy -- from the Ivy League fraternity who tend to occupy presidential or vice-presidential chairs. (Democrats have even wondered out loud whether Palin even possesses a passport.)
Our Mayawati, in fact, may have more degrees. Moreover, the two women are perceived as outsiders by the insiders -- the political sentinels -- of New Delhi or Washington DC.
But both came in with the force of a hurricane: in Mayawati's case she blows in and out, but with tremendous force and doesn't hide her prime ministerial ambitions. Funnily enough, and as coincidence would have it, the week senator John McCain made his inspired choice, two hurricanes, Gustav and Ike, left a lot ofdevastation in their wake.
But Hurricane Sarah was even more devastating on the political scene,putting Barack Obama temporarily on the back-foot. Actually, Palin likes to see herself more as a "pit bull with lipstick". Pit bulls (terriers) are a breed historically used for dog fighting. She obviously wants to project herself as a fighter with very sharp teeth, like a barracuda, the ray-finned elongated fish with a fearsome appearance and fang-like teeth, not to speak of its powerful jaws.
No wonder the hit song, Barracuda by the group Heart was played at the Republican National Convention when Palin gave her punch-laden acceptance speech that transformed the dynamics of this election campaign.
She earned the sobriquet 'Sarah Barracuda' while she was on her high school basketball team. Apparently the Republican spin doctors wanted to get the point across that in this May-December political coupling Palin would be the muscle power -- the one delivering the punches. (Not only is the Senator MaCain over 72, he is said to be arthritic.)
As one American TV pundit wittily quipped: a whole new discipline, "Palineontology" has seen the light of day.
Fortunately, the comparisons between the desi and the American behenjis don't go all the way down the line. Mayawati has a solid base; she has made it past many obstacles and is definitely not interested in leading God's army on earth. Certainly, she and Palin both galvanise the silent majority.
However, with a big difference: while Mayawati inspires the Dalits and the downtrodden, Palin has ignited the Christian fundamentalists, those who want to set back the clock and bring church and state back together again, and those who want to banish stem cell research -- and perhaps even the teaching of evolution in schools.
The route to power of this mother of five, often described as a hockey mom, was through the Parent Teacher Association. And she appeals to the "silent majority" of women who are opposed to both feminism and male domination. A rolling pin revolutionary, if you will.I would take our own behenji any day. Vive la difference.
Email: jain_madhu@hotmail.com
