By Kollengode S Venkataraman, written in 2002
South Asian politicians display their exaggerated machismo in ridiculous ways, thereby unintentionally revealing their mental time-warp.
Many South Asian men stereotype women as weak despite innumerable characters of courage in Sikh, Rajput, and South Indian history, not to speak of mythological characters such as Panchali, or deities such as Durga or Kali. Besides, is standing up against brute force the only sign of courage? How about fortitude and endurance against adversities? South Asians’ ossified idea of courage surfaces on and off.
When Nawaz Sharif was Pakistan’s prime minister in 1999, India pressure to explode Pakistan’s nuclear bombs, and Japan and the West pressured him not to do so. The latter dangled goodies for him for not exploding bombs. Given Pakistan’s bad economy, and caught between the proverbial devil and the deep sea, Nawaz Sharif agonized for several days over how to respond.
Benazir Bhutto, who Nawaz defeated in the preceding election, was in her element to put Nawaz on the mat. In a public meeting in Karachi, she threw her chudiyan (bangles), asking Nawaz to wear them as a sign of his wimpishness and his lack of “manly” courage, known as mardangi in the subcontinent.
The public outburst of Bhutto, herself a woman and the first woman prime minister of a Muslim nation, was both ironic and paradoxical.
Piqued by this ultimate “insult” heaped on him by his woman predecessor and his Islamic hardliners, Nawaz upped the ante by exploding six nuclear devices, giving a “befitting reply to India.” That Pakistan got into a deeper economic quagmire was a small price to pay.
The chudiyan metaphor in Pakistani politics didn’t end. In the current US-led war against the Taliban, Musharaff abandoned the Taliban, its 20-year-old ally, in “Pakistan’s supreme national interest,” and joined the US-led coalition. General Musharraf was on Pakistan TV addressing Pakistani citizens. Using fauji (army) language, he was trying to divert public attention from the change in his Taliban policy to Pakistan’s traditional enemy, India. He asked India to “lay off” Pakistan. Speaking in Hindi/Urdu, he said, “Pakistan is not a chota-mota (piddling) country,” and threatened India “with a befitting reply.” In his desi bravado, chudiyan surfaced again: “Hamne bhi chudiyan nahin pehni.” (“We are also not wearing bangles.”)
[On CNN, Musharraf morphed from the hawk to a dove. When Larry King asked him about peace with India, Musharraf replied, “We need two hands to clap,” indicating India’s lack of response to his overtures. King and his US audience would never know of Musharraf’s blow-hot-blow-cold overtures for talks with India.]
The chudiyan metaphor was picked up by Sushma Swaraj, Information and Broadcasting Minister, who took umbrage as a woman at General Musharraf dangling the feminine bangles in front of his viscerally “manly” Pakistani audience.
In New Delhi she told reporters Musharraf should not belittle chudiyan. After all, Sushma said, Pakistan’s General Niazi surrendered to a chudiyanwali (woman with bangles) in 1971 after the Bangladesh War. Sushma’s chudiyanwali is, of course, Indira Gandhi. Paradoxically, in India the joke among us college students at that time was that the chudiyanwali Indira Gandhi was the only “man” in her Congress party and her all-male cabinet.
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, a seasoned statesman-cum-politician and a Hindi/Urdu maven, did not miss the opportunity to display his mastery. He told reporters in Gujarat: “Baat chudiyon tak pahunch jaye yeh koi mardangi ki baat nahin hai. (When the level of discussions stoops to bangles, it is not a sign of manliness.” There you go, bhayya! END