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Magazine
NEWSMAKERS
Alternative politics
ZIYA US SALAM
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‘I am into electoral politics because I want to make a difference’, says well-known danseuse Mallika Sarabhai as she prepares to take on BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, L.K. Advani,in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
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Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash
She could well turn out to be David in one of the most unequal battles of this Lok Sabha elections. “I would rather you call it Chandika versus Mahishasura,” she beams as her caravan rolls into Kallol, Gujarat.
Facing Leader of the Opposition and BJP Prime Ministerial candidate L.K. Advani in Gandhinagar, Mallika Sarabhai has a few things going her way: a vast majority of villages in Gujarat do not have access to water and fruits of development have not percolated down to everybody in an equal manner. Her principal opponent, Advani, is fighting shy of her searching questions. “Will the anti-terror law apply equally to all?” she asks, defiant and logical.
Raising her voice
Advani keeps mum. She had raised her voice against Narendra Modi too in the wake of the Gujarat genocide in 2002, only to have official machinery trying to muzzle her voice. There is a campaign on the Facebook to convince her urban voters that she might just be the answer they were looking for. An IIM alumnus cheers her on, “Go Mallika, get Advani”. Contesting the elections as an Independent, Mallika herself tells the web world, “I stand as a Gujarati and a patriotic Indian to reclaim politics from politicians. I am not a third force but I have an alternative view of politics, which wants to claim democracy back for the people. I represent the women of Mangalore, the peasants of Nandigram, the farmers of Yavatmal, the victims of Khandamal.”
Advani might have the entire party machinery working for him but Mallika has her own supporters: theatre artistes, dancers, youth keen to restore dignity to politics and the like. Little wonder Mallika says, “The enormity of the challenge is not daunting for me. I am here because it is a fight for justice. And any fight for justice is worth the fight. In the past I have been offered ticket by the Congress (Rajiv Gandhi wanted her to contest in 1984) but I was not comfortable going to the Congress or any other party. I am not comfortable where truth is hidden and the Congress party is as guilty of it as any other.”
To make a difference
In an informal survey done by a newspaper, she is supposedly ahead of Advani in the popularity charts. Yet all the leading dailies, particularly those from Gujarat, have not exactly given her prime space. “I cannot help it. Advani does not answer my questions. And Gujarati newspapers do not even report it. Maybe, it is part of some muzzling tactics or they want some favours. But I am into electoral politics because I want to make a difference. Everybody says he is going to win but I want to be around even after the elections. There are so many things I cannot do or talk about it at this juncture about our electoral system but the whole paradigm of elections needs to be changed to ensure more honesty, to weed out the dishonest elements.”
When Mallika speaks, she does so from the heart. Be it door-to-door canvassing with her trademark magenta-red clothes, a big bindi and two different ear-rings, or her address in the evening, she raises things that appeal to the common man. “People have been made into hijras. People have to be empowered. All Fundamental Rights have been taken away. I hold all the governments, not just the BJP ruling in Gujarat, responsible. Today, some 70 per cent of Gujarat villages do not have drinking water. I have met more than 2,00,000 people and everywhere the basic amenities are not there.”
As a Gujarati, she is hurt too. “Everywhere I travel across the State, I find everything is reduced to the religion you follow. It is becoming a bi-polar society. And people are scared to talk in public. It is like the Emergency days. I find some people hailing (Narendra) Modi for bringing about development. But where is the development? And by the way, trains ran on time even during Hitler’s regime. But does that make Nazism a worthy exercise?”
Well, David was never overtaken by Goliath. Nor for that matter, Chandika flustered by Mahishasura.
* * *
* Activist, development worker, social entrepreneur and performer, Mallika Sarabhai used mediums like dance, theatre, television, film, writing and publishing to focus attention on issues like gender bias, communal hatred, environment, corruption, violence ...
* She is also an economist and business manager with a degree from IIM-A. She obtained a Ph.D. from Gujarat University for her thesis on Organisational Behaviour.
* An accomplished Bharata Natyam and Kuchipudi dancer, she is the founder of the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts.
* Her productions include “Shakti: The Power of Woman”; “Sita’s Daughters”; “V for...” She played the role of Draupadi in Peter Brooke’s “The Mahabharata”
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