Sitharaman means well. After all, she was pointing to the very valid point that you can’t just shout ‘Patriarchy!’ if your prof flunks you for the right reason. She cherry-picked the ‘only man in her cabinet’ Mrs G, Sarojini Naidu and Aruna Asaf Ali to drive home her point – sidestepping Tulsi, the ‘feminist’ (another Left invention?) character from ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’, played by a former colleague.
But just because the Rani of Jhansi rose through the ranks to lead her people doesn’t mean women across India are a liberated lot unperturbed by male malevolence. Similarly, casteism isn’t an Ambedkarite ‘invention’. It’s as real as America – in finmin’s words, ‘a fantastic jargon’ – was before Columbus ‘discovered’ it. But why did Sitharaman credit the Left with highlighting this menace? Could it be patriarchy’s shadowy hand at work here convincing people that there’s nothing called patriarchy?