By Aditya Aamir
#MeToo-struck Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar returns from a foreign tour and imputes that labeling him a sexual predator “at this particular point of time” amounts to macerating and bedevilling the BJP, give the ruling party a hard time in the run-up to the 2019 general elections and finds traction in party and government, never mind the fact that ‘MJ’ has never contested a Lok Sabha election, and probably will not in the next one, not with the 10-11 rather dark clouds of sexual misconduct hovering over him.
MJ’s paradoxical, in as much as it is he who is politicizing sexual harassment, contention is ‘why politicize sexual harassment accusations?’ Flimsy, token resistance from a man crowded against the ropes from a barrage of left hooks and right jabs to the solar plexus. Also, self-interest motivated resistance because #MeToo is larger than #EmJay and he has to attack!
It is a tactic baked into strategy to not only get MJ but also the BJP out of the sticky spot both are in. Cost of waiting it out versus cost of taking immediate action. Prime Minister Narendra Modi could step in but the cost-benefit analysis is done and dusted. The government will for now brazen it out. The accusers can sue Akbar and put his greatness to test. But they claim the law enforcement machinery is not “conducive”. India after all is still a banana republic!
But the #MeToo movement, coupled with Social Media, is more than conducive. Without the Social Media vehicle, none of the 10 or 11 accusers, who want MJ to hang for past sexual misdemeanours, could have found agency to mount a coordinated attack on their ex-boss, who both “mentored and fingered” them. Before Internet and #MeToo, it would not have been difficult for minister-politician Akbar to get out of this mess. But the times they have a changed!
What the smartphone has done for the Internet, #MeToo has done for sexually harassed woman. It has given her voice. Name and shame sexual predators. In the normal scheme of things, naming and shaming would be enough to dissolve a powerful man to slobbering idiot for having slobbered all over a woman/girl without her consent. And lesser adversaries than MJ have succumbed. Some apologized, others resigned their powerful positions.
A similar response was expected from Akbar. But the BJP is wary of admitting that it is a party of misogynists and sexual predators. That it is at risk of losing the battle of perception vis a vis women’s safety. The government does not want a ‘resignation template’ to dog it till election time. #MeToo can floor other ministers, who knows? Rapes and gang-rapes have become too common under BJP-rule and #MeToo is a bitter pill the government doesn’t want to swallow, yet.
But then, hasn’t MJ Akbar himself made his resignation political? The opposition is already on to the BJP playbook. The Minister of State for External Affairs must not and could not have brazened it out without a say from the head office – a nod from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. The two call the shots in the BJP and nothing moves or stops in government without the PM’s affirmation.
That being said, sexual harassment charges have been levelled at politicians of all hues at various times. Close to 40% of MPs are fighting criminal charges. The Unnao rape case has a BJP legislator-minister in the dock but that is not disqualification. There’s an unwritten pact that political parties will not use sexual affairs of politicians to score political points. But when the allegations are of rape and sexual harassment, then it gets tricky. The party to which the politician-predator belongs also stands accused.
Right now, the BJP is walking a slimy tightrope. The opposition, sensing a strike in an election year, will not let go. MJ asks why this “storm” just before a general elections, is there an agenda? The answer to that is that a drowning man will cling to a straw and MJ, who claims he doesn’t know “how to swim”, is clinging to a tree, not yet uprooted but at risk of drowning. The BJP is his only refuge and it’s not for nothing it’s said that politics is the refuge for scoundrels!
Then again, it makes political sense to let the law take its course. The fact is #MeToo delivers a killer punch by naming and shaming and not just the target but innocent people around the sexual predator are also destroyed. That is why due process and presumption of innocence must take precedence. ‘MJ Akbar stories’ of sexual aggression are not new but even an alleged seasoned sexual predator has to get his day in court. (IPA Service)
The post BJP’s Predatory Politics Saves Akbar appeared first on Newspack by India Press Agency.
