Mahua Moitra and the system’s men

Amid talk of nari shakti, the powers that be are seeking to silence, discredit and malign the outspoken Trinamool Congress for daring to raise the banner of dissent and ask uncomfortable questions

The hounding of Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra provides profound insights into the Indian political system over which the Bharatiya Janata Party presides. None of these is as telling as the system’s hypocrisy of pouncing upon Moitra’s indiscretion to malign and corner her, just weeks after the reservation for women in legislatures was projected as the BJP’s obeisance to “nari shakti.”

Moitra does indeed embody woman power. Not a political dynast, she returned home after resigning from JP Morgan Bank, London, where she was a vice-president. She took to politics as a duck takes to water, becoming an MLA in West Bengal in 2016, and was elected, in May 2019, to the Lok Sabha. Within weeks, Moitra became the nation’s talking point for listing, in her maiden parliamentary speech, the seven “danger signs of early fascism” she saw in India. 

Moitra’s observations on former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi were expunged from the Lok Sabha records but not before BJP leaders threatened to move a privilege motion against her. She said it would be a privilege to have a privilege motion moved against her for speaking the truth in “India’s darkest hours.” Defending a film poster’s depiction of Goddess Kali, Moitra said she imagined her as “meat-eating, alcohol-accepting goddess.”

But she is not just talk. She is among the petitioners who moved the Supreme Court against the Gujarat government’s decision to remit the sentence of men convicted for gang-raping Bilkis Bano and killing her family members. But, above all, she rocked the system by asking questions regarding the Adanis’ alleged propensity to violate rules and claims that the Modi government bestowed undue favours upon the business family. 

Not surprisingly, the system struck back, not just because Moitra is a woman, but because it cannot countenance searing questioning of men who control its levers. The system swooped down on the broken relationship between Moitra and lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai to feast on her reputation methodically torn to shreds. For one, cropped images of Moitra smoking a cigar surfaced on social media, which projected her as being both silly and bossy in getting embroiled with her former partner in a custody battle over a Rottweiler pet of theirs.

For the other, Dehadrai wrote letters to the Central Bureau of Investigation and BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, disclosing that Moitra had handed over her login credentials for the Lok Sabha website to businessman Darshan Hiranandani, and that he had allegedly paid her R2.75 crore and plied her with expensive gifts. The payout to Moitra, it was claimed, was in lieu of the MP asking questions that Hiranandani would frame against the Adanis. 

Credit Dehadrai for figuring out that his letter to Dubey would have the system go into overdrive. Moitra had accused Dubey of faking his MBA degree, and a privilege motion in this regard is pending against him in the Lok Sabha. Not too surprising that Dubey claimed Moitra’s handing over of login credentials to Hiranandani in Dubai imperilled national security, arguably the most favoured allegation for stigmatising a person, and that she was guilty of taking money for asking questions in Parliament. 

The system picks and chooses who to hound and who to protect. Its retaliation against dissidents is swift, as is evident from the Lok Sabha ethics committee hauling her up on November 2. Why has not the same alacrity been shown to dispose of the privilege motions against Dubey and Ramesh Bidhuri, the BJP leader who was abusive of Danish Ali in the Lok Sabha? The answer: they are the system’s men. 

Moitra is vulnerable to the charge of conflict of interest, for she handed over her login credentials to the businessman said to be in competition with the Adanis. But did she take money from Hiranandani to ask questions in the Lok Sabha, as was alleged? Hiranandani initially said he had not paid her, but changed his mind later. It would be a joke to think the system will strive to resolve the mystery of the businessman’s turnaround and squander its chance of silencing and discrediting Moitra, the dissident.

Hiranandani accepted in Para 12 of his now famous affidavit that he lavished expensive gifts and money on Moitra. But he did not explicitly say these were payments to her for asking questions about the Adanis. But such legal points do not matter for the system, which acts on the whims of those who oversee it. 

When Dehadrai’s letter to Dubey became public, the Adani Group issued a statement, saying this development vindicates its claims that some groups and individuals have been working overtime to harm their “name, goodwill and market standing.” Many would quote Shakespeare to say the Adanis “doth protest too much.” But their opinion is irrelevant, for the system has already judged that the Adanis are men of honour and good for India! 

Moitra said the questions the ethics committee posed to her were akin to disrobing her. The system will say she deserved to be dishonoured for she mistook woman power for dissidence. Did she not know that ours is a system run by a handful of powerful men, for themselves, with pawns doing their bidding?

The writer is a senior journalist.
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.

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