BySyed Ali
Mujtaba
Madhu
Kishwar, well known feminist and editor of women’s magazine Manushi, is once
again in the news for peddling communal material alleged to be fake news.
This time
this pioneer scholar of women's studies in India
has put up a video on her twitter handle alleged to be footage from Bangladesh
Kishwar,
passes this video saying it is from the recent Delhi
Madhu
Kishwar, is currently employed as a chair Professor in the Indian Council of
Social Science Research.
Well once I
have been admirer of Madhu Kishwar, particular in the late 80s and early 90s
when she was a secular and progressive writer and can be equated to Arunditi
Roy of today’s India
This was
the time when there was no social media and Kishwar was taking cudgel against
Hindutva protagonist Arun Shourie and Swapan Das Gupta who were spewing venom
against Muslims in the English press.
Madhu
Kiswar through powerful writing in the dominant English press attracted many
eyeballs as she opposed militant Hinduism. As she opposed Hindutva politics
tooth and nail, she was a natural cynosure of many Indians like me.
It is a
mystery best known to her why she did somersault and changed her colors to
embrace the Hindutva ideology. I find such symptoms in Madhu Kishwar abnormal
and bizarre. What prompted her take a U turn when she already had attended
recognition as an academician and have gained considerable respect? It is
certainly an enigma what prompted her to start championing the cause of
Hindutva.
If we go
Freudian theory of psychoanalysis, a human’s conviction settles by the time of
adolescence or youthful stage of life and not when one gains maturity and has
climbed the summit of name and fame.
Kishwar’s
reputation has got considerably tarred, once she openly started writing in
adulation of Hindutva. She is now being noted for her praise for Narendra Modi
to the extent of comparing him with Mahatma Gandhi.
She had
also written a book 'Modi, Muslims and Media: Voices from Narendra Modi's Gujarat ' (Manushi Publications, 2014). This book absolves
Modi, then Prime-Ministerial candidate of any involvement in the 2002 Gujarat riots and effusively praised him as a
non-communal politician.
I can
understand politician doing the chameleon act, but what prompts academics to do
such activity. Such a person is a shame, a slur on all those who are engaged in
the noble cause of pursuing knowledge.