At last, the Indian polity, exhausted after exploring all options for the post of President, chose a woman. In the last 60 years of India's independence it never occurred to any of the burly politicians that India needed a woman politicians, because this is the nation which believes in inclusive society and social justice to all. And, top posts have invariably been taken to symbolically serve that purpose over the years. Indian polity must be thanked for this.
Last month I had raised the issue why a woman should be elected the President of India. I had pessimistic view that such a thing would happen when so many senile veteran male politicians need to be given a retirement solution by the bosses of the political parties.
However, a picture of Pratibha Patil, who is into 70s, in one of the newspaper appalled me, because she was helped by two of her security personnel in helping her to walk. Instantly, I heard myself saying not again, not another Shankar Dayal Sharma. At least the president should be physically independent.
Ostensibly, the qualification that won Mrs Patil the post of President was she being the staunch loyalist of the Gandhi family. It just adds insult to the woes of the New India, which wants itself to unchain from the slavery of sycophancy and spineless toeing lines of the high command.
Hopefully, Mrs Patil would realise that once she is the President she has to do justice to her position in the most upright and objective manner that more honour comes to the post as achieved by two of her predecessors, Dr K R Narayanan and Dr APJ Abdul Kalam.
But, we must congratulate ourselves for another reason. The United States is yet to have a woman President! Hopefully, Hillary Clinton, if she is nominated by the Democrats ahead of Obama, corrects that anomaly.
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