Late night on Monday this week, on the eve of the far-reaching state elections in Karnataka, Prime Minister Narendra Modi quietly made an important Cabinet reshuffle. He stealthily stripped Smriti Irani of the significant I&B portfolio, leaving her with just the minor Textile Ministry. The din of the poll results must have surely smothered Irani’s embarrassment and mortification.
But the 40-year-old’s enthusiasm and eagerness hasn’t diminished at all – in the last two days since her demotion, Irani has met delegations from Oman, to stakeholders from weavers’ co-ops, and has been tweeting her congratulatory messages to Modi and party president Amit Shah on their hard work in Karnataka.
No one can deny that Irani has had the most controversial and contentious run when she held the two crucial and high-profile ministries of HRD and, then I&B. As the youngest Cabinet minister ever appointed, and a Class XII high school graduate, Irani was given the charge of the country’s premier educational institutes, and curriculum of studies for schools and universities; and later, in I&B, to formulate and administer laws and policies for media and film industry.
So, what can Irani do to stay relevant and on top of the political sweepstakes with just the low-profile Textile Ministry in her charge? Remember the last time when she was sacked as HRD minister? Irani grabbed eyeballs, that too in the midst of an all-important BJP party leadership meeting in Goa, when the stung minister, who was also not invited, soon eclipsed the high-profile convention with hell and fury over an affront to her modesty inside a neighbouring FabIndia store, where she alleged a security camera was pointed towards her in the changing room.
While it’s anybody’s guess whether Irani will pull another stunt to embarrass the party again, here are five ways Irani can still call the shots and hold her position as Queen of Controversy and Quarrel:
1. The last big controversy that Irani dived into was at the National film awards felicitation in the Capital a few weeks ago, when President Ramnath Kovind was made to feel annoyed and displeased for the unnecessary scandal that erupted about the ceremony. The President’s office had made it clear he would stick to the rules and stay only for an hour to give away the top awards, but Irani’s ministry didn’t make the announcement until a day before when it declared the rest of the awards would be presented by the Minister herself! It invited howls of protests from filmmakers who boycotted the ceremony saying the awards were not given by the government but by the nation, represented by the President.
Irani can give her counter by taking over Vigyan Bhavan and awarding the Textile Ministry’s Shilpi Guru and national awards to master craftspersons herself, and relieve the beleaguered president of his ceremonial duties and obligations. With one stroke Irani can not only create a rumpus but add to the Modi government’s notoriety of mocking Dalits, with this ministerial snub to a Dalit president.
2. As HRD minister, Irani may not have been accused of rewriting academic text books with the Hindutva brand of scholarship all the way, but one of her great contributions was to appoint RSS officials (there are no women in high-ranking office in the Hindutva cult) in key posts, from technology institutes, to National Book Trust to the University Grants Commission.
For starters, Irani can adopt Hindutva’s glorious tradition of appropriating Sanskrit to boost its cred, by renaming the various National Institutes of Fashion Design, from vastra to vasana – apart from Sanskritising the beauty and wellness text books with bhavyata, chaya, kama, manimala and the likes. She could then appoint RSS sarkaryavahas and prahmuks to head the design colleges, and usher in the shakha style of khakhi rather than khadi.
3. As HRD minister, Irani had already set the ball rolling for convocation attire in universities way back as July 2015, when the UGC asked universities to consider using handloom for the ceremonial occasion, following which IIT Kanpur and Mumbai introduced traditional attire of dhoti-kurta and sari for students. Last month, the UGC again invited designs from professionals as well as students for convocation attire in sync with “Indian culture and tradition” rather than the colonial dress of black gown and hat.
Irani can have a field day in Hindutva-ising the convocation dress and invite nation-wide protests and revolts from students and secularists alike.
4. If Mahatma Gandhi launched the Khadi movement against the British as an ideology for self-reliance, self-government and independence and Khadi was seen as ‘freedom and sedition cloth’ the Father of the Nation can perhaps rest in peace that the hate ideology that assassinated him is today hell-bent in taking over universities, from JNU to Hyderabad University. All this, under the haughty gaze of Irani who, as the then HRD Minister, was accused of hounding Dalits for challenging Hindutva, even pushing a Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula to suicide. The riots in JNU between students aligned to Hindutva, and liberals, amidst arrests and criminal charges of sedition and anti-nationalism was the high-point of Irani’s tenure of two volatile years.
Perhaps, the Textile Minister can introduce a new cloth, as a symbol of New India, representing the hyper, pseudo-patriotism and nationalism of the Sangh Hindutva culture-vulture.
5. There’s more: If Irani issued a diktat within months of taking over as HRD minister in 2014, to all central-funded schools to observe December 25, Christmas Day as Good Governance Day, thus forcing a non-holiday; she can have a field day issuing more such orders like All Khakhi Day on November 14, birthday of India’s first-stylish prime minister and thus, blot out Children’s Day that is normally commemorated on the day, etc.
If as I&B minister, Irani dropped films with names like Nude and S Durga from the International film festival even after jury selection, she can now force fashion designers to not use the word ‘nude’ as a commonly used colour reference point; just like saffron, champagne etc.
Neither does she like the word ‘dear’ addressed to her, which she finds sexist. This sentiment emerged when a Twitter spat broke out between Irani and a Bihar minister last June. She can, therefore, ban fashion designers’ fave calls of endearment like ‘darlin’ ‘honey’ ‘slut’ and suchlike.
She can redesign the RSS flag, the saffron ‘two-forked flag’ of Bhagwa Dhwaj, as the Hindutva Vatican does not salute the infidel tri-colour of pluralistic culture.
For Textile Minister Smriti Irani, fashion is pret-a-politics.
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