The Left Book Of Who Can You Kiss Hug Genuflect To That Has Ensnared Sudha Murthy In Its Silken Web

Both affection and reverence have a politically correct aspect in the shifting sands of Indian political etiquette. They also have a tendency to be blown out of proportion. When prominent citizens of great national, and now international, influence indicate a symbolic shift in their political orientation, it gets the twitter birds in a tizz.

When astute people claim they didn’t know whom they were showing respect to, or indeed what they stood for, it does seem a little precious. Respecting age does not mean one goes down the road touching every old person’s feet.

The message as understood, is therefore that the left leaning socialism oriented parties are done for in India, except in Kerala and West Bengal, of course. Its top down munificent welfarism now for New India, and modernise, modernise, modernise. The booming economy can raise all boats. Yes, and daub everything with a bracing slather of saffron for one’s soul.

In Britain, Sudha Murthy’s son-in-law is at the head of the Tory Party and government. If he can repair the economy and win for the Conservatives in 2024, he will be the great rescuer on par with his distant predecessor, one Winston Churchill.

It is therefore a good time to turn the tiller slightly, if not full right, for the Murthys. However, at present, if the idea is to put a lid on controversy, then vagueness of this order from sharp cookies making I-did-not-know statements, is not out of place.

The Bharatiya Nari has it tough, be it bedecked in bindi, hijab, leotard, swimsuit, pantsuit, sari, or indeed not very much. Long have we lived simultaneously in several centuries, let alone decades of changing manners and mores. Kissing, hugging, genuflecting, has both the innocence of a gesture, and immense meaning. We are nothing if not both ancient and profound with a little tarka of crassness.

Touching of feet, (or knees, for the arthritic), in reverence, is a big deal. Hindus have traditionally done it for ages to take the blessings of their elders, holy men, gurus, mentors, benefactors, teachers, all objects of respect and worship.

Of course, saying something by way of the famous sound-byte can really set the cat amongst the pigeons. But quite often the communication does not need to be verbal.

Remember popular actor Sanjay Dutt touching the feet of Balasaheb Thackeray for getting him out of jail when the Congress party ruled at the centre? It even had father Sunil Dutt as one of its prominent leaders in Mumbai. But try as Senior Dutt did, he could not help his son. It was Thackeray who used his influence on Sanjay Dutt’s behalf, and not Sonia Gandhi. Why? Perhaps it was because the Bombay riots of 1993 had wheels within wheels, and some of them had Congress Party markings. Still, we now know that Sanjay Dutt was no terrorist, as he was absolved by the TADA courts, but served inordinate amounts of jail time for violation of the Arms Act.

Years ago, actress Padmini Kolhapure got into a controversy for pecking the then Prince Charles on the cheek in a Mumbai movie-set as the flash bulbs popped. The flash bulbs didn’t actually pop in 1980, because they acquired reasonable new technology for photographic flashes in the 1960s even before the digital era.

Likewise, Richard Gere, a Hollywood biggie of the time, outraged the sense of Indian public modesty for planting one on actress Shilpa Shetty accompanied by a virile hug. She, poor thing, was slapped with obscenity charges fifteen years ago, and recently was absolved of them, because, presumably, Gere wasn’t so near to hand.  But then the lissome[Gautam Mu1]  Shetty may have a karmic connection to this sort of thing, given her husband’s more recent brush with the law on pornographic productions allegedly conducted by him.   

But now it is the turn of the British prime minister’s mother-in-law to land in the proverbial hot water. This new description has overtaken her own status as an author/millionaire philanthropist, and that of the Murthy duos immense pelf, stature and success as founders of IT giant Infosys.

No, grandmother Sudha Murthy did not kiss the venerable Sambhaji Rao Bhide, activist leader of the Shiv Pratishthan and erstwhile of the RSS. Bhide apparently wanted Murthy to fund a golden throne for Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s Raigad Fort and demanded a meeting with her in Sangli. It is not known if Bhide secured any such commitment from Murthy.

Murthy was actually visiting to promote some of her books translated into Marathi, and also to pray for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the famed Sindhudurg temple in the district.

Murthy was persuaded to interrupt her commentary and come out of her lecture venue and meet Bhide who had turned up to her promotional event uninvited, accompanied by a large number of followers. The police in attendance also thought it best that Sudha Murthy meet Bhide to avert any untoward situation from bruised egos.

Murthy went one up on the occasion, and mollified the crowd by allegedly bowing and touching the feet of the sparely built but  white-whiskered and bearded leader.

This apparently set off the powder keg of leftist intolerance. A video or two of the incident soon went viral. They, meaning the liberal-left cabal, feared the worst, because she also did it once before recently, when she touched the feet of Mysuru royalty in the person of Promada Devi Wadeyar.

Bhide is gleefully described by the Left as a ‘bigot’. The leftist media never fails to record his latest ‘outrage’ when Bhide refused to meet a female journalist who was not wearing a bindi. This also earned him a charge from the Maharashtra Women’s Commission. Bhide said Bharat Mata is not a widow and every woman who represents her shakti should wear a bindi. It is not known if this was also the gist of his explanation to the Commission.

There is further controversy about Bhide. That he instigated a stone pelting riot at the Bhima-Koregaon clashes, and was booked for it by the police. However, nothing much came of his so-called controversies. Somehow, that the allegations against Bhide do not stick, doesn’t stop his leftish detractors from maligning his image. What is true however, that even as a fairly obscure  Hindutva activist, Bhide  does have access to Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

The truth is that Sambhaji Rao Bhide is fairly common or garden. Nothing terribly sinister attaches to his persona.

For the Murthys, who have dined out for decades as intellectual lefties, even as the millions in profits piled up, to be found cosying up to a mustachioed Hindutva ideologue is a dagger to the heart for some. People already on the  skids, ( except in Kerala and West Bengal), and on the political ropes all over the country.

(1,131 words)

November 11^th, 2022

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee

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 [Gautam Mu1]