Neelam Gorhe, Shiv Sena’s woman trailblazer
She could prove more of an asset to the Shiv Sena than any of the “ranraginis” (women warriors) of its mahila aghadi
Where the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) go, the Congress has been before – in good things as well as in bad. When Union minister Nirmala Sitharaman became the defence minister under the first Modi government, she was lauded as the first woman defence minister of India. It turned out that Indira Gandhi had already headed the ministry in her time.
Sitharaman once again had to follow in Mrs Gandhi’s footsteps into the Union finance ministry. The Congress gave the nation not just its first woman prime minister but also the first woman speaker and the first president, apart from appointing women as chief ministers and governors of many states – most of them in the era before seeking reservations for women became fashionable.
By contrast, both the BJP and the Shiv Sena were male-oriented parties and the Sena avowedly so. Women in the Shiv Sena had to carve their own niche for themselves after Bal Thackeray was left with no choice but to set up a mahila aghadi following the reservation of 33% seats for women in the local self-government bodies. While the wives and other female relatives of male leaders were given tickets for these elections – as also done by other parties including the Congress – Thackeray believed these women should make looking after their husbands and families the primary focus of their activities. However, many of these women had other ideas for themselves. They stunned Thackeray by defining agitational roles for themselves, and at times, ended up as instinctive feminists who secured raw justice for women more effectively than many stated feminists.
Their methods were pretty primitive though – like naming and shaming, blackening the faces of or assaulting men including those who sexually harassed their female colleagues or harassed their wives for dowries. During the 1991-92 riots, these women proved more combative than the men in the Shiv Sena, provoking their reluctant and more pacifist husbands to riot. They put petticoats, bangles and bindis on their husbands, while they slept and hid their pyjamas and trousers until they gave in to the urging of their wives to teach the “others” a lesson. In fact, such provocation was limited not just to women in the slums. I recall Pramod Navalkar, one of Thackeray’s 12 apostles – the declared up-netas or second rung leaders (Thackeray singly occupied the top echelon) – tell me ruefully how his wife had been ashamed of him for brokering peace among the rioters on the streets and tearfully offered him some bangles one evening for being a weakling.
While Navalkar did not give in to his wife’s urgings, other men did and the women in the Shiv Sena set up a support system for the men, cooking for them through the night as they slept tired out after rioting. But more importantly, they acted as human shields for these men, as policemen chased them down the streets. With comparatively fewer women in the police force at the time, it gave an opportunity to the rioting men to disappear into the cracks and crevices as male cops were afraid of acting against them for fear of being lobbed with charges of manhandling and molestation.
However, through all their agitational activities, the Shiv Sena by the very nature of the mahila aghadi, could never find an independent woman who did not owe her ascension to a male relative and who knew the law and Constitution well enough to corner opponents without resorting to rolling pins or black ink.
However, they imported one from the Republican Party of India (RPI) – Dr Neelam Gorhe – a former general secretary of the RPI, who has intelligently used the law and the Constitution to target opponents, including the BJP. For example, a few years ago, she attempted to move a resolution in the legislative Council to get the government to commit to a united Maharashtra, in the midst of a raging debate on a separate Vidarbha. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, whose party wants a separate Vidarbha, would have been damned if he had made the assurance and damned if he didn’t. Both the resolution and talk of a separate Vidarbha were given a quiet burial. The Sena got what it wanted without its trademark street fight.
So as Gorhe becomes only the second woman deputy chairperson of the legislative Council, (the first was freedom fighter Jethi Sipahimalani from 1955 to 1962), she finally gets what she amply deserves. And she could prove more of an asset to the Shiv Sena than any of the “ranraginis” (women warriors) of its mahila aghadi. Brains ultimately win over brawn.
