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These things usually start like this. A picture appears in, as they say, some sections of the media and it seems to suggest there are a thousand words to be said. A dozen tongues start wagging and soon more than a thousand insinuations are being traded in the corridors of power and in the corridors of those who are the hangers-on of the powerful. And it becomes clear again that parts of the Indian establishment are as unreconstructed, intellectually and morally, as those whom the same establishment loves to frown at. Thus it is that the news photo of Vasundhara Raje greeting Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw at the India Economic Forum in New Delhi has produced a collective snigger audible over the din of cricket, quotas and political violence.

What did the photograph show? Two women, two public figures, greeting each other on a public occasion. There8217;s no arguing that they weren8217;t executing a namaste. If they had, there probably would have been no photograph and no delighted whispers. So we are confronted with the certainty that there exists, even among the socially and politically arrived, an antediluvian code of conduct that not only rests on some bizarre definition of traditionalism but is also grotesquely sexist. Women are expected to especially 8216;conform8217;. Women politicians even more so. Male politicians thought to have 8216;western8217; attitudes can attract bemused attention. Nudge, nudge wink, wink responses are reserved for women in politics.

Raje has been a victim of this before. Many, including some of her male political fellow travellers, had found her brief, courtesy appearance at a fashion show disconcerting. Her electoral campaigns have been followed with an eye on the extent to which she8217;s playing the role expected of her. Other women politicians have had this twisted scale measuring them as well. If some of them are forthright, male colleagues reckon that8217;s irregular. If some of them are charismatic, they are deemed as not disciplined enough. There has occasionally been an Indira Gandhi who has shown men in the Indian establishment how it feels if the boot of gender politics is on the other foot. But, generally, women in public life are 8220;allowed8221; little latitude. Professional women who are tough are the best answer to this ridiculousness. Both Raje and Mazumdar-Shaw are tough. The whisperers would be wise to remember that.