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Journalism of Courage
Never before has a defence services chief in the history of independent India been told to hang up his boots. If Vishnu Bhagwat finds himself in history books, for wrong reasons of course, wife Niloufer is entitled to some space too. For, never before has a defence services spouse been seen and heard by the people of India as Niloufer Bhagwat has been since Wednesday last.
It wasn’t the former admiral who said his lines; she spoke his mind. It was she who termed the dismissal “politically motivated”, she was the one surrounded by television cameras and press correspondents, she introduced the theory that the powerful arms lobby which the former admiral fought could have motivated his dismissal. And then in a deft stroke, she talked of her role in fighting the Shiv Sena and BJP in courtrooms earlier.
The message was clear: the establishment was getting even not only with the former admiral for his stand on key appointments in the Indian Navy but also with his wife whose family background and ideologicalpersuasion didn’t satisfy the establishment. Her visibility, fervour and agitation was that of a person wronged; it was as if she had taken the rap.
Not surprisingly, Niloufer Bhagwat has become the subject matter of drawing-room discussions as much as her husband. She doesn’t fit into the conventional image of a service chief’s spouse. It’s a departure from the vintage tradition of the defence forces which require wives of senior officers, particularly those of service chiefs, to submerge their identity in that of the man who has dedicated himself to the nation.
They are supposed to look, behave and speak the part. If they do pursue anything, it’s a hobby or two; never an ambition or a career as Niloufer has done. If they must involve themselves in something constructive, it’s the ubiquitous social work that adds a streak of wholesomeness to the archetypal persona. A stint with the defence forces wives welfare associations would be just fine. There have been a few exceptions such as Bilkees Latif, wifeof former Air Chief Marshall Idris Latif and later governor of Maharashtra, who earned independent respect and admiration for her community work.
But Niloufer cuts a very different figure. A successful lawyer in her own right, she has fought cases in Mumbai courts and the Supreme Court for the last two decades. She has accepted case briefs for reasons other than lawyers’ fees, she has put in court appearances for reasons other than mere visibility and publicity. She has put in time early in her life with women’s organisations, that generally get branded as Left-oriented, doing work among the under-privileged.
One of the more memorable cases she fought was for a group of deserted women. Women’s groups recall that she gave the case all she had time, money, attention and secured for them a monthly allowance. Not a small achievement. She accepted briefs from and gave legal advice to Left groups and parties since they fought cases on behalf of the disenfranchised suspended poor workers, harassed anddeserted women and so on. Her legal and social work defined her more than her marriage did. It didn’t matter that she was the wife of Vice-admiral Bhagwat, the commanding officer-in-chief (western naval command), when she agreed to be counsel for Muslims and the CPI in the Justice Srikrishna Commission inquiring into the Mumbai riots of 1992-93.
For her, the roles did not clash; there was no conflict of interest. She took extra care to see that one did not impinge on the other. For instance, she was always on call for her clients and she worked with them to disprove several theories of the Sena-BJP about the riots but she never parted with her telephone number at home, the official residence of the vice-admiral. “She didn’t give it even to her best friends and people who were on the same intellectual side. She always said it wasn’t proper to conduct this work from there,” recalls a witness in the Commission.
Understandably, it pains her now that Vice-admiral Harinder Singh referred to her in hisstatutory petition. More so because the reference was to her religion — she comes from a Muslim-Parsi stock. She believes it was appropriate for her to intervene in the post-dismissal drama since she was dragged into it anyway, also since the Akalis had given it a communal colour. Niloufer carries her own intellectual persuasions, holds her opinions, follows a career that’s note-worthy and is not afraid to stand as an individual beside her service chief husband.
From such a wife, support can only be intense and active. “She would have done all this even if Vishnu Bhagwat was not in the Navy…she is aggressively against injustice of any kind and perhaps believes that he has suffered injustice from the government,” says Ahilyatai Rangnekar, veteran Left leader.
There are some who see her as “a cantankerous and hyper person” who is doggedly behind an identified target. Adhik Shirodkar, well-known lawyer and Sena MP in Rajya Sabha, who also appeared in the Srikrishna Commission, believes that she oftenloses her balance as a lawyer, in that she gets carried away by her persuasions. But her right to speak up — and thereby break some norms — is something that even her opponents give her.
Both the charitable and the uncharitable agree on this much: Admiral Bhagwat’s dismissal was unfortunate but Niloufer did no wrong in reaching out to Indians to explain his side of the sordid story. She has helped him fight cases in the past and she will do so in the future. Maybe, as a veteran parliamentarian remarked, it’s an intelligent strategy that she will say all that he cannot because of his service rules.
Long after, the curtains come down on the dismissal, Niloufer Bhagwat might be remembered for breaking some norms in the line of duty too. Along the way, if she has set a new paradigm for the spouse of a service chiefs, so much the better.
