Smriti irony: Astrologer saying you will be President

This is not the first time Smriti Irani has visited an astrologer. That’s why it is more baffling. The gritty Ms Irani had famously proved an astrologer wrong. That destiny doesn’t lie in the lines of your palm, but shines in your courage in adversity, that you build your future with your own hands.

She was a struggling TV actor back then. The astrologer had dismissed her aspirations and told her that not much lay in her future. She had then asked the astrologer to check on her ten years down the line. This girl from Delhi had proved the so-called stars wrong. She was a star in her own right, recognised as Tulsi across India.

And it’s disturbing for a more important reason. As the human resources development minister of India, she is supposed to champion reason. As a minister of the Union, she has to uphold the fundamental duty of inculcating a scientific temperament as ordained by the Constitution she is avowed to serve now. She and her colleagues feel that critics are making a mountain out of a molehill by raising a non-issue like a visit to an astrologer. They forget that the molehills we leave untouched, become, the worst obstacles in the future.Later, she joined politics and spoke on behalf of the BJP. She has been one of the most articulate, intelligent and sturdiest spokesperson the BJP has had. She could burn bridges and rebuild them in time. Irani once threatened to go on a dharna against Narendra Modi’s communal politics. Yet, when Modi rose beyond Gujarat, she was by his side, and found herself in the Cabinet once Modi won for BJP its first clear mandate. She remains an icon for women in the country. That’s what’s all the more baffling in her seeking solace in the occult.Smriti Irani once mopped the floors at a burger shop. The middle class girl from Delhi didn’t, for even a minute, believe that that was the end of her. She participated in the Miss India contest, pursued modelling, and hit it big time when her TV series Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi became a raging hit. The character became her second identity.

The education minister is already under fire for some controversial decisions that she’s been taking. No, Sanskrit in the KV curriculum is not one of them. There are accusations of far serious nature, beginning with the educational qualifications in her affidavits to the Election Commission. A degree only proves you went to an institution, it has no relation with your "education". Education must result in enlightenment and eradication of darkness of the mind. The degree from Yale or shallowness of that shouldn’t worry people as much as the education from the Dina Nath Batra School of Indianism. The school of thought holds some views that would be classified as cutely innocent, had they not been downright idiotic. That she shared the puritanical vegetarian Hindi Hindu vision of India was reflected in IITs separating vegetarian and non-vegetarian kitchens.

Her defence is that her actions in her private life do not affect her career. That’s quite all right. But imagine a health minister attending a jhaad-phoonk camp to protect himself from Ebola. Would we trust the health minister with running a modern healthcare system? He or she can’t get away with saying that "the camp was a personal affair".

Tushar Gandhi said that Smriti Irani was welcome to visit as many astrologers as she wished, as long as she did not consult them on policy and government matters. Are we so stupid to believe that the personal doesn’t affect the professional? Consulting an astrologer is one of the biggest yet rarely acknowledged evils in our society. This is what perpetuates belief in janmakundli and other superstitions. That most Indians do so is not an excuse. Most Indians litter. Should the PM drop his Clean India campaign, saying that it’s impossible to change the public mindset?

Smriti Irani visiting an astrologer is not personal. Smriti Irani consulting a palmist about her future is stupid as well. The palmist told her that she would be President of India one day. Well, you don’t need a palmist to tell you that. All you have to do is ask Mr Advani or Rajnath Singh. They will tell you how, in their cases, they were fooled by astrologers. Or ask her own leader, Narendra Modi, who is the prime minister of India, not because an astrologer had predicted so. But because he worked hard and didn’t surrender to fate, his humble origins. The photograph of Ms Irani holding out her palm in front of an astrologer is a tragic reflection of the state of common sense in India. Period. If you aspire to be president of India and your astrologer concurs, it’s not personal. It will affect all of us when you become. It affects all of us when you are the HRD minister.