DailyO Hall of Fame - September has ended and everyone's awake
1. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of India has been a busy, busy body. From Section 377 to Aadhaar, to adultery, to Sabrimala, to Ayodhya, to reservations and “Urban Naxals”, the apex court, it would seem, did what a student does when inches away from a deadline: do everything with enough fervour and most things will look fine.
While that approach works well for assignments, it isn’t the most sure-shot way to deliver justice to all those who look up to the judiciary as, perhaps, the only stable pillar of the Constitution. After all, teachers behaving like their students have never led to the best of results!
Somehow, however, the results have been more good than bad. Section 377 has been partially scrapped, Paytm, banks and phone companies can no longer prod the public (and annoyingly so) into providing Aadhaar details, adultery is decriminalised, menstruating women can enter a particular temple — the good judgments outnumber the questionable ones. For example, while the court upheld the validity of Articles 16 (4A) and 16 (4B) of the Constitution, which provide for reservations in promotion for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes with consequential seniority, it also raised the “creamy layer” bar on reservation in promotion.
But, like they say, the Supreme Court works in mysterious ways. Hopefully, some of the mysteries will now find themselves demystified, once a live-transmission of proceedings is brought into effect.
2. Chetan Bhagat
Of all the people who have done their bit to explain what the Rafale deal really is (and why one should not not trust the BJP), author extraordinaire Chetan five-point-someone Bhagat did the best.
The bestselling author and columnist decided the best way to sugar-coat the Rafale Deal, was to, well, use sugar as a simplified analogy. “Say you order mithai for the neighbourhood, but tell the halwai to take the milk from your bhaiya only. Did someone actually say that? Was milk taken at a fair price? Did halwai choose the milk seller on his own based on quality? We don’t know yet,” wrote the author.
Barely had he tasted the sweetness of success (or whatever the equivalent of tweeting something satisfactory is), Bhagat was blitzed with ridicule; after all, it was too simple an analogy to have any bearing with reality.
While Twinkle Khanna’s driver may find the analogy unsatisfactory because “… But Ambani is Gujarati, how can he be a bhaiya?’, the bigger part of the Twitter-janata felt the tweet lacked a lot more than just geography-based ethnic nomenclature — something that made them question the very basis of two of Bhagat’s novels that chronicled his supposed life in IIT and IIM.
What the critics of Bhagat clearly miss, however, is that assuming his intention to provide a coherent and nuanced analogy on the Rafale deal, makes an “ass of u and me”. A quick take, especially on Twitter, is never Pulitzer-worthy. And the author’s now-long career is only proof that he has never sought awards and excellence. All he seeks are eyeballs!
3. #MeToo again
Every time one comes forward uttering the phrase #MeToo, we feel a little hopeful, and a little dejected, at the same time. Hopeful, for we have another voice which could not be suppressed, and dejected, for we have to strike one name off #NotAllMen.
Just a year after the #MeToo movement started, following allegations of sexual abuse against Harvey Weinstein, September witnessed a few significant developments regarding the movement.
It was the month which saw US President Donald Trump yet again supporting Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, accused of sexually assaulting Christine Ford when they were teenagers.
Closer home, yesteryear Bollywood actress Tanushree Dutta accused veteran actor Nana Patekar of sexually abusing her on the sets of a movie a decade ago. Eye-witnesses — a journalist and an assistant director (both women) — vouched for Tanushree’s account. Many actors, irrespective of gender, denounced whatever happened. Others — the more prominent voices of the industry — remained quiet, of course.
4. Serena Williams
Serena didn’t win the US Open Championship 2018. But still, it was she, not Naomi Osaka, who dominated all the debates — for both right and wrong reasons.
During the match, Serena fought with chair umpire Carlos Ramos after being penalised for being coached on the side. Later, she was also penalised for racket abuse. Serena fans reacted when her outrage was described as a “meltdown”; when they didn’t like Naomi Osaka winning the championship; when cartoonist Mark Knight sketched an angry Serena in a “racist” light.
As a result, this US Open led to a number of debates: whether Serena was right in protesting the umpire’s “sexism”, whether it was a case of sexism or game rules, whether Serena was to be blamed for the audience booing Osaka, whether the cartoon was ‘racist’, whether calling out racism is censorship, etc.
5. Sabyasachi Mukherjee
Every time Sabyasachi Mukherjee is in the news, we look around to see whether any Bollywood celebrity is getting married. If there’s none, then he must have said something problematic. Last time, the celebrity designer shamed women who don't know how to drape a saree. This time, he said he was tired of ‘gaunt faces and stick-thin models’. Instead, he was obsessed by ‘boobs’. There’s an explanation behind it: In fashion, one needs to be fresh.
But his search for muses amid female body parts did not go down well with many. Apart from casual sexism underlying his artistic statement, we were reminded of how the designer was bold only in his statements, not in design — and why we need more women to design clothes for women.
(Coauthored by Poulomi Ghosh and Pathikrit Sanyal)