Political husbandry

I hope the news that the BJP is taking a nuanced view on Robert Vadra’s business interests is indeed true.

The role of a political spouse in any circumstances is a difficult one — but of all the private hells of being consort to people in public office, perhaps none is as fraught as that of the political husband.

Denis Thatcher’s life’s purpose it seemed was to provide fodder for Private Eye lampoonists, Bill Clinton seems to be disintegrating by the minute under the pressure of his new career (those puffy eyes, that pink nose — signs of channelling his inner louche-ness) and Todd Palin deserves our sympathy because he has to suffer not only the awfulness of Sarah’s syntax but also the clear and present danger of being used as a prop in his wife’s apple-pie and motherhood bid for presidentship.

In India we have yet to get a heads around the concept of the political husband.

By the time Indira Gandhi became prime minister, she was already a widow, as are Delhi CM Sheila Dixit and the chairperson of the UPA.

Jayalalithaa, Uma Bharti, Mayawati and Mamta are unmarried, Vasundhara Raje is divorced and among the other leading female politicians, husbands seem to wisely prefer keeping low profiles.

Little is known about Sri Swaraj Kaushal, husband of Sushma Swaraj, or S Choudhary, Renuka’s spouse.

Sadanand Sule, husband of NCP leader Supriya Sule, is a Mumbai-based businessman who gives Delhi and politics a wide berth. As for the First Gentleman, the almost-invisible Devisingh Ransingh Shekawat, husband to President Pratibha Patil, suffice to say that he is hardly a role model for future aspirants to the job.

And there is reason to believe that the job has few takers; it has long hours, there’s not much appreciation and few days off, for starters. And then there’s that little business of militating against gender: it takes a very strong man to rise up to its demands.

“You walk one step behind, you do not answer questions and, in Washington, you’re nothing — get used to it,” says Steve Lowey, husband to Nita, a New York Democrat, who joined a support group for male political spouses called (what else?) the Denis Thatcher Society.

Founded by Jim Schroeder, the spouse of Democrat congresswoman Pat Schroeder, the group, whose password is “Yes, dear”, includes the husbands of Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O’Connor.

In the subcontinent, political husbands have fared a bit better. Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s husband M A Wazed Miah was a respected nuclear scientist. Vijaya Kumaratunga, the husband of Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunga, was a popular Sri Lankan film actor and politician, and Asif Zardari, husband to late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, not only graduated to becoming the president but went from being Mr 10 Per Cent to Mr 100 Per Cent, if rumours are to be believed.

But this is not to say that Robert Vadra’s role is one of peaches and cream. Firstly, he isn’t even a genuine political spouse as his wife Priyanka holds no public office, and so you can argue that he has the disadvantages of the job with none of its (arguable) advantages.

And secondly, he enters business in a climate of endemic cynicism.

To be fair, he appears to be a young man who works hard, is enterprising and has invested a small sum of money in a legitimate business.

Until proved otherwise, I hope he doesn’t pay the price for his position.

Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer