The men who are behind time

With 50 years in public life, many of these spent as chief minister or a Union minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav makes his prime ministerial ambitions known ever too often. From public platforms, Yadav also professes to lead India back into the dark ages. He will, if he ever comes to power, reverse the new anti-rape laws, the 74-year-old has promised recently - "Rape ke liye phaansi dena galat hai. Ladkon se galti ho jaati hai. Hum satta mein aaye to kanoon mein badlav karenge" (Handing death sentence for rape is not fair. Boys make mistakes. There will be changes in the law if we come to power)."

There is a debate raging in the country on the issue of sexual violence and crimes against women for the last 18 months. Successes have come through strong legislation after concerted efforts by individuals and institutions. But the mindset of society, particularly of powerful individuals like Mulayam, remains a challenge.

This is not the first time the Samajwadi Party (SP) chief, who professes the ideals of convenience, has threatened to take India way back in time. In the run-up to the last Lok Sabha election in 2009, he spoke about the party actively working against English-medium education but sent his son, Akhilesh, who is now the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, abroad to study. SP's current campaign song that focuses on "Mulayam's soft heart and iron will" is also a direct lift from Billy Joel's popular English number "We didn't Start the Fire". Ironically, this election Mulayam and his party have started more than one fire.

Some time back, Abu Azmi, the 58-year-old president of the Maharashtra Samajwadi Party and a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, dropped another pearl of wisdom. He said, "Any woman if, whether married or unmarried, goes along with a man, with or without her consent, should be hanged. Both should be hanged. It shouldn't be allowed even if a woman goes by consent." The businessman-turned politician invited sharp criticism from several quarters, but the loudest rap came from home when his daughter-in-law, Bollywood actor Ayesha Takia, tweeted, "if wot im reading about my father in laws statements r true then me and Farhan are deeply embarrassed n ashamed...(sic)." Through that one tweet, Takia, whose free spirit was encapsulated in the 2006 film Dor, showed where people like Azmi belong. Certainly not where India sees itself today.

Back to Mulayam and his family. Often the statements made by the SP chief's brother, Shivpal Singh Yadav, betray his medieval mindset that the government is the owner and not the custodian of the public treasury. In the 2006 Lok Sabha by-election in Rae Bareli, Shivpal, a senior minister in the government headed by his brother, told a public gathering, "Jo jitna vote dega, usse utna paissa milega (you will be rewarded according to the number of votes you cast)." But that wasn't the last controversial statement we heard from him. At a meeting with bureaucrats, in August 2012, Shivpal, minister of Public Works Department, said, "I told PWD officials the other day that 'if you work hard then you can steal a little. But you will not behave like dacoits'... You work hard, put your heart and soul into it, if you give them sweet water then you are allowed to steal some too."

Now coming to SP leader Azam Khan. He has taken political discourse to another low, dragging even the defence forces, a symbol of secular India, into the muddy political arena. Addressing a rally in Ghaziabad, the Uttar Pradesh minister asked "Hindu brothers" to embrace Muslims. "…isliye mohabbat karo ki Kargil ki pahadiyo ko fateh karne wala koi Hindu nahi tha, balki Kargil ki pahadiyo ko nara-e-takbeer Allah-Hu-Akbar kehkar fathe karnewale Musalman fauji the… (love us because peaks of Kargil were not conquered by Hindus, but by Muslim soldiers raising the battlecry of God is the Greatest)."

In the past too, these SP leaders have displayed their stone-age DNA. Mulayam had once announced he would ban computers. It's another story that the wrestler-turned-politician did a perfect flip by riding to power in UP on the promise of distributing free laptops. He has also said that he is against mechanised farming and agricultural machines that snatch jobs from poor labourers and send bullocks to slaughter houses.

The question is: where do these Flintstones imagine they are taking us?