On entering the 60th year of Independence, India elected a woman as 13th President of the country. She comes at a time when the people watch every move and gesture of hers, wondering if she is the best choice that the country has for the post of the President following her assumption of power to the office vacated by an enigmatic personality Dr APJ Abdul Kalam?undoubtedly the best President the country has ever had so far as he was the people'sPresident. Though Dr S.D. Sharma and R. Venkatraman were great names but not as respected as achievers in their fields like Dr S. Radhakrishnan and Dr Zakir Hussain. The latter two were recipients of the Bharat Ratna even before they became President.
Pratibha Devisingh Patil was born in Maharashtra in a lower peasant caste, the Kunbis, and into a family who had developed into a landowning class, though remaining marginalised ?socially?. As she was somewhat in awe of her father, she was drawn more towards her mother who was a devout Hindu, who spent her time running the house and visiting temples to say her prayers. At a young age, Pratibha developed a taste for serious reading and admirably read Hindu classics, such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. At school, the syllabus was rather limited and she found plenty of time to devote to sports. After completing her schooling, she joined Mooljee Jaitha College in Jalgaon and later did law from the Government Law College in Mumbai, where she showed a natural affinity for the subject. She came to the conclusion that law could be consciously applied not merely to bringing a government under law through a constitution but can be used to transform the society. She decided that one could best combine freedom and energy in people and infuse them with industry and love of country by establishing the way that things can be done rather than trying to order what needed to be done.
Pratibha Patil married Devisingh Ramsingh Shekhawat, a member of the Indian National Congress. Strangely enough, Devisingh happens to be distant relation of former Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, whom Pratibha defeated in the presidential election on July 19, 2007.
Talking of her early life, the editors describe the various organisations she worked for in Jalgaon apart from participating in social and charity works. In 1974 she became the Minister for Social Welfare in Maharashtra Government, launching many programmes for ?generating employment, improving income and creating awareness among women.? The editors believe ?her ultimate goal is to make women economically independent and self-reliant.? She has established a number of hostels for working women in Delhi and Mumbai and also the Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank in 1973 to help rural women living below the poverty line.
It was this bank which came under the scanner when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) revoked its licence in 2003 after it was found that the bank had illegally waived interest on loans given to many of Pratibha Patil'sfamily members. The bank was declared ?weak? by the Reserve Bank of India in 1995. Two enquiries were ordered in July 2001 and April 2002 under the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act. The Ministry of Finance asked the RBI to enquire into allegations of fund irregularities after receiving a number of complaints from the Cooperative Bank Employees Union and small depositors. On February 25, 2003 as many as a dozen relatives, including her brothers and nephews, were granted loans from her bank meant for improving the plight of Jalgaon people.
The editors come to Pratibha Patil'sdefence and say that she was only one of the chairpersons for only a month and eight days and that the RBI had not mentioned her name in its inspection report.
She invariably brushes aside questions about her personal life. She once observed, ?Every position has advantages and disadvantages. I had an advantage of the education my father gave me and the opportunities of meeting some great people, not only politicians, but also writers, artists and so on. But in politics one has to work doubly hard to show one is merely a daughter but is also a person in her own right.?
The editors themselves agree that the people still argue if she is the right person to become President of India. ?Some call it the UPA'shigh-handedness as they had the numbers; some call it that Pratibha Patil was only being propped up by the UPA so that they could call the shots. The role of the President of the Republic of India has been reduced to a mere political puppet.? However, they seem right when they point out that what needs to be empathised is that the mistake that we are generally assigning to Pratibha Patil is applicable towards the structure of the Indian Constitution. ?This era belongs to the world of coalition politics. In such a situation, there always exists a chance of not claiming numbers and then not being able to get enough allies, whose numbers when added to the political party'sown numbers would boost their mark over the majority mark.?
Pratibha Patil has miles to go to show what a woman President can do as the hopes of the entire nation are pinned on her journey.
(Kalpaz Publications, C-30, Satyawati Nagar, Delhi-110 052.)
