Khattar's views can't be dismissed as those of an ageing crank

Delivering good governance is one thing and influencing culture is quite another, and this is where apprehensions about Haryana's next chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar arise, says Kanika Datta

Few denizens of Gurgaon will view the departure of Bhupinder Singh Hooda of the Congress with regret. It is worth wondering, however, whether those who work and/or live in that city should welcome his replacement, Manohar Lal Khattar of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

No doubt, like Khattar and the other BJP MLAs who bagged the Assembly districts that comprise Gurgaon won for the reason all other party candidates did: Narendra Modi's promise of "development" and "good governance". And maybe Khattar, given his advertised proximity to our prime minister, will be able to achieve these miracles in a city where corruption has been an entrenched culture, thanks to a surging real estate lobby. But delivering good governance is one thing; influencing culture is quite another, and this is where apprehensions about Khattar arise.

Most Indians tend to view the cultural aspects of liberalisation as an issue of subordinate importance. But as the history of business around the world has shown, a liberal culture, in every sense of the term, is vital for business and industry to flourish. Nothing reflects this more than Gurgaon, which is Haryana's most important and richest city.

Gurgaon is a microcosm of new India -- brash, thrusting yet oddly progressive in some ways. The city has developed from its agricultural fields into a back office to the world just as much as Bangalore. It probably boasts a bigger foreign corporate presence per square km than any other city in India. It has glittering glass and concrete Singapore-style office blocks and malls and stylishly upscale apartments inhabited by some of the richest Indians; foreigners of all hues can be seen in its malls and watering holes. A throbbing urban lifestyle coexists with atrocious slums and civic infrastructure and Bihar-level security, representing the distance between people's aspirations and the abilities of the political class to fulfil them.

Equally important, Gurgaon has a large and very visible complement of working women. Rich or poor, they live in a state of constant physical insecurity and prejudice, the inevitable result of urban modernity rubbing up against rural traditionalism. These attitudes can change only through increasing liberalisation and liberalism among our political and civic leadership.

But Khattar, a former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh man, raises little confidence on this score. He doesn't believe in unfettered freedom of choice, suggesting that people could as well walk around naked if they wanted such freedoms -- perhaps he's never seen the bliss of the skyclad Jains. But more ominously, he holds a decidedly weird view of gender relations. In the past, he has defended the actions of khap panchayats, those local kangaroo courts of village male elders that are marked by their antediluvian attitudes to women. But Khattar thinks they maintain "the tradition of a girl and boy being brother and sister".

That makes you wonder whether Haryana's next chief minister, a bachelor, believes babies are delivered by storks. But wait, it appears that Khattar is aware, however dimly, of what goes on between the opposite sexes (who are mostly not brothers and sisters). Which is why he has chosen to censure pre-marital sex as "ulti-seedhi cheezein" (which roughly means monkey business). Pre-marital sex happens, he thinks, when the minds of girls and boys "are not on the right track". Mind you, he's fine with marital sex, presumably girls' and boys' minds are on the right track then.

On the whole, Khattar appears to deplore attraction between the sexes, whether they're married or not. Khaps, he thinks, make sure "that a girl and boy do not see each other in the wrong way. Their rulings help prevent rapes too". Indeed, as he sees it, rape has nothing to do with men's attitudes to women. He appears unaware of the high incidence of marital, familial or child rape in India. In his world view, rape appears to be entirely driven by the provocative way women dress. He thinks girls must dress "decently" not to "lure" boys. "Decent dressing", in his opinion, excludes short clothes that are apparently the result of western influences and contrary to "Indian" tradition.

What exactly is this "Indian" tradition? It appears to exclude Indian men, most of whom wear western-wear of shirt and trousers on a daily basis. If Khattar chose to enlarge his travels to the east and northeastern parts of the country he will see tribal women clad in far less than the brief western-wear he so deplores without being subject to the threat of serial rape. He also fails to explain why women are not "lured" when they see men strutting about so arrogantly under-clad in public in the summer months.

Till recently, Khattar's views could be dismissed as those of an ageing, eccentric crank. But he will shortly hold a position of considerable importance. His views and outlook will influence the ethos of the administrative machinery. For someone so close to Modi, it is a pity that he has not imbibed the latter's progressive thinking on crimes against women that was so eloquently articulated from the ramparts of the Red Fort on Independence day. Maybe someone should make Khattar listen to a recording of it before he takes the oath of office.