Small talk, a week after Arun Jaitley heard Narendra Modi
It is unfortunate that the political class in India makes statements less out of conviction and more out of political expediency.
Barely a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in an unprecedented display of sensitivity, spent a fair part of his first Independence Day speech lamenting gender violence and exhorted the fathers in India to bring up their sons better, it seems he has his task cut out within his own Cabinet.
"When we hear about these rapes, our heads hang in shame," Modi had said without reading from a note in his hour-long speech.
"Young girls are always asked so many questions by their parents, such as 'where are you going'. But do parents dare to ask their sons where they are going? Those who commit rape are also someone's sons. It's the responsibility of the parents to stop them before they take the wrong path," he said.
Compare that with what his senior colleague and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday, "A law and order problem, one small incident of rape in Delhi advertised world over is enough to cost us millions of dollars in terms of global tourism. So we have a national responsibility especially when God has blessed us with everything, which a tourist wants to see."
Jaitley was referring to nationwide protests in December 2012 against the gangrape and death of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student, part of the young and aspirational India that his party, the BJP, claims to represent.
While the statement has generated a massive controversy, forcing Jaitley to regret his remarks, he should be reminded of what he had said on the first anniversary of the incident.
"The fact that the incident happened was a matter of shame... We failed the test of civility," he had said at an Honour Our Women event organised by his party in 2013.
While he may have failed the same test of civility himself, it is unfortunate that the political class in India makes statements less out of conviction and more out of political expediency. That doublespeak, which derives from whether one is in power or an angry opposition leader, unfortunately drives Indian politics.
Arun Jaitley was in the audience when Prime Minister Modi was calling for a gender-sensitive India from the ramparts of the Red Fort on August 15. There is little reason to doubt he hadn't heard him. Will the PM take a note of the defiance by one of his valued colleagues?
Unlikely.
And that lack of hope is at the core of a long and agonising wait for the aspirational India before it can expect sensitivity and consistency from its leaders.