‘Politicians don’t want you to vote – for you live in a high rise and you’re not part of their vote bank’

The favourite punching bag of the media and of the chattering classes before and after every election is the well-to-do, apathetic citizen who lives in high rises and does not bother to cast his/her vote.

And the leading role in every battle of the ballot is inevitably played by the slum resident who makes it a point to exercise his/her democratic right by patiently standing in long queues before casting his/her vote.

The residents of high rises are usually far more literate than the slum-dwellers; and they are millions of rupees away from the below-the-poverty-line existence of those who comprise more than 60% of a city’s population.

Is this an ideal situation? Are political parties satisfied about this state of affairs? Are they making efforts to ensure that educated, well-to-do people also exercise their franchise? Is a voting percentage of 40 or 50 (and that, mostly from the slums) enough for democracy?

A loaded question to this effect was posed at the last meeting by President-Elect Pradeep Saxena to the guest speaker, Ms Shaina N.C., who belongs to both the fashion as well as the political fraternities.

“What are the political parties doing to make Pradeep Saxena go out and vote?” he asked.

But it was not a happy situation. Perhaps the answer lay in making it compulsory for citizens to vote, or offering certain “incentives” such as admission to college for the children of those who cast their votes.

She recalled the view of a Shiv Sena MLA, Mr. Sarpotdar, who pointed out that people struggled very hard to get a passport; they would go to great lengths to do everything necessary to meet the requirements for a passport. If only they made a tenth of that effort to go and vote…

The Collector of Bombay had sent out mobile vans that issued laminated voter ID cards on the spot. But those who were apathetic remained unimpressed. Some felt it was very difficult to find out the time when it would turn up outside their homes. And some others wanted the van to park in their lanes at a time of their choice. This was taking apathy to new heights.

Ms Shaina, who is a member of the BJP and a spokesperson of the party in Maharashtra, was speaking at the last meeting on an unusual topic, “Fashion and politics”, and impressed the members with her erudition and grasp over issues agitating society and the country as a whole.

Daughter of the well-known social activist and former Sheriff Nana Chudasama, she has a fashion designer, Munira Chudasama, for a mother and is herself now a leading member of the fashion fraternity and of the political world, too.

In his introduction, Satya Bansal said that when he asked Ms Shaina about the connection between fashion and politics, she had said that while fashion was her profession, politics was her passion. She was the only person from the fashion fraternity who had taken the plunge into “the big, bad world of politics”.

Ms Shaina started by thanking the Rotary Club of Bombay for selecting her many years ago for the Rotary Exchange Scholarship that took her to Vancouver when she was just 16 years old. That experience had done wonders for her self-confidence.

As a growing child, she always told her mother that she would never be a fashion designer. She believed that the profession was strictly for dumb girls and bored housewives. She wanted to grow up to be a lawyer, a politician or a journalist.

By a strange twist of fate, it so happened that when she was barely 17 years old, her mother fell ill and she had to go to her boutique, The Golden Thimble, to fill in for her. She acted as Supervisor and gave directions to the tailors.

While spending time at the boutique, she created a collection of 12 to 15 garments with a clear understanding that it was just a stop-gap arrangement and that she would be there only till such time as her mother was unwell. But before she knew it, and to her utter surprise, the collection she had created sold out within a week.

“It’s strange how your life changes and how your thoughts change as you grow… At 18 I had seen the colour of money and suddenly my perception of the fashion world changed and it was no longer for dumb bimbos… it was good business, with lots of money and it offered me a future.”

As she completed her studies in political science from St. Xavier’s, she worked with the NGOs set up by her father and some at her college. She also went for higher studies and earned an Associate’s Degree in Fashion Design.

Soon after she resumed her business, Ms Shaina said, she realised that she had a rare talent to drape saris. She started with 10 to 15 different ways of draping a sari and eventually arrived at 54 different ways of draping six yards of fabric. She had absolutely no idea that she could achieve such a feat.

It soon became her USP and she travelled all over the country with a “show” teaching girls how to wear a sari. It was a time when most girls abhorred saris and preferred jeans. They felt saris were traditional and uncomfortable, whereas jeans were modern and helped them “to look nice and sensuous” like film stars.

On the international stage, on the other hand, celebrities such as Cherie Blair, Jemima Khan and Zandra Rhodes wore saris and made them popular throughout the world.

“I took the show across the country and the response was overwhelming. I had never thought that people would get converted to wearing differently draped saris. And that became my fashion statement, my USP in the fashion design fraternity.

“I focused very hard on work. I had started working when I was 18 and I remember that while others used to hang out in the college canteen, I was working at my mother’s boutique.”

Her brand was soon established, she got married and life went on smoothly. Soon, she had her first baby.

But the thought of getting into politics was always at the back of her mind. She had been attracted towards public speaking, social issues and politics from her school-going days. Close interaction with NGOs was another feature of her early life.

In the course of discussions over socially relevant issues, she realised that most people preferred to sit on the fence. No one was willing to make a commitment. At cocktail parties, talk usually veered around what one party had done and what another party had not done.

At the same time, Ms Shaina said, she was apprehensive about the candyfloss world of glamour. Appearing on the society pages on a regular basis and having her photograph in the newspapers every other day sometimes scared her. Fame, after all, was fickle. Thankfully, her family members did not allow her to get a bloated head. They always brought her back to earth.

“I consciously decided that I wanted to take the plunge and enter active public life by joining a political party. I did not want to sit on the fence and just be an NGO activist or a social activist. I wanted to be a part of the political fraternity, I wanted to make a difference.”

Her father did not deter her and asked her to go ahead and pick a party of her choice.

She seriously started scouting. She looked at both the positives and the negatives of the Congress, of the BJP and so on; and finally she decided that she wanted to join the BJP.

When her father asked her why she wanted to join the BJP, she told him that as a student of political science she had seen the country being run by the Congress and she felt that it practised nothing but appeasement politics. It had its vote banks and it made sure that those vote banks remained intact.

“If you truly believe that you want the country to progress, why can’t we have justice for all and appeasement of none? I was one of those truly impressed by Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, the former Prime Minister, and the NDA-led government, and I said my choice is going to be the BJP.

“I’m a product of a Hindu-Muslim marriage and most people said, Oh, you are so secular and (yet) you’re joining a bunch of fundamentalists. But I did my research on the RSS and I found that they are probably the most disciplined organisation in the country and, contrary to what many people feel, the kind of social work they do and the kind of discipline they project is unparalleled.

And within two weeks she was told to be prepared to fight an election. She said she was not interested because she had just joined the party along with 200 youngsters, including professionals from the field of fashion, doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants and others and it was too early to plunge into electoral politics.

But the party insisted that as a disciplined solider she had to give one month of her life to the party. She relented and contested the Assembly elections from the Bandra constituency. That was the biggest eye-opener for her.

Every single person she met during the campaign said he/she would be voting for her; she was welcomed with open arms and she heard people saying, “Yes, finally we’ve got a person from a clean, clear background, someone not interested in being in politics only for money; we have someone who truly believes and now we now believe that there is hope”.

Ms Shaina said she was very happy with the campaign and with the way people responded to her appeal for votes. She interacted with people from all walks of life, from slums to high-rises, from students to youth, with women, the aged and so on.

When people asked what the “N.C.” in her name stood for, she said it was Shaina “Non-Corruptible”.

She lost the election.

And then she started wondering what had happed to all those people who had told her that they had voted for her. Where had their votes gone?

It turned out that the voting percentage was a measly 43. “People like you and I who live in the high-rises had not even come out to vote.”

But she had taken away two positives from her first election. The first was an encounter with an old woman who had held her hand and said in Marathi, “You are the candidate? (I know) you will do good work”.

That woman had tremendous faith in her and wanted her to make a difference.

And then, on the day of the counting of votes, her opponent, Baba Siddiqui of the Congress, said to her, “You know, you really had me worried because the day before the election, my daughter came up to me and said, ‘Papa, all my friends’ parents are voting for her because she looks like an honest, good girl’!”

“That was my victory!” said Ms Shaina.

On further analysis, she realised that many people had this to say about her: “She has come from the fashion fraternity. What does she understand about politics? What is she going to contribute? She is like all the others from the glamour world who come to fight an election, who want a party post and who leave.”

But that had not happened in her case. She had stayed on in the party. She became a Secretary of the BJP and was the youngest, and the only woman, to reach that position. At present she was the spokesperson of the BJP in Maharashtra, and again she was the youngest and only woman spokesperson that the BJP had ever had in Maharashtra.

Ms Shaina confessed that the combination of fashion and politics was not always advantageous because many people did not think that she was serious or that she could make a difference. But this was not true. Professionals like her did not look at politics as a “business” but as a way of giving back to society through tangible projects and not just tall claims.

She recalled that she had motivated students from the J.J. School of Applied Art to beautify all the paediatric wards in the municipal hospitals. The youngsters willing gave their time and energy and a corporate had happily offered the required paint.

Soon, the paediatric wards of 12 municipal hospitals in Bombay were completely transformed, “just by connecting people”.

The most difficult task was getting permission from the municipal corporation which was worried more about the spot where her name would be put up!

There were many other tasks that could be taken up, she said, whether simple ones like tree-planting, segregating garbage, working for spastic children and so on, or suggesting a change in the Education Bill being considered by Parliament (so that it included a provision saying that disabled children would also be covered).

Fortunately, people like her were in a position to make a difference. Two days before her talk, she received a call from Dr. Mithu Aloor of the Spastics’ Society who suggested that it was necessary to have a clause to cover disabled children in the Education Bill.

She had called her colleagues in Delhi, including the party President and the leader of the opposition, Mr.

L.K. Advani. They had done the needful and the clause had been included.

“Therefore, irrespective of whether or not you are elected, if you really want to deliver, then the sky is the limit. And you really can deliver. The advantage of being in politics is that you can deliver from a different level as well.”

Further, Ms Shaina said, there was no point in labelling all politicians as scamsters or as a bunch of corrupt people and saying that it was better to keep a safe distance from them.

After the terror attacks in Bombay on November 26, 2008, many politicians came with their security details, made statements before the media and disappeared.

But there were many youngsters like her – and from different political parties – who had stayed on at various hospitals, such as J.J. and Cama, to help the victims as much as possible.

Some used their connections to have victims treated at Bombay Hospital, others helped them to return home after treatment. While a few liaised with the police, others ensured that various agencies co-operated with one another. And one group was busy raising money.

“If you ask me, have you made a difference? I will say I definitely have. Can everyone here make a difference? Yes, you can. But you need to have the will and the fire in your belly to make sure that you are going to be out there doing something, not just making tall claims that you are going to eradicate AIDS, get rid of poverty, ensure that illiteracy disappears and so on.”

Referring to Sunita Yadav, a victim of the 26/11 carnage, she said the woman had lost her husband and her livelihood in the firing. She had nobody except her little daughter and had gone back to her father’s house.

This man bemoaned that Sunita and her daughter were now a millstone round his neck. He had got her married with great difficulty and yet she was back with him, a widow and with a little girl to boot. Who would educate the girl, take care of her and get her married?

“I said to him, don’t you dare talk like that! But he insisted that he would now have to carry the additional load of his daughter and granddaughter. I again said, don’t you dare talk like that.

“With the help of NDTV we ran a campaign for the little baby, Sheetal Yadav, saying anybody who wants to donate for her should contribute to I Love Mumbai and we will make sure that the girl’s education is taken care of. You will be amazed to know that we got 170 cheques directly in the name of Sheetal Yadav.

“And suddenly the grandfather’s attitude changed. He started saying, this little girl is everything for us and there is no life without her!”

Finally, Sunita Yadav went home with about Rs. 16 lakhs as a fixed deposit for her child; it would ensure that her child would have an existence she could not even have dreamt of.

Everything eventually boiled down to connecting people. There were many people who wanted to do good but didn’t know how to go about it. “People like us are there as a medium to channelise.”

Finally, Ms Shaina appealed to her audience to give back to and to make a difference to society. It was always better than to sit on the fence and criticise politicians. It was even more important that those who were successful and better off stepped into public life because they would not be doing so to make money through corrupt means.

Every drop in the ocean made a difference and, contrary to all the negative propaganda and the disillusioned fence-sitters, there was hope for a better tomorrow.

Before signing off, Ms Shaina said that she had attended the launch of the Club’s computer training programme at the Dr. Ambedkar Municipal School at Worli and had found it to be “fabulous” (she was referring to the Bhavishya-Yaan project).

The floor was then thrown open for questions.

And first off the block was Bharat Kumar Taparia who wanted to set the record straight about Ms Shaina’s statement that victims of the terror attacks of 26/11 were admitted to and treated at Bombay Hospital through “connections”.

He said 105 patients, most of them policemen, were treated at Bombay Hospital without “connections”. There were about 20 foreigners among the 105.

When the guest speaker said she was not disputing his facts but saluting him, Bharat Kumar insisted that the patients were admitted without any “connections”.

Ms Shaina said she agreed with him and added that after the hospital had stopped taking patients of 26/11, she had called Dr. Tiwari at Bombay Hospital and he had obliged by admitting a patient from J.J. Hospital with a cyst in the stomach; no doctor at J.J. was willing to look at him and he could have died.

Bharat Kumar came back with another comment: “We accepted many serious patients from J.J. Hospital. You will be happy to know that Jharna Narang, who was injured in this hotel (the Taj Mahal), was treated for eight months and she walked out of Bombay Hospital only last week.”

When Shyyamniwas Somani asked her to suggest three projects for the Rotary Club to undertake, Ms Shaina said she could think of two off the cuff.

The first was tree plantation. Growing more trees was the best way to combat global warming. Many people complained that there was no space to plant trees. But this was not true. Trees could be planted in every compound, on every footpath, in hospitals, schools, colleges and so on.

Since the survival rate was only 50%, it was necessary to continue planting even more trees. Plants were available from the municipal corporation for a mere Rs. 1.50. The I Love Mumbai Foundation had 33 centres for the distribution of saplings all over the city. Rotary could also establish such centres for distribution.

And the second cause, which was close to her heart, was that of the girl child. She appealed to the Club to help educate the maximum number of girls.

When a guest asked what could be done about gender discrimination as a whole, Ms Shaina told him to wait for the Bill for 33% reservation for women to be enacted. Her party was committed to it.

“For your information, the BJP is the only party that has implemented 33% reservation for women in its organisational posts… (and this is far more than) what the Congress has done, considering that it has a woman as its President.”

When PDG Manibhai Doshi asked how Rotarians, who were well-to-do people, could help in her projects, Ms Shaina said the easiest thing was to sign a cheque! On a more serious note, she said the best contribution was setting aside time for a particular cause. Whether it was visiting an organisation or a hospital, distributing certain items or helping raise points in Parliament, the most important requirement was of time.

PP Arun Sanghi asked how she managed to split her time.

Ms Shaina said it was something only a woman could do and added that the women in the audience would agree with her.

She had started with an advantage because she had been at work ever since she was 18. Usually, she worked 12 hours a day, dividing her time equally between fashion and politics. During elections she had to devote much more time and also lost out on sleep (she usually got four or five hours’ sleep during election time).

“But I must be frank and honest, that there is a certain high about it, a certain kick. My husband always jokes that just as a drug addict is addicted to drugs, a politician is addicted to this kind of high or kick, where you enter the public (arena) and the public roars and that gives you unbelievable energy. And that is the honest truth. I’m not going to say that I do it for this or for that (altruistic purpose).

“Everyone has a different mental make-up. I divide my time in half. And whatever free time I get is for my two children. Fortunately, I have a strong support system in my mother and my mother-in-law; without them, I wouldn’t have been able to survive.

“If I had had an insecure husband who was a typical male chauvinist, it would not have been possible. So more than my parents, I give credit to my husband because he has never felt insecure about my success and the time I spend away. When he was needed to fill in for me, he has done so without feeling that it is not his job.”