Update [June 20, 2007]: Muslim leaders urge UPA to change its presidential candidate.
Addressing a conference in Udaipur over the weekend, Patil said women started wearing the headscarves in India to save themselves from 16th century Muslim invaders, and that it was time to drop the practice.
“Now that women are progressing in every field, we should morally support and encourage them by leaving such practices behind,” she said.
All India Muslim Personal Law Board member Maulana Khalid Rashid said it was God who has asked women to wear a headscarf and that this is enshrined in the Holy Qur’an.
I don’t know how much of it is true, but the Indian women were quite progressive in the pre-Mughals period.
Update ends
Update [June 17, 2007]: I just saw her on TV. In subservience towards the Congress she is even worse than Manmohan Singh and the former President Giani Zail Singh. The walls of the Rashrapati Bhawan will cringe, especially after having accommodated the illustrious Kalam.
Update ends
This is a surprise for everyone. After freaky speculations over Shivraj Patil and Pranab Mukherji and what not, the Congress and the UPA alliance has declared a woman as the presidential nominee. Pratibha Patil became the first woman Governor of Rajasthan and now she may become the first woman president of India. It was a good move I think. Nobody would like to oppose a woman presidential candidate and who knows, she might turn out to be a good choice. At least we won’t have the misfortune of seeing Shivraj Patil as the president, being such a lousy and sissy home minister. Looking at him, it is hard to believe that a person like Sardar Patel was once our home minister. The Left, for once, was right about calling Shivraj Patil an incompetent person:
Alarm bells began to sound this morning when a Left-DMK meeting failed to evolve a consensus on Home Minister Shivaraj Patil’s nomination. Sources present at the meeting said the phrase “incompetent person??? figured in the discussion between the Left parties and the DMK. The result of the meeting was conveyed to Sonia Gandhi by CPI-M leader Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury who drove down to 7 Race Course Road, after which a previously scheduled Cabinet meeting was cancelled and the government began bracing itself for a crisis.
And the DMK is a really anti-national party for suggesting Arjun Singh’s name for the post:
A number of names went back and forth. Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh’s name was proposed by the DMK, but this was turned down because it was felt Singh’s health might not allow him to do justice to the onerous duties of the president of India that include inspecting guards of honour, an exercise that requires the incumbent to be able to walk.
It’s a wrenching feeling to imagine Arjun Singh being the president after the much- revered Kalam.
A brief profile of Pratibha Patil on the Hindu website.
More links on Pratibha Patil (they are mostly newspaper links as not many bloggers have written on this yet. I’ll add their links as and when I find them):
- Abandon veil Pratibha Patil tells Hindu women
- Muslim leaders demand India presidential candidate step down over headscarf remarks
- Pratibha Patil – From “Who?” to “Madam President”
- Pratibha Patil for President – A Close look at her record
- BJP etc reject woman ‘president’: the real problem
- Pratibha Patil: From ping-pong to presidential palace
- Sonia names Pratibha Patil for President
- Pratibha Patil can break male dominance in Rashtrapati Bhawan
- Can Pratibha Patil become India’s First Woman President?
Technorati Tags: pratibha patil, indian president, woman indian president, shivraj patil, arjun singh, sardar patel, sonia gandhi, congress, upa, abdul kalam
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