Welcome back, Smriti Irani!

Now, first of all I must tell you that I have decided to take ALL the credit. Here is my tweet from last night.

So, if you are thrilled with the elevation of Smriti Irani, you know exactly who to thank for it 🙂

In all fairness though, the final decision was made by Opindia’s Rahul Roushan out of the two names I had forwarded to them for consideration.

Smriti Irani will go places. There’s no doubt about that. Perhaps she was a little overexposed in her earlier role as HRD minister. She had become the target of envy for having achieved so much so soon … even before she turned 40 years old. Not to mention that she, much like the Prime Minister himself, was always going to be the target of scorn for her humble origins.

Sweepress, maid …. all potshots taken at her humble beginnings as a sanitary worker at MacDonald’s. Not to mention other sexually loaded innuendos, including some truly outrageous ones involving even the Prime Minister’s name. These came from some of the suave faces of secular hypocrisy, such as Tehseen Poonawalla.

One prominent magazine even wondered aloud whether it was a big deal if someone put a camera in her changing room, considering that she has faced a lot of TV cameras in her life. These are the same high society magazines that teach us liberal values on “women’s empowerment”.

In short, every kind of insult, soaked in class hatred, sexism and the pits of regressive thinking was hurled at her. That she was the challenger to Rahul Gandhi in Amethi meant there was extreme pressure on the Dynasty’s liberal pets to defame her by all means possible.

Under constant pressure since the day she was sworn in on May 26, 2014, Smriti Irani had shown signs of cracking. She had gone far too much on the defensive … and the media smelled blood. When she threw a tantrum on being called “Dear … ” by the education minister of Bihar, it was clear that the media had got their woman.

A tactical withdrawal must have done her good. Moved into the low key textile ministry, one can only hope she has had time to reflect and rethink. For she is far too big a talent for the BJP to lose. And now she has been given a chance to go all guns blazing as Information and Broadcasting Minister.

Yes, I know that the I&B Minister cannot tell the media what to say and what not to say. That’s because don’t live under leftist rule such as the Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea, Castro’s Cuba or Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge. I am thankful that Indira Gandhi lost the 1977 election. So, I don’t want the government to dictate to the media.

What I do want is for the media to suffer deep heartburn. This is the reaction I am looking for.

Along with Nikhil Wagle’s tweet, I have chosen to include the reaction of a typical civilized feminist liberal to Smriti Irani taking over the reins as I&B Minister. Hey liberal conscience keepers of the internet … any marches and protests against such language about a woman?

Of course not.

A while ago, just before the 2014 election, an arrogant Priyanka Gandhi had said mockingly about her : “Smriti, who?” At that time, Narendra Modi thundered that Smriti was his sister. Well, Smriti Irani is back and she is not going to stop until the people of Amethi are asking, “Priyanka, who?”