Such tokenism is common in our polity. Symbolic representatives are selected because they belong to one or another disadvantaged minority whom the establishment would like to mollify. The Congress has developed a special knack for inducting token representatives who have no power base of their own even within their respective communities. Ahmed Patel and Ghulam Nabi Azad are taken as the representatives of the Muslim community in the party, although the community looks more to Arjun Singh to speak on its behalf. The Congress’s representatives from the dalits such as Sushil Kumar Shinde, Meira Kumar and Kumari Selja, lack an all-India standing and popularity within their own community. And Mayawati has managed to wean away the dalit vote from the Congress because the Congress only paid lip service to their cause.

The malady of tokenism afflicts all our national parties. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Shahnawaz Husain are conspicuous Muslim faces in a party basically formed to advance the Hindu cause. Much was made of Bangaru Laxman’s dalit background when he was made BJP party president. But he was kicked out unceremoniously for accepting a bribe and has not been heard of since. The bulk of the BJP’s OBC representatives are token leaders with the upper castes still calling the shots. Uma Bharati’s stormy exit from the BJP was because she refused to be either a token OBC or a token woman — she wanted to be her own person, wielding power in her own right.

In the politics of empty symbolism, the deserving candidate generally gets shafted for someone subservient and pliable. Patil’s record suggests she fits the mould. In her career there has always been a male to push her career forward, whether a party or caste leader, father, brother or husband. She even disclaims all responsibility for the fraud committed by the woman’s bank founded in her name, Pratibha Mahila Sahakari bank, and of which she was founding chairperson. The males in the Patil household are the real guilty ones, according to her own party.

... contd.