From One Ministry to Another, How Smriti Irani's T20 Hitting Style Keeps Her in the News

The Prasar Bharati episode shows that Irani has not shed the imperious and confrontationist ways seen during her previous stint as HRD minister.

Smriti Irani is a heavy hitter in the Modi-dominated new BJP and has frequently hit out at institutional autonomy and senior bureaucracy. Credit: PTI Files

"In a very short time the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about, shouting 'off with his head or off with her head' about once in a minute," Lewis Carroll wrote in Alice in Wonderland. The queen of hearts shouts out this phrase several times in the story. In fact she doesn't say a great deal else.

This, in the words of a senior official in the information the broadcasting ministry, sums up the ministerial tenure of Smriti Zubin Irani.

After a stormy few days, things have quietened down on the Prasar Bharati-Smriti Irani spat, at least in the media. Her bosses have reportedly told her to find a solution by working with Prasar Bharati chairman A. Surya Prakash, who stood his ground when the minister pressured him on a few issues. This was more than just an ego clash – Prasar Bharati was set up by Parliament and its expenditure is mandated by the annual budget. Irani was treading on dangerous ground.

But the episode shows that Irani has not shed the imperious ways for which she picked up a reputation in her previous stint in the human resource development ministry. Irani is a heavy hitter in the Modi-dominated new Bharatiya Janata Party and she has hit out at institutional autonomy and the senior bureaucracy in her various contentious ministerial tenures. Trouble is, she seems to be playing T20 style, and her mentor, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has repeatedly been embarrassed by her and has been forced to think of shifting her after her exploits became widely known.

In her latest stand-off with the Prasar Bharti board, Irani stopped the salaries of employees (something never before done in the history of government of India) as a signal of her anger at the apparent defiance of the public broadcaster. In this particular matter, Irani may have gone too far as an irate Surya Prakash, chief of Prasar Bharati and himself a perosn with connections in very high places, upped the ante by threatening to take the matter to higher authorities, including the prime minister, and to Parliament – which set up Prasar Bharati via an Act.

Left: I&B minister Smriti Irani; Right: Prasar Bharati chairman A. Surya Prakash. Credit: Reuters/PTI

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Irani has had to try and sue for peace after realising that her reckless action, coming as it does in the aftermath of  the controversy over the payment of a hefty fee of nearly Rs 3 crore to a private company which Prasar Bharti refused to honour, left her with egg on her face.

A flashback to HRD

When Irani took the oath as Union HRD minister in May 2014, a heavyweight ministry critical to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's ideological agenda, she immediately attracted controversy with her disputed educational qualifications. It emerged that she had filed multiple affidavits in her declarations for the Rajya Sabha polls with the Election Commission (EC). The matter is in the courts with Irani stonewalling attempts to properly establish the actual status of her degree. She added fuel to the fire by claiming that "I even have a degree from Yale in my kitty, despite people calling me uneducated". This claim attracted derision as Irani was referring to a week-long course she attended at Yale along with other MPs.

Consider some of the controversies that Irani had found herself in during her ministerial tenure. In the HRD ministry, Irani attempted to impose what she termed "good governance day" on Christmas Day and force kids to attend school that dy. After a predictable outcry, she was forced to back-track and made "good governance day" voluntary after sending an angry denial to the Times of India which had broken the story. The denial was long on rhetoric and short on facts, much like her recent statement on the stoppage of Prasar Bharati salaries.

Then came the disaster that was the dubbing of an entire campus – Jawaharlal University – as "anti-national" in February 2016 after a student protest and some doctored videos led to the arrest of the then students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar. The centre filed charges of sedition against Kumar and another student, Umar Khalid, after Irani asked Union home minister, Rajnath Singh to "ensure that the nation will not endure an insult to Mother India". Till date despite, having the footage of the people who shouted "seditious" slogans, the Delhi police has not arrested them. News reports of how someone who was  then an aide of Irani had allegedly circulated "doctored videos" further added to the sordid mix.

Not content with acting as a force multiplier for the ABVP (the student wing of the RSS), Irani got embroiled in the campus politics of Hyderabad university where a Dalit research student Rohith Vemula committed suicide. The opposition claimed in Parliament that Irani as HRD minister pushed for the punishment of Dalit students by sending five reminders to the Hyderabad university vice-chancellor.

Irani during her tenure sacked two university vice-chancellors – a first in the history of the country. She was at loggerheads with a number of vice-chancellors, including that of Delhi University and his counterpart in Aligarh Muslim University.

Her management of academics and senior faculty was so dreadful that the director of Delhi IIT, R K Shevgoankar quit in December 2014, two years before the completion of his term. Nuclear scientist Anil Kakodkar resigned as the chairman of IIT Mumbai in March 2015 alleging that Irani was "interfering in the selection of directors of three IIT's".

Also read:

» Exclusive: Angered by Prasar Bharati’s defiance, Smriti Irani blocks salary funds for DD, AIR

» As Irani confirms salary funds block, Prasar Bharati chief wants parliament to intervene

» Jawahar Sircar on how Smriti Irani is only the latest star in the I&B ministry’s serial wars with Prasar Bharati

Irani tried to bring in a Bill to rein in the Indian institute of Managements (IIM) by concentrating financial power in the ministry's hands. She was forced to back down after the IIMs offered stiff resistance.

Irani's decision taken to please the RSS by replacing German with  Sanskrit in the HRD ministry-run Kendriya Vidayalas as the third language in April 2014 created a diplomatic furore with the German premier Angela Merkel raising the issue with Modi in the G-20 summit in Brisbane in November 2014.

Irani also made an abortive attempt to introduce Sanskrit in the IIT's and set up a committee to promote it. A number of bureaucrats in the HRD ministry sought transfers from her ministry on account of her arrogant and high-handed behaviour, something that is now being repeated in the I&B ministry.

After the Vemula matter became a flashpoint in parliament, Irani dramatically offered her "head" to Mayawati who later demanded it after it was found that Irani had in her statement misled the house. Eventually, Modi had to transfer her to the textiles ministry.

But nothing could keep her down for long. Irani made a dramatic comeback as I&B minister only to run in to headlong confrontation with Prasar Bharati.

Irani, who has lost two Lok Sabha elections – the last one to Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Amethi – has tried to keep herself afloat and relevant in politics by cultivating a constituency of right wing trolls on social media and launching fierce attacks on Gandhi. She also makes frequent trips to Amethi, where she hopes to contest against the Congress president again. Despite, her acidic attacks, Gandhi has disappointed her by choosing never to engage with her.

Currently, her trolls keep her afloat as with her latest spat even the RSS has indicated that it has run out of patience with her for attacking an ideologically affiliated Surya Prakash. 

At the same time, the fact remains that some of her actions, especially in HRD, have pleased the RSS bosses. Party men say that she may even be useful because of her pugnacity and willingness to pick up a fight and take on the media. She may yet remain the party’s candidate in Amethi to fight Rahul Gandhi. That is one reason why she survives and in fact got promoted to an even more high-profile ministry. In addition, Irani has no political base of her own – barring on social media where she has a vast army of very vocal admirers – and that makes her obedient, ever willing to do the bidding of Nagpur.

Swati Chaturvedi is a Delhi-based journalist.

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