Cabinet rejig took place today where nine new members were inducted in the Union Cabinet. Amongst other things, Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who got promoted to cabinet rank from Minister of State, broke the ceiling of becoming India’s first full time woman Defence Minister.
#cabinetreshuffle : @nsitharaman has been given the Defence Ministry portfolio pic.twitter.com/EZVGNNvXff
— Doordarshan News (@DDNewsLive) September 3, 2017
While many hailed it as a great and important step in gender balance representation in the top ranks in Indian politics, feminists and liberals on Twitter immediately went into action to dismiss it.
It all started with how Sitharaman is not the first woman to head Defence.
#NewsWiz2 : who was the first woman to be defence minister of India and when? No google use. #ModiTeam2019
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) September 3, 2017
Conveniently forgetting that handling the portfolio which you allocate to yourself when you are the Prime Minister of a country isn’t same as being a full time minister.
And @nsitharaman is India's first woman defence minister! Hugely disruptive bold move which will get the patriarchs blustering!
— Sagarika Ghose (@sagarikaghose) September 3, 2017
Which was immediately followed by,
Important to note tho that @nsitharaman superbly competent as she is, lacks political heft. So will @PMOIndia control national security?
— Sagarika Ghose (@sagarikaghose) September 3, 2017
And then, someone had to bring in the fact that Sitharaman holds an MA in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University.
But why would bhakts accept a JNU-educated raksha mantri?
— Salil Tripathi (@saliltripathi) September 3, 2017
JNU kee ladki ko defence minister bana diya 🙂 cc: @Shehla_Rashid
— Abhisar Sharma (@abhisar_sharma) September 3, 2017
And of course, there was a lot of hope, positivity and optimism exuded by the same.
Cabinet reshuffles shift media narrative, but out there massive job losses, eco slowdown & unkept promises. Aage Aage dekhiye hota hai kya
— Sagarika Ghose (@sagarikaghose) September 3, 2017
Seems like not being able to know the inside information before official announcement is not going down too well for some people.
