You know her as the fiery parliamentarian. But Mahua Moitra admitted she was nervous standing before this audience.
Here’s the TMC lawmaker delivering the Sara Mathew Memorial Lecture organised by St. Mary’s School in New Delhi’s Safdarjung Enclave. Thanks to The Marian Wire.
Here’s the TMC lawmaker delivering the Sara Mathew Memorial Lecture organised by St. Mary’s School in New Delhi’s Safdarjung Enclave. Thanks to The Marian Wire.
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00:00I was very committed and I was always what
00:03Unfortunately in slang was termed a smartass. Everyone said, you know Mahua, there are sharks out there. They eat you up. It's dirty
00:10It's corrupt. You don't know anyone your father's not an MP. It's impossible
00:14Well, I Rajanath Singh the Home Minister of India come to me in the Parliament Lobby and tell me
00:19You spoke very well, but that was a bit of a mess. You took it from there
00:24I
00:25Was an MLA before I became an MP and I was perfectly okay
00:30Addressing political rallies with 10 20,000 people. I'm perfectly okay being in the assembly
00:35I was perfectly okay being in Parliament, but whenever I come into something like this, especially to a school
00:41I'm actually I think in my head. I'm still 11 years old and I keep thinking of
00:46Assembly morning and you know when the days when we had school functions and
00:50We were all asked to polish our shoes and make sure white socks were just the right length and everyone should have behaved and
00:56We had the check and we're sitting quietly and nothing goes wrong. So I'm actually feeling exceedingly nervous
01:02So when I go in and speak to students or under a situation like this, I feel like I'm quite unworthy of it
01:07And I feel quite nervous. So you'll have to bear with me and when I was in school, I really
01:14Fit the straight and narrow path. I was I used to always study academically
01:19There was my sister and I I was always, you know, my parents never had to tell me to study
01:24I was always very keen
01:25I if I came second instead of coming first I'd go into a complete depression and cry and howl and do all of these things
01:31So I was very committed. I was very committed and I was always what?
01:37Unfortunately in slang was termed a smartass. I do after class 12
01:41Wanted to go to the US to study. I didn't get any financial aid in Princeton
01:45So obviously the choice was for me was to go to Mount Holyoke, which was one of the seven sister colleges in Massachusetts
01:50I came from a very solid upper-middle-class stock. My parents were working where my mother was
01:55I was like my father was a working man and we always had enough to eat and all of that
01:59But the thought of my parents going to drop me or to get out of my room were things that were unheard of
02:04It was obvious
02:05I would study on a scholarship and while I was on campus
02:07It was obvious that I would work on campus to pay for my you know bills. So I got a campus job
02:14I used to wash dishes my first year and then after that as you graduate first year, everyone washes dishes dishes in the US
02:20I went to work for JP Morgan. I worked in New York and London and a lot of other offices and I was happy
02:25I went back for my 10th reunion to my college to Mount Holyoke and
02:31You know
02:31Most of us who had been in banking by then were senior vice presidents about to become managing directors
02:36All of us were earning very well had good lives
02:40Few of us had children all of that and I remember being in Mount Holyoke and 99% of my class were exceedingly successful
02:47but they were all
02:49Homogeneous, if you know what I'm saying, they were all pretty much led the same kind of life. I remember on the way back
02:56Thinking about this and saying do I want to come back for my 20th reunion or my 25th reunion?
03:01Being another managing director at JP Morgan, you know, do I want to come back having made a difference?
03:06So that's when I had the aha moment then I took a decision
03:09I was 30 years old and I said, you know what? I'm not going to talk about it anymore
03:13I'm going to go back and I want to do grassroots politics in India and I literally knew nobody
03:18I knew nobody and they say in politics that you need to have money. You need to have muscle
03:23You need to have all of those things in Indian politics. Everyone said, you know, my why there are sharks out there
03:29They lead you up. It's dirty. It's corrupt. You don't know anyone your father's not an MP. It's impossible
03:35So a polling booth is the smallest is the sort of lowest structure
03:40So every village has one or two polling booths
03:43So what we would do in the youth Congress was go booth to booth and popularize the government schemes
03:48So there are loads and loads of government schemes out there
03:51But most people don't know about after a year
03:54I joined the Trinamool Congress, which was obviously an offshoot of the Congress because the Congress Party didn't have very much left in Bengal and
04:02I
04:03Worked there and I got a ticket to run from the Trinamool Congress as a member of the Legislative Assembly in Bengal
04:10Now the seat I got was the it's called Kareem poor and you can go and Google it
04:15It's the very last seat in Bengal on the Bangladesh border. So my area has hundred and twenty two kilometers of unfenced border
04:22So you have a little rivulet running through you Bangladesh on the other now that obviously comes with its own share of problems
04:29It was I was the I was the first non left MLA to win the seat in
04:3346 years and it was a tough seat because it was you know, it's a border seat
04:38You have arm smuggling you have cattle smuggling
04:40You have a lot of you have a lot of things that normally an urban constituency or South Delhi or North Delhi will not have
04:48But it but you know, it was it was fine. It was a real learning process
04:51I did that for five years and then I
04:54Ran for Parliament and came to Parliament
04:56This time is it difficult being a woman politician? Is it difficult being a woman in Parliament?
05:02There are only 78 of you
05:03There are only a little more than 600 women who have ever been not elected to Indian Parliament since independence
05:09I'm one of a club of 600. I'm one of a club of 78 now, is it difficult and I always say one thing
05:15I said I don't think of myself as a woman. I think of myself as a politician
05:19I think of myself even when I was a banker. I think of myself as a banker
05:24So whatever you do think of yourself as what you're doing rather than let your gender define you
05:29So in today's time, do you think being a parliamentarian is a search for or a way to power and money?
05:35Or do you think it's a commitment to the belief that the representatives were elected upon?
05:41I wish it was a way to power and money. I could do with a lot more power and a lot more money
05:45Right definitely do with a lot more money the amount they pay us anyway, but it is what you make of it
05:51You can be a councillor
05:52I have seen councillors and corporators and panchayat pradhans who didn't have houses who were on cycles and five years later
05:59They've got pukka houses with marble and are roaming around and as we call in Bengal char chakka gharis
06:05Right, and you've seen parliamentarians here each every five years when they declare the assets
06:10They start off with 70 lakhs and after a 15-year thing have an asset declaration of you know, 200 crores
06:16So it is what you make of it. There are honest people everywhere that dishonest people everywhere
06:21There has been much discussion on two famous articles of the Indian Penal Code
06:26You put your book away and say I don't want anything which your mother father's written for you
06:30You say it from your own mind. That is article 499 and 500
06:34It is believed that it contradicts the freedom of speech and expression and what is the article 499 500?
06:41Okay, which makes the defamation a criminal and civil offense, right? So and it obliterates
06:48Journalistic freedom. So what are your views on this law and
06:52Freedom of speech and expression as everywhere else is not a license to lie and destroy people's careers
06:59You must understand this. I'm all for speech and expression, but unfortunately
07:03media and
07:04Journalistic standards in our country have fallen to an abysmal low and I have absolutely no hesitation in saying this
07:10I've said this before on record. I think you know when we grew up we would wait to read the
07:15Editorial and we would wait to read the editorial in the today when I look at the editorial
07:20It's just it's I mean, it's poor grammar. It's it's it's you know frightening
07:25So when you have media ownership that is concentrated and you have strange links to government then there is always a hidden agenda
07:32So I think 498 500 make very
07:35Good sense in a world where there is true
07:37Journalistic freedom and true journalistic ethics in a world where they're hidden agendas and people are using journalists to bring down governments or to malign
07:45People's reputations then I think there has to be some recourse to law
07:48but of course, for example, I gave my speech my maiden speech and I used a
07:54Poster which was in the Holocaust Museum which talked of 14 different signs of fascism, right? I use seven signs from it
08:01I said in my speech
08:02These are the seven signs that I think are applicable to India and I elaborated on each one of them prime-time show a seven-minute show
08:09Which said that Mahua Maitra has stolen her speech from an article by so-and-so in the US
08:16Right now what is it to me what I have people I Rajanath Singh the home minister of India come to me in the Parliament lobby
08:22And tell me I've never a chapola, but what do toda garbha?
08:26So people are believing that what is my recourse
08:30Do I keep quiet and expect it to go and expect blacks and millions of people in this world?
08:35Even if 5% of them believe Mahua Maitra stole her speech. That's not something I want
08:39So, what do I do? I have to file criminal defamation. What else do I do?
08:42So sometimes I don't believe it as something that we need to do all the time
08:46but given the lack of journalistic ethics in our country given the
08:51Great, I would say
08:53Sort of a intertwining of a section of the government and media sometimes there's no option left