(Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell you are, you aren't!)
"Margaret Thatcher was not merely the first woman and the longest-serving Prime Minister of modern times, but the most admired, most hated, most idolised and most vilified public figure of the second half of the twentieth century. To some she was the saviour of her country who [...] created a vigorous enterprise economy which twenty years later was still outperforming the more regulated economies of the Continent. To others, she was a narrow ideologue whose hard-faced policies legitimised greed, deliberately increased inequality [...] and destroyed the nation's sense of solidarity and civic pride. There is no reconciling these views: yet both are true."
(John Campbell)
A month ago while going through the ordinary and oft dreary buisness of academic life I suddenly came to a dramatic revealtion, that there's hardly a single woman public figure whom I had studied or I can honestly said to have influenced me. It isn't that I haven't admired any woman public figure, infact there are too many to list who have always been as much source of inspiration for me as their male counterparts - Mother Teresa, Florence Nightingale, Margaret Thatcher among many others. Even with many woman figures whose ideas I hardly share, I always had immense respect such as former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi or activist-writer Arundhati Roy. Yet, the very fact that I haven't properly studied any single one of them was dampening. And thus I decided to study one woman from this list, who for long has fascinated me and even after decades of being out of power stirs strong sentiments throughout the world, a rare female leader to be privileged with a multi volume biography, who's very name became a byword for an entire body of action ideas - Thatcherism - the former and first lady Prime Minister of Britain, Lady Margaret Thatcher.
And in our present climate when semi-literate feminists have made it a full time profession to show case their arm chair activisim through their much provactive and less logical exhortations and comfortable male bashing from safe distance of whatsapp statuses, it was refreshing to read about a woman who made to highest power in land combating male chauvinism, pervasive patriarchy and sterotypes by her sheer strength and not by help of special privileges of any type, comming from a working class background she dominated and defined the political scene for 11 decisive years, the first female Prime Minister who reportedly termed Feminism as poision and yet when she finally stepped down, young boys in UK where left asking "Father, Can a man also become Prime Minister in our country?" She may have been a conservative, but hardly the usual type, she was radical as well as non conformist, a conservative revolutionary!
Margaret always believed that a woman has to work twice hard as a man to get noticed in men's world. Undoubtedly, as result after her death even many of her rivals acknowledged she broke many a glass ceilings. A humble green grocer's daughter who became Prime minister, a woman leading the Conservative party, a conservative leader who broke the post-war consensus and and played a significant role in ending Cold War, a Prime minister who went on to win three general elections straight despite ushering radical reforms and often her cabinet standing at odds with her, and at last she belonged to a time when unlike today there were atleast dozen of ideal prime ministerial candidates in frontline politics from all three major political parties and yet she dominated all of them.
Yet, it was intriguing that for a female leader in a world dominated by men she never hid her gender identity or tried to imitate men like our present day feminists are obsessed with. Infact, she took the battle head on declaring that woman as she is, is more capable of administration and governance than men. She tirelessly worked for carving out space in Public life yet never shyed of her role as a housewife and a loving mother of twins and yet never allowing them to overlap. The entire essence of Thatcher's life and philosophy was that it doesn't matter who you are or what disadvantages you come with. If you have that determination and capacity for hardwork rather whining and complaining, you will achieve whatever you wish for. More than anyone else she belived in that outdated notion of work ethic and Victorian morality, that pain shouldn't be shown and all setbacks be bore with stiff stoicness. Margaret revealed herself more than ever when said in her famous interview -
"I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand "I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!" or "I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!" "I am homeless, the Government must house me!" and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations."
(Along with her political soulmate, the Republican President Ronald Reagan, Thatcher ushered a neo-conservative revolution that not only ended the Cold War peacefully but also changed the very global economic scenario for years.)
Yet, there's no hiding from the fact that Thatcher was a deeply polarising figure. She never shyed from taking radical decisions or making provactive comments many of which were outright unpopular. She continued to evoke strong feelings in both her supporters and detractors years after she left the scene. A brave heroine battling against rusty old establishment and who saved her nation at a critical juncture for her right wing fans and in same measure a divisive woman who unleashed a war against the welfare state and the decent working class people for her detractors. She was despised by later day feminists for not doing anything to advance the cause of women while in office whereas Margaret clearly belived that if she can than everyone else also can.
Dennis Skinner, a radical Labour MP and a lifelong critic let his steam pass through these words after her death -
"If you were of no value to Thatcher, you were chucked on a scrap heap. If you got in her way, she’d steamroller you. If you resisted, she’d try to destroy you. Thatcher was a dictator with a handbag. The hurt she caused didn’t bother her. Thatcher wouldn’t have recognised the truth if it was sprayed on her eyeballs."
Clearly in death as in her life Thatcher would have enjoyed this brutal remark of her opponent infact would have taken it as a compliment. Other critics viewed her bit more kindly and more thoroughly after her passing, as Joseph Harker wrote in one of his coloumn in The Guardian that -
"Those who fall for it completely misunderstand Thatcher. Yes, she was ruthless; yes, she had a view of the world that believed poorer people would fare better if their safety nets were removed, despite the harsh initial consequences. But she didn’t hate people. She just thought they should take responsibility for themselves. I will always hate what Thatcher stood for but I have come respect her."
Throughout her tumultuous political career, if one thing was constant that she never shrieked away from wars she waged, against both enemies eithin and without, no matter how uncertain they were, no matter how many stood against her or for that matter how much popular opinion went against her and made sure to win them all. .
The ultimate tragedy was that after years of fighting system unyeildingly, Margaret was finally ousted by lesser males in a cabinet coup to be replaced by another male. As she stoicly stood before the 10 Downing Street for one last time, her voice and words were clear, proud, sincere and yet heavy with a heartload of unreleased emotions -
"We're leaving Downing Street for the last time after eleven-and-a-half wonderful years and we're happy to leave the UK in a very much better state than when we came here."
Now, she stands in the cold and ungrateful anals of history as a lone woman who struggled against the patriarchal tide throughout her life, never expecting anything selfish in return, satisfied with performing her duty towards her people and her nation without any fear or favour. The uneasy silence of feminists over her name is much deafening.
Recommended Reading -
1. An extensive Three Volume Biography by Charles Moore titled - "Not for Turning", "Everything she wants" & "Herself Alone".
2. The Iron Lady by Joseph Campbell.
--- Bhuvan Krishna
21.09.2021
Wow, so immaculate! Amazing.
ReplyDeleteThank you alot! ЁЯдН
Delete