From Guerilla to First Female President: Why Dilma Rousseff Matters

[I wrote this article for publication in our independent press this week. I thought I'd share it here too.]

On January 1, 2011, Mrs. Dilma Rousseff, aged 63, was inaugurated as the President of Brazil after receiving the presidential sash from the outgoing President, Mr. Lula da Silva. Being the 36th President in line, Mrs. Rousseff made history by being the country’s first female president. 

Dilma Rousseff is a fighter, and when I say a fighter, I mean it in every sense of the word. Rousseff did not only triumph over lymphoma, a serious form of cancer in 2009, but during the 1960s and 70s, she was a guerilla involved in the armed struggle against Brazil’s military dictatorship. She was imprisoned in January 1970 and served for almost three years. During her time in jail, Rousseff suffered repeated torture that included electric abuse, and following her trial, her political rights were suspended for eighteen years.

Upon her release, Rousseff went on to obtain a degree in economics. When she became involved with national politics from the 1980s onwards, she developed a reputation for being an exceptional economist and administrator. Her forte, however, was to work around energy issues: first as the State Secretary of Energy, and then as the Minister of Energy, Rousseff refused to privatize the production and distribution of energy by reiterating that energy is a common and public good. She strengthened public infrastructure while keeping environmental issues in mind. Indeed, Brazil is currently the largest producer of biofuel and Rousseff has always encouraged sustainable development by giving priority to the use of biomass, wind and solar energy and assuring the preservation of natural reserves and forests. During her appointment as Minister of Energy, Rousseff was also involved in overseeing the functioning of Petrobas, Brazil’s public oil company. In June 2005, Rousseff became Brazil’s Chief of the Presidential Staff.

Dilma Rousseff succeeds Mr. Lula da Silva as President of Brazil. Lula da Silva (popularly known as Lula) leaves office after an eight-year run that saw him become the most popular Brazilian president in the country’s history. A former trade unionist, he was the first presidential nominee to win for the Workers’ Party in Brazil, and the first working-class leader of Brazil. During his two terms, some 20 million Brazilians were lifted out of poverty, and Brazil’s minimum wage increased by more than half. What is of further interest, however, and going by the saying that “behind every successful man, there is a woman,” Dilma Rousseff has been Lula’s right-hand woman for years, and she was also Lula’s handpicked successor. In her inaugural speech, Rousseff paid tribute to Lula and repeated her pledge to eradicate chronic poverty from Brazil: “the task of succeeding President Lula is challenging. I will know how to honor this legacy... I will fight for the necessary changes in education, in health and security, and, above all, I will fight to end poverty and misery.” 

The social program put forward by Lula’s government to eradicate poverty—program that will be carried forward by President Rousseff—has been efficient in numerous ways. If Brazil’s level of economic inequality is dropping at a faster rate than almost any other country, and if between 2003 and 2009, the income of poor Brazilians has grown seven times as much as the income of the rich Brazilians, and if the line of poverty in Brazil has fallen from 22 percent to 7 percent of the population, it is, amongst many other factors, thanks to a program called Bolsa Familia (Family Grant). The generic term for the program is “conditional cash transfers” and it involves giving regular payments to poor families if they can meet certain requirements. While the requirements themselves may vary, they generally include keeping children in school, going for regular medical checkups, or having parents attending workshops on disease prevention and nutrition. The payments almost always go to women, trusting that they are more likely to spend the money on their families than men.

Bolsa Familia in Brazil covers about 50 million Brazilians, almost a quarter of the country. While a monthly stipend of roughly 13 US dollars is given to poor families for each child aged 15 or younger who is attending school, families can get additional payments of roughly 19 US dollars a month for each child aged 16-17 still in school. Families who live in extreme poverty get a basic benefit of roughly 40 US dollars without any conditions. While these stipends double the income of Brazilian families living in extreme poverty, they also help reducing economic inequality while increasing the overall quality of health and education within these families. 

Coming to head Brazil as President while having been a torture victim herself, Rousseff also represents roughly 20,000 Brazilians who were also tortured during the dictatorship. While other countries such as Uruguay, Chile and Argentina have confronted their past (Argentina presently has about 400 trials going on), Brazil has in no way acknowledged this part of its traumatic history, and in many ways, President Rousseff brings to light all those victims. During her inauguration ceremony, Rousseff was accompanied by eleven other women with whom she had been imprisoned in the 1970s. 

In terms of foreign policy, Rousseff has a few challenges facing her. Brazil is one of the few countries that almost-always held ground in steering an independent course outside the policies of the United States on a host of issues—particularly on war, armament and energy. Brazil is also one of the few countries in the world that recognizes Palestine as a state and even has a Palestinian Embassy in Brasilia. All these represent challenges that Rousseff will now have to live up to.

In a world where the sphere of politics and decision-making is still largely dominated by men, and where, on a global scale, women still comprise less than 20 percent of parliamentary positions, a woman is now heading one of the largest economies in the world, the largest in Latin America. Dilma Rousseff is a fighter, a survivor and a heroine facing a new decade locally and globally. She represents hope for the future, for a green revolution, for social and economic equalities, and for fairer policy making. In many ways, President Dilma Rousseff represents a victory not only for Brazil, but for the world, which is why Dilma Rousseff matters. 

I Once Knew a Man Called Raju Chacha [portrait of another weird creature]

I once you a man named Raju Chacha. Well I do wonder whether he was actually a man at all, for he had no balls. Well some men have no balls I guess. Raju Chacha, or Dr Raju Chacha (as he called himself), or Dr Raju Chacha the (in)famous writer, professor and activist (as he liked people to call him), was a being of the peculiar sorts.

It seems he took birth in the year of P, on a DO note, and his ancestors were from SEU, such that he wrongly combined the ingredients of life and became a PSEUDO. The year of P seemed to guide his entire life though, for he called himself Professor, Politically inclined, Passionate, Precious etc., but other people called him Pussy, Prat, Preposterous, Poker-faced, or simply Pseudo.

He was a thin tall man- so thin and so tall that he looked like (just ‘looked like’, he was not) one of those dried up trees in the midst of a desert; the kind of rebel trees that allow themselves to take root amidst sand dunes, and grow up with dried rigid dark branches and a solid trunk, and thus spend their life, without ever breaking, and without ever shedding a single leaf, like they would want to defy the laws of nature. But don’t think too nobly of Dr Raju Chacha, for he was not so much of an unconventional tree. It may have looked so on the outside, that he was the kinds that would not break, but the real reason behind it (and that few people knew) is that he bent like a blade of grass to the wind and to the forces of his life, and this is the only reason why he did not break!

People who knew him better thus called him pseudo, the farce, the projection of a fantasy thrice (or was it four times?) removed from the reality of being an unconventional tree (or anything unconventional for that matter) that wouldn’t bend (or break) to the wind.

I Once Knew A White Persian Bull [portrait of a weird creature]

I once knew a Persian bull… He was as white as a blank sheet of paper and his brain was as blank as that same white sheet. It was a weird bull, a strange creature that landed in my life out of the blue. Pop! It was just there, suddenly, without warning or notice, sitting on its vast cubical 3ft x 3ft carton-box behind (I said it was a strange creature), smiling stupidly to himself as if seeing me had provided him with a glimpse of the nirvana (may be it did!); and all I was doing was quietly having my chai, so I didn’t see the danger coming (tragic flaw that led to my downfall).

It seems the creature had obtained a two way ticket from Hell to come into my life -and a few other people’s- so as to act as a Prophet on a two-year contract. Well that’s what he said, though am rather convinced the Hellians (inhabitants of Hell) could not take the non-stop hmmmm-I-mean-hmmm-I-hmmm-bla-bla-bla-ing that sprouted through his vocal folds like greenish-maroon shit out of the behind of a grazing bull; and they decided to kick him out of Hell, which was a good thing for he would at a later point meet his soul mate, the man, the false-god whose monstrous ego he would feed but not tame, Dr Raju Chacha also known as “Dr-I-speak-a-lot-but-say-nothing-at-all”. But I shouldn’t jump from the bull to Raju Chacha for the latter has a chapter of his own fully devoted to his over-bloated ego: I Once Knew A Man Called Raju Chacha.

I should say a few words about Hell though. Hell is a country found somewhere in a mountainous icy desert it seems, and the Hellians are slowly spreading over the rest of the world so as to take over. Quite sadly they built their first international quarters in Pune, the city where I am presently living, which explains how the deadly curse of the white Persian bull fell on me. There are a lot of controversial rumors about Hell, all of which are true: Hell is a country where you do not have a bath in days: the more you stink the more patriotic you are; the unmarried women of Hell are all certified virgins (at least so say the certificates accredited to them by doctors before their wedding); the major industry in Hell is make-up, women are expected to hide themselves behind layers of make-up instead of a veil (that’s what I call emancipation); queer people are simply hanged in Hell, or their sex is forcefully changed by the Hellian Government who subsidies the operation (Does that mean Hell is a welfare state?); but the major peculiarity of Hell lies in its people. They are all weird creatures in their own way: you may think they are demons out of your most terrible night-mares, those that remain hidden in closets that you never dare open, creatures manufactured by the disintegration of humanity and the fornication between brothers and sisters, human beings and animals, but NO! That is not the case. WE (you and me, provided you are not from Hell) represent the disintegrative corruption of humanity, the Hellians are the pure beings, the very first race, the unbroken line started by the first powerful unadulterated beings and the line is still unsullied till now, or so they say. But again, as mentioned earlier, all the rumors about Hell are true.

Back to the white Persian bull. Strangest of all creatures I must say… It did not have horns to start with (Gosh! No horns and no brains, what a combo!) but a balding head instead. A round ball full of air- some said full of sultry liquids whereas others argued it was full of empty words- on the top of which were small cropping of black hair, trying hard to come out of the empty skull of his… but well, I guess where there is no fertility, nothing (except bad grass may be) will grow.

What a creature it was! Its white features were most remarkable and from all angles (one did not have to pay much attention to notice) it spelled only one word: S.T.U.P.I.D.I.T.Y. His bushy eyebrows formed only one S-snake-like line, going from the top on one eye, descending on his nose. The Bull’s nose looked like a reversed T, straight at the top with a split down where his two nostrils parted in hatred for each other and fiery hairs expelled themselves out of those nasal holes, terrified of the shit that may spurt at any point of time, for the bull did not only speak shit, he also breathed out shit. And the notorious eyebrow descended from the top of one eye like a sledge down to his nose and went on to the top of the other eye and merged with his hair at this point. I must mention here that the single bushy eyebrow of this rather strange bull is of further interest for it seemed at times to slither from the left eye down to the nose and up to the right eye, and at other times it seemed to do so from the right to the left. I’ve deduced based on pure empirical observation (I should have been a biologist) that the hairy snake moves from left to right when in awe of actual stupidity and bullshit which he mistakes for divine appearance or charisma (often the ‘charisma’ of Raju Chacha argues the bull); and the right to left movement happens when he actually faces anything coherently intellectual and mentally challenging.

I would rather not describe the other features that were characteristic of the bull’s facial physiognomy and spelled out loud and slow ‘stupidity’ for each time I attempt to do so, I have a very strong feeling of nausea, and I once even puked while trying. So my own sanity and for yours as well, I should retain myself from doing so.

Oh white bull! White bull with rosy lips! White bull with rosy lips that had never been kissed, without any surprise, since there was always huge amounts of shit-words that perennially came out of those lips. At times the shit entered people’s ears and deposited itself in their memory, the recall of which would cause them to wake up in the middle of the night drowning in the sweat of insignificant words of shit, and sometimes people puked as well (I am not the only one). Well the lips may not have kissed, but the tongue did lick, and where it distributed and deposited its saliva was in the ego-box of Raju Chacha, his alter-ego whom he felt the amorous compulsion to suck up to.

May be its high time for me to explain why I call the creature a bull. May be the creature is not a bull after all, may be it’s a machine, a shit converter that converts shit into words, or may be it’s a word generator that just generates bla-bla-blas non-stop. But I decided to call it a white bull, a white bull without horns, without brains and without balls either (can one’s life get more tragic than that?).

Oh yeah, I just remembered! The day I realized he was a bull was when I noticed how his love for Raju Chacha took over his entire being in an orgasmic manner, like an alpha particle in an electromagnetic field, he would charge upon him; a bull with fiery eyes in the face of a young matador provoking him with a red drape. And thus was the rage of the bull. It would speed up and knock everything and everybody down till it actually reached its savior, Raju Chacha, and there it would suddenly turn into a sheep gifting its wool (and its meat) to its new master.

Should I have called this piece the white Persian sheep instead?