India: Pratibha Patil named India's first female president

July 20, 2007 (International Herald Tribune) NEW DELHI: India got its first female president Saturday in a victory hailed as a special moment in a country where discrimination against women is often deep-rooted and widespread.

Pratibha Patil, 72, won 65.82 percent of the votes cast by national lawmakers and state legislators, said P.D.T. Achary, the secretary general of Parliament. She had the support of the governing Congress party and its political allies, and had been widely expected to win.

"It is a special moment for us women, and men of course, in our country because for the first time we have a woman being elected president of India," said Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, who hand-picked Patil and was one of the first to congratulate her.

While India has had several women in positions of power — most notably Gandhi and her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, who was elected to the more powerful position of prime minister in 1966 — women still face rampant discrimination.

Many Indian families regard daughters as a liability due to a tradition requiring a bride's family to pay the groom's family a large dowry of cash and gifts. As a consequence their education is often neglected, and many don't get adequate medical treatment when ill.
International groups estimate that some 10 million female fetuses have been aborted in the country over the last two decades.

"This is a victory of the principles of which our Indian people uphold," Patil said in a brief statement to reporters, flashing the victory sign to her supporters.

Hundreds of delighted Congress supporters danced in the streets as the results were announced, banging drums and setting off firecrackers outside her home in New Delhi and in her hometown in the state of Maharashtra.

Patil received 2,489 out of the 2,706 votes cast Thursday by national lawmakers and state legislators, defeating incumbent Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the candidate of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, in a race dogged by unprecedented mudslinging.

Opponents derided her nomination, saying she lacked the national stature for the job and her only qualification was unswerving loyalty to the powerful Gandhi family.

Patil's emergence on the national stage highlighted several scandals involving family members, including two who are under investigation by police.

Her comments ahead of the election calling on Indian women to abandon wearing headscarves were roundly denounced by Muslim leaders and by historians — who disputed her assertion that women only started wearing them in India to save themselves from 16th century Muslim invaders.

Patil's nomination surprised many, given her lack of national recognition despite more than four decades in politics.

Patil was a lawyer before entering politics and became a member of the state legislature in 1962. She was appointed a minister several times in the Maharashtra state government between 1962 and 1985. In the following decade, she served as a member of the Indian Parliament.

Her most recent post was governor of the northern state of Rajasthan.

Patil, who is married and has two children, will be sworn in as India's 13th president on July 25. She replaces the popular A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who has ended his five-year term and following custom did not seek a second term.

The election of a woman to the largely ceremonial post continues an Indian tradition of using the presidency to give a high-profile voice to disadvantaged communities.

India has had three Muslim presidents, including Kalam, since winning independence from Britain in 1947. It has also had a president from the minority Sikh community. Kalam's predecessor, K.R. Narayanan, came from the bottom of the society's complex social hierarchy.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/21/asia/AS-GEN-India-President.php