Come Radhe Maa, join Parliament
I get Radhe Maa. What's not to get? She's an explosion of red. She cruises around on a scarlet throne welded onto the front seat of a dark blue Jaguar XJ.
She effortlessly softens her sparkling divinity with aviator sunglasses. She handily hops around in a little red dress hours before being filmed (always in slow-motion) getting an epic shower of marigold petals. Over the last ten days, for all the TV-friendly Rambo-giri in Parliament, Radhe Maa has been the most welcome offset to the drudgery of our venerable greys and whites in Lok Sabha. I cannot apologise for bringing Radhe Maa to your breakfast table. The sooner you accept it the better. She's part of us now. And if she isn't, she really should be.
Gift
We in TV have embraced Radhe Maa, but not in the way she evidently encourages at her satsangs. There's a searing inevitability about her. The powerful sense that what's happening now was always going to happen. That the game was always going to be up. Hindi news channels, which discovered the gilded glory that is Radhe Maa many years ago, must have scoffed at how English news channels finally found time from their sneering to wake up to the story. When India Today TV decided to bite the bullet and report the Radhe Maa story ten days ago, it was with crystal clarity that it checked all our boxes: In these times of easy hype, here was an individual who was spectacular in the only real sense of the word. Her appeal gloriously straddled morbid fascination and naked gawk-worthy awe.
It certainly helped that sundry pot-bellied devotees with gilded red bandanas kept hoisting her into the air, while female devotees fainted around with pleasure. It helped that the reputedly silent god-woman, who only transferred blessings with kisses and hugs, was rumoured to have been anything but silent in a recorded phone conversation with some guy she called "bandar" all of eight times. The daily sexism and unquenchable voyeurism of television news had finally found a new patron saint.
Let me say this straight. For ten days now, Radhe Maa is a gift that hasn't stopped giving. She has polarised newsrooms, sparked arguments between colleagues about her "newsworthiness" ("But boss, she has been charged with a crime!"), triggered the usual feminist outrage over the overall approach to her story ("The problem isn't her miniskirt, you jerk!") inflamed passions over whether she's getting a rawer deal then male babas ("At least she isn't jumping around raping people") and ignited fires over whether Radhe Maa is being especially bashed because she enjoys earthly delights like physical intimacy, dancing to Bollywood music and Sunny Leone.
When I jeered on Twitter about how she pronounced herself "pyoor" and "paais", I was reminded that her vernacular accent wasn't a crime. Which, of course, was true. But it would have taken a special heartlessness to reveal that it was equally this, and all the other bells and whistles of the woman, that made Radhe Maa a ready story.
Honesty
It would have taken naked honesty to say that the allegations against Radhe Maa afforded us the opportunity to harvest for television a story we probably wouldn't have touched otherwise. The epic paradox, as with so much of what we as journalists bring to you and what you've come to expect from us, is that Radhe Maa is undeniably a story. She had been accused of serious crimes, which now include now just instigation of dowry harassment, but dark rituals, obscenity and fraud.
The marigold shower only embellishes and quickens the decision to cover what is otherwise a straight crime story India has seen many times before. Let's hope nobody has forgotten Sant Rampal and that military-style stand-off at his Haryana ashram. And I know you haven't forgotten Asaram Bapu and his son. They won't let you. Radhe Maa treads a path that's been flattened from use.
But the bomb has sort of dropped. Radhe Maa's anticipatory bail plea was rejected yesterday by a Mumbai court.
Given the gravity of the charges she's been booked for, she could easily be staring at jail time. She was accidentally allowed to wield her trusty trishul on a domestic flight recently from Aurungabad to Mumbai, but it's likely the police will take that from her if and when they need to invite her into a jail cell.
Politics
Personally, I feel she shouldn't worry too much. If Radhe Maa manages to duck legal trouble, or better still if she gets to do a little time in a lock-up only to return with open arms, she has a ready future in Parliament. Over ten days, Radhe Maa's only true competitor for spectacle, noise and momentary flashes of colour, was the humble Lok Sabha. As she contemplates how she must navigate the unsteady waters of legal trouble, Radhe Maa would do well to consider life after this brewing storm. As an accused, she fits perfectly into the charming list of saansads facing criminal charges. As a god-woman in a god-fearing house, she would be welcomed.
She could exchange notes with other netas, discover a world she never knew but is frankly so perfectly ready for. I can already picture Radhe Maa skipping happily in a circle in the well the hallowed house. It'll be a bonus if they let her keep her trishul and rose. The marigolds may be a problem though.