Shall we stop with the hypocrisy, people? I’m sorry to be so curt but I am getting a bit fed up with this funny business about Nandanee Soornack and her right to privacy. As I managed to calm myself down and think of more pleasant things ( like parties and vacation), I heard that Sheila Bappoo, an otherwise sensible woman, held a press conference to condemn Paul Bérenger for not defending women’s rights in Parliament! The Opposition leader should have defended Nandanee Soornack and not chastise her, according to Sheila Bappoo and, he should have condemned Yogida Sawmynaden for having the cheek to take the photo of the Labour activist.

Now, let’s clear a few things up Nandanee Soornack needs no protection she’s woman enough to defend herself.

She showed last Monday how effi cient she was in securing her own protection she had 21 police offi cers at her beck and call, she is bold enough to confi scate other people’s private property, she is audacious enough to threaten to slap a man, she is reckless enough to ask loudly whether the opposition activist knew who she was.

And where the police are generally inclined to turn a blind eye to countless misdemeanours they acted with remarkable speed where Nandanee Soornack was concerned. Her case was treated with VIP speed and zealousness, albeit with very little common sense.

She got the Prime minister in a state in Parliament doing his valiant best to defend her. Navin Ramgoolam was so worked up about the whole thing that he lost all sense of objectivity and didn’t see what was glaringly obvious to the neutral observer the PNQ wasn’t about anybody’s private life. It was about a labour activist taking the law in her own hands it was about political interference in the work of the police it was about a woman shirking the consequences of public life. If one doesn’t want to be photographed, one shouldn’t put oneself in the public eye, it’s as simple as that.

Now Mrs Bappoo was nowhere to be heard or seen when a 14 year- old was sexually abused by her teacher at the MITD. She kept silent when Rehana Ameer was treated like dirt by the MBC. She is deaf to the complaints of hostesses being sexually harassed in the business lounges at the airport. She found nothing to say when the Prime minister divulged the name of a woman in Parliament to get back at Paul Bérenger. A private citizen who contrarily to Nandanee Soornack did nothing to put herself in the limelight.

If everybody on government side has hastened to falsely convert themselves to feminism the moment Soornack’s name was mentioned, to where will the hypocrisy stretch when questions – legitimate ones – start to be asked about Nandanee Soornack’s businesses, her from- rags- to- riches story? It’s not about the private lives of public men and women.

It’s about transparency in public governance. And honesty.

Intellectual and otherwise.