1. 12.06.16 / 17
SOME revolutions happen in an explosion
of blood and violence; these are the ones
that people remember. Others take place
with a stroke of a pen, the pull of a lever, a
collective shout of “Aye”; these are the
ones that work.
By becoming the presumptive Demo-
cratic nominee for president last week,
Hillary Clinton once again proved it is
thequietrevolutionsthatmattermost.She
has gone further than any other American
woman before her, and she did it by using
rather than abusing the democratic
process.
Clinton is writing a new chapter of US
history. Whatever happens in the election
— and I am absolutely confident she will
win against Donald Trump — America has
entered a new era of gender equality. The
“highest and hardest” glass ceiling — the
one with 18m cracks in 2008 — has at last
been shattered.
So why are millions of women not
taking to the streets to celebrate her vic-
tory?Theanswerisassimpleasitisironic:
Clinton is a victim of her own success.
Two days after she clinched California,
dashingthelasthopeoftheBernieSanders
campbeforetheDemocraticconventionin
July, President Barack Obama endorsed
her candidacy with the words: “I don’t
think there’s ever been someone so quali-
fied to hold this office.”
Ifthatisthecase—andIthinkitis—itis
hardly to be wondered so many voters
refuse to see her victory as the result of a
David v Goliath campaign for women’s
rights. Plucky little Davids are outsiders
whodestroythemightywithasingleshot.
They do not spend 20 years at the heart
of the establishment: eight as first lady,
another eight as the senator for New York,
and the final four as secretary of state.
David was poor and friendless. Hillary
and Bill Clinton have made $230m since
leaving the White House. Their not-for-
profit organisation, the Clinton Founda-
tion, is a formidable global empire worth
nearly $2bn, whose chief activity seems to
be holding rather fabulous events where
the well-intentioned hang out with the
well-connected and the well-heeled.
Whatever else Clinton is today, she cer-
tainly is not the underdog fighting the
impossible fight against an array of impla-
cable forces.
But Clinton’s newly acquired wealth
and insider status is not the main reason
why her achievement is failing to resonate
asitshould.Evenmoredamagingthanher
CV is the same problem that plagued Mar-
garet Thatcher: her brand of feminism is
out of sync with the zeitgeist.
By the time Thatcher achieved power in
1979, she had come to despise the feminist
movement as a motley collection of man-
hating, communism-loving losers. Her
idea of feminism was demonstrating a
woman can fight on equal terms against
anymanintheroom.Thatcherhadnotime
for quotas, exemptions, or restitutions.
“I owe nothing to women’s lib,” she
once snapped at a journalist, who asked
about her debt to feminism. “Some of us
were making it long before women’s lib
was ever thought of.”
Thatcher had never tried to downplay
her feminine side, telling an audience in
1975:“I’vegotawoman’sabilitytostickto
ajobandgetonwithitwheneveryoneelse
walks off and leaves it.”
But the lack of solidarity between
Thatcher’s conservative politics and the
avowedly left-wing causes of the British
therepositioningofwomen’srightsfroma
fringe concern to a front-and-centre
issue. At the UN Fourth World Congress on
Women in Beijing in 1995 — in defiance of
State Department concerns and pressure
fromtheChinesegovernment—shegavea
speech that included the line: “Human
rights are women’s rights and women’s
rights are human rights, once and for all.”
The line has since become the defining
global message for gender equality.
Clintonhassinceturnedthisintoachal-
lengeforherselfandthosearoundher.The
issues she worked on were hardly glam-
orousoreye-catching,suchastherightfor
women to buy emergency contraception
over the counter, or the development of a
mobile justice unit in the Democratic
Republic of Congo to help women who
have been the victims of sexual violence.
But they mattered deeply to those with no
voice or representative to fight for them.
In 2014 Clinton gave an updated rendi-
tion of her “human rights” speech to the
UN,thistimeassertingthat“whenwomen
succeed, the world succeeds”. As she has
saidincountlessspeechesoverthepastfive
years:“Givewomenequalrightsandentire
nations are more stable and secure. Deny
women equal rights and the instability of
nations is almost certain.”
No other statesman in the world has a
record on women’s issues that matches
hers for longevity and dedication. Unlike
Thatcher, when Hillary Clinton becomes
presidentwecanexpectanadministration
that will not shy away from singling out
gender equality as a primary focus.
It has been 144 years since the suffragist
VictoriaWoodhullranaquixoticcampaign
for president — and was arrested for her
efforts. It has been 96 years since women
won the vote in America; and it has been
a week since the first woman showed
that sex will never again be a barrier to
leading a major party all the way to the
White House.
Amanda Foreman is a historian
and author of the upcoming book
The World Made by Women.
Niall Ferguson on Hillary Clinton, page 21
@dramandaforeman
feminist movement meant neither side
ever supported the other’s aims.
Not once during Thatcher’s time as
education secretary in Edward Heath’s
government did any leading British femi-
nist denounce the raging misogyny of MPs
who chanted “ditch the bitch” whenever
she entered the Commons.
ThedivisionsbetweenThatcherandthe
British feminist movement never healed.
There is no reason, at the moment, to sup-
pose that Clinton is heading for a similar
kind of exile.
Foronething,shestillhasthesupportof
most second-wave feminists, from the
veteran campaigner Gloria Steinem to the
former secretary of state Madeleine
Albright. She has the backing of some
younger feminists too, most notably the
actress Lena Dunham and the pop star
Katy Perry. But for the past few months
every opinion poll has shown the majority
of today’s Millennial generation — which
willmakeup36%ofvotersinNovember—
prefer Sanders over her.
In February, when Sanders won 80% of
the Millennial vote in the New Hampshire
and Iowa democratic primaries, the
Clinton campaign realised it had a serious
problemonitshands—particularlyamong
young female voters.
We are now in June and Clinton has still
not managed to overcome the lack of
enthusiasm for her among Millennials. An
analysis of 27 states by CNN revealed that
she trailed Sanders among women under
30 by an average of 37 percentage points.
That was reversed among women over 40.
It is not that Clinton is accused of being
ananti-feminist,asThatcherwas,butthat
she is perceived to be the wrong kind of
feminist. She is not the slightest bit inter-
ested in the causes electrifying university
campuses. She does not support trigger
warnings — the idea that students should
be shielded from or allowed to excuse
themselves from studying difficult social
topics. She has no time for such publicity-
driven campaigns as “slut walks” or the
“Free the Nipple” movement. She has
never called for the censorship or
“no-platforming”ofindividuals,feminist,
chauvinist or otherwise. Nor does she
appear to have any sympathy for those
who want public discourse to become a
designated “safe space” where personal
comfort trumps all other rights.
IntermsofAmericanfeminism,Clinton
belongstoanhonourabletraditionofcam-
paigning first ladies that stretches from
Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1940s to Florence
Hardinginthe1920sandtoAbigailAdams,
wife of the second US president, John
Adams. Shortly after the Declaration of
Independence in 1776, Abigail urged her
husband to uphold the ideals of the new
republic: “Remember the ladies,” she
wrote. “Do not put such unlimited power
intothehandsofthehusbands.Remember
all men would be tyrants if they could.”
Clinton’s feminism has always been
rootedinherbackgroundasalawyer.After
becoming first lady she ensured Abigail’s
admonition to John echoed not just
throughWashingtonbutaroundtheworld.
One of her greatest achievements was
Wrong kind of feminist,
rightkind of candidate
Aged 16, she campaigns for
Barry Goldwater, the Republican
candidate for president
Barack Obama appoints Hillary
secretary of state after beating her
to the Democratic nomination
Now teaching law at the
University of Arkansas,
she marries Bill
Bill becomes president, and
Hillary makes an abortive
attempt to reform healthcare
Hillary becomes a senator for
New York, the first former First
Lady to hold elected office
1964 1975 1993 2001 2009
Obama joins
battle torepay
favourfromBill
He once denounced her as cautious
and entitled. But Barack Obama is
about to embark on a series of
appearances to help ensure that
Hillary Clinton — and not Donald
Trump — takes his place in the
Oval Office, writes Toby Harnden.
Obama and Clinton will take to
the stage together in Green Bay,
Wisconsin, on Wednesday for the
first time since she secured the
Democratic nomination last week and
he gave her his formal endorsement.
Obama is alarmed about his legacy
as America’s first black president if
Trump, the presumptive Republican
nominee, wins after a campaign
condemned as “racist” by critics.
Having once disdained Clinton —
whom he beat to the 2008
Democratic nomination — Obama
appointed her secretary of state. He
made little secret during this year’s
primary contest that he preferred her
to her socialist rival, Bernie Sanders.
It is more than three decades since
a sitting president was able to
campaign vigorously for his would-be
successor. In 2008 George W Bush
was considered too unpopular to
help John McCain, and in 2000 Bill
Clinton, to his lasting chagrin, was
kept at arm’s length by Al Gore.
But Obama, whose approval rating
has edged up to 50% during the rise
of Trump, is a potent weapon for
Clinton. He is determined to repay the
favour Bill Clinton extended to him in
2012, when the former president
campaigned tirelessly for him.
While there will be further joint
appearances with Clinton, Obama is
also expected to campaign for her
alone in swing states that Bush
won in 2004 but that became
Democratic in the Obama era.
New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia,
Florida and Colorado — all of which
Obama has won twice — are likely to
be on his list. Obama is seen as not
just wooing voters turned off by
Trump’s bellicose rhetoric, but also
persuading those who backed
Sanders to swing behind Clinton.
“There is not a battleground state
on the map where President Obama
is not an asset,” said Brian Fallon, a
Clinton spokesman.
@tobyharnden
AMANDA
FOREMAN
Darjeeling tea
being harvested.
A vintage batch
can cost almost
£190 a kg
Darjeeling goes digital as tea leaves auction room behind
Hillary Clinton is out
of sync with young
women but she
made history last
week — and will
again if she wins
the White House
Hillary Clinton was greeted with cheers in California last week but after 20 years as a political insider she has been struggling to connect with younger voters
LUCAS JACKSON
government-run body that regulates
sales, introduced digital auctions for
other teas such as Assam in 2007.
An exemption was made for Darjeeling
— the “champagne of the teas” — which
was first planted by a Scottish doctor for
medicinal purposes on the Himalayan
slopes and is still grown on only 87 estates
in West Bengal. The leaves are harvested
daily by hand. A 2003 vintage can go for
up to £189.47 a kilogram, compared with
£1.34 for other teas.
Up in the hills around Darjeeling,
where profits are increasingly difficult to
make, planters feel uneasy at the shift to
new technology. Parveez Hussain, the
manager of Glenburn tea estate, who is in
charge of 1,000 labourers, is optimistic,
however. “Progress is change,” he said
from his warehouse, where the nine-
month picking season is in full swing.
“My job remains to simply produce the
best cup of tea for everyone.”
@stforeign
treatment,” said Partha Dutta, who owns
one of the city’s most popular tea shops,
set up by his family 70 years ago. He
shrugs as he says farewell to his comrades
and stubs out his cigarette: “We knew it
was destined to happen.”
The Tea Board of India, the
said Choudhury. “You dress up and crack
jokes to keep them on their feet. I will
miss the banter, noise and chatter.”
The last but one auction over, buyers
light cigarettes and exchange gossip in
the hallway. “Darjeeling tea is like a
special jewellery that needs special
a year. Portraits of former proprietors line
the wall, along with a tea cup with a
small ledge designed to keep a Victorian
gentleman’s moustache dry. A century-
old teak table is carved with each
chairman’s signature. Lunch for staff is
held in the Tiffin Room upstairs, where
the menu of chicken cutlets and cottage
pie has changed little.
Anindyo Choudhury, 43, the
Darjeeling auctioneer, spends a week
planning meticulously, visiting
warehouses to inspect each new chest
from the tea estates and tasting samples
in a long room where a bank of steaming
kettles is manned all day.
“Sometimes I will have 1,000 cups in a
week,” he said, signalling a vast ledger
where his remarks are recorded before he
makes a valuation.
While this process will remain the
same, the human element of the auction
will be gone. “I recognise all the faces —
who he buys for and what teas he likes,”
Calcutta is the largest tea auctioneer in
the world.
On Tuesday the gavel will drop for the
final time after 155 years. In future
Darjeeling, the last tea to be sold by open
outcry, will be bought at the click of a
mouse on laptops. “It was felt that it was
part of progress,” said Krishan Katyal,
59, the chairman of J Thomas, who has
worked for the company for four
decades. “It doesn’t require the physical
presence of buyers in a room.
“We have led before and are proud to
take on that cloak again. Getting the
optimum prices is the basic principle of
an auction, and that remains the same.”
India’s first tea auction took place in
1861 at New Mart, 8 Mission Row, an
imposing Georgian-style residence
owned by Robert Thomas, a Welshman
with a taste for gambling.
The modern company occupies the
same site and handles one-third of all tea
auctioned in India — nearly 200,000 tons
THE wood-panelled auction room in one
of the oldest streets in Calcutta is buzzing
with tea buyers, exporters and
“packeteers” — people who work for
firms that package other growers’ teas.
Spectacles are perched precariously on
the ends of noses and the catalogues are
well thumbed. The heated atmosphere is
punctuated with cries of: “What’s the
best you can do, sir?”
The 40 or so people present are bidding
for chests of leaves that will go on to be
sold up and down the country and across
the globe. The only pause in proceedings
is when a bearer in a white cotton
uniform emerges with a restorative tray
of refreshments consisting of cream
biscuits and — for a welcome change —
coffee.
Founded during the days of the British
East India Company, J Thomas & Co in
Melissa van der Klugt
DELHI
ARINDAM MUKHERJEE