Beena Kak

Early life

Kak was born as Beena Bhasin, one of the five children of Dr. M.R. Bhasin, a government doctor. She has two brothers and two sisters. Her brothers are Dr. B.B. Bhasin, a doctor based in the UK, and B.B. Bhasin, a retired IPS officer. Her sisters are Kusum Suri, a retired school teacher based in the United States, and Kamla Bhasin, a writer and feminist activist.

Kak graduated from Home Science College, Udaipur in 1978, and then took a Master's degree from University of Baroda, Gujarat. She then married Bharat Kak, a classmate at college who belonged to a family with political connections.

Political career

Kak's former husband, Bharat Kak, belongs to a Kashmiri Pundit family settled in Rajasthan. His family, which hails originally from Kashmir, has lived in Rani, Rajasthan (in Pali district) for more than two centuries and has long-standing connections to the Nehru family, which was another Kashmiri Pandit family settled in Rajasthan: the Nehrus had lived in Khetri, Rajasthan, before Motilal Nehru moved to Allahabad in the late 1800s in order to practice law at the Allahabad High Court. After marrying Bharat Kak, and with his help, Beena Kak entered politics in the early 1980s as a member of the Congress Party. She received further support from the fact that her sister, Kamla Bhasin, was a stentorian and extreme feminist, a position much favored by the Nehru family.

In 1985, as part of Rajiv Gandhi's much-touted efforts to bring 'new blood' into politics and into the Congress party, a number of fashionable socialists and chatterati were inducted into the party and given tickets to fight elections, in preference to party workers who had toiled silently for years to support the party at the grassroots. Among them was Beena Kak, favored in place of her unglamorous and hand-working husband because she was female, gratifyingly 'gutsy,' and very outspoken (in English, of course). The elections of 1985 were held during the 'Congress wave' which followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and most of these rootless chatterati managed to get elected without pain or sweat.

Beena Kak was thus elected to the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly from the Sumerpur constituency and served as an MLA from 1985 to 1990. As expected, she lost the election of 1990; the Congress party lost badly everywhere, and the BJP formed the government in Rajasthan state. However, in 1993, that BJP ministry was dismissed by the Congress-ruled government of India after the Babri Masjid demolition took place. Fresh elections were held and the Congress party benefitted from the consolidation of minority votes and blatant policies of minority appeasement, of which the wanton dismissal of the democratically elected government was but one example. Beena Kak was re-elected, to serve again during 1993-98 as an MLA. She managed to get re-elected in 1998, lost the election of 2003, but won again in 2008, all from the same Sumerpur constituency. In 2013, she lost her seat to the BJP by a huge margin of 42,643 votes.

Meanwhile her husband, who had been the source and support of her political career, was languishing as a member of the district council of Pali district, in which the Sumerpur constituency is located. He always helped her in the grassroots, to implement her welfare schemes and to win her elections. but she never helped his career in any manner. The marriage came under strain and the couple lived apart for many years during the time when Beena Kak was serving as a minister in the state government. According to her husband, she began a secual affair with an IAS officer during this period. In 2001, Bharat Kak filed for divorce on grounds of adultery. Initially, Beena Kak resisted the divorce proceedings, because it would impact her political career. However, after losing the election of 2003 anyway, she quietly signed the divorce papers and ended her marriage.

Beena Kak served for a long period as Cabinet Minister in the Government of Rajasthan, holding at various times the portfolios of Woman & Child Development, Tourism, Art & Culture, Archeology and Printing & Stationery. She was also the Minister of State for Tourism and Cultural Affairs of Rajasthan from 1998 to 2003.

Film career

Kak is close to superstar Salman Khan's family, and according to her, this has nothing to do with the court cases pending in the Jodhpur and Pali district courts against the actor for illegal hunting of endangered wild animals in 1998. After losing the assembly elections of 2003, Kak had little to do with her time. Salman offered her a role in his 2005 film Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya?, which was produced by Salman's brother Sohail Khan and directed by David Dhawan. In her Bollywood debut, Kak acted as the hot-headed mother of the hero Samir, played by Salman Khan. In 2008, she again appeared as Khan's mother in God Tussi Great Ho, which once again was produced by Sohail Khan. She has acted bit parts in three other films, namely Nanhe Jaisalmer, Dulha Mil Gaya and Salaam-e-Ishq: A Tribute To Love.

Personal life

Beena Kak married Bharat Kak in the early 1980s. They were blessed with a son, Ankur Kak, and a daughter, Amrita Jhunjhunwala. Ankur, who is the older of the two, is a trained chef and runs a restaurant in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan. In 2009, he married Milan Rai, a lady who shares many of his interests.

Kak's daughter, Amrita Jhunjhunwala, is a singer who has recorded several songs for Hindi films, most of them for films produced by or featuring Salman Khan and his family. These include the songs "Just Chill" (Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya?), "Tujhe Aksa Beach" (God Tussi Great Ho), "Love Me Love Me" (Wanted), "Character Dheela" (Ready) and "Dhinka chika" (Ready), and "ummeed" (Dangerous Ishhq). On 29 May 2010, Amrita married Riju Jhunjhunwala, scion of a rich Marwadi business family and Managing Director of Rajasthan Spinning & Weaving Mills Ltd., which is owned by his family. In October 2012, she delivered a boy, who they named 'Jawahar' in toadying flattery of their political patrons, the Gandhi-Nehru family.

Beena Kak and her husband, Bharat Kak, were estranged for many years and finally divorced. The initial reason was because of Beena's strong, feminist personality. Secondly, while she received every type of help and support from her husband for her political career, she did not help him in any manner and in fact, at a later stage, she did all she could to stunt and destroy his political aspirations out of bitterness and spite. These reasons led to the couple living apart for many years, and during this time, Bina is alleged to have started a sexual relationship with an IAS officer of the Rajasthan cadre. In March 2001, when Beena was serving as a minister in the Rajasthan government, her husband Bharat Kak held a press conference and revealed her infidelity. After the press conference, he filed for divorce. Beena delayed the matter, playing and pretending to be a pious and devoted wife, and kept up the charade until the election of 2003. After losing that election, she quickly signed the divorce papers and ended the marriage.