I remember a scene out of Madhur Bhandarkars political saga ‘Satta’ where newly emerged political leader Raveena Tandon encounters a few chauvinistic men bragging about women and their possible sexual exploitation. That particular depiction was a snapshot of how women are portrayed in corridors of power cutting across party lines. On the contrary even firebrand leaders like Jayalalitha or Mamata Banerjee have being meted with humiliation and utter discord when they struggled to wrest into the upper echelons of power.
When Sharad Yadav used similar brash words against then HRD minister Smriti Irani, it espoused the seething misogynist undercurrents in a male dominated political edifice. After a mushrooming backlash over Yadavs comments , this particular episode should have been a wakeup call for the BJP to understand the seriousness of the issue to weed or at least gag such foot in mouth individuals within the party fold.
The impromptu outbursts of Sakshi Maharaj were already in the picture and again the onus was fixated upon the election bound state of UP. So as the talks of Priyanka Gandhi donning the mantle of UP polls were making the news, BJP leader Vinay Katiyar made a statement that brought the haunting clouds of sexism on the doors of the BJP. With elections waiting in the horizon, parties were on the prowl to ambush BJP for this episode especially since it involved the so called promising sapling of a reducing Gandhi family tree in politics.
Even if sexism is an all-party plague, the Indian National Congress holding the baton to show moral brinkmanship is seemingly preposterous. It is in no way different than the same grand old party lecturing others on ill effects of black money on the society and the country. My earliest memory of their respect to women takes me back to the infamous Tandoor murder case where a Congress leader had burnt his wife alive in Delhi. As they hijack secularism with their own definition, so do they inflict the same treatment over other issues. Sanjay Nirupam on national television using degrading words against Irani are so well known. In spite of using platform of television for abashed sexism, he refused to apologise which steered Irani to file a defamation suit.
Apologies were refused and his statements were completely out of taste and not even complying with basic fabric of decency. More over this entire ruckus the party is creating over Priyanka Gandhi in fact brings out their sheet hypocrisy out in the open. The party has recently forged an alliance with SP which is known for its worst sexist diatribes and admonitions. (Remember Agarwal) Adding to its culture of consistent sexist remarks, SP also harbours unique resistance against women’s reservation bill with which the Congress is fighting elections together for Lucknow. The party was also known to politicise rapes during Mayawatis regime at the backdrop of 2012 elections where many of its leaders had made ludicrous comments.
Coming back to the Congress party during a Times Now debate, it’s spokesman debating a rape and murder incident instead of condemning the crime made a sexist jibe which caused a massive outrage in Maharashtra. Conveniently the party tried to distance itself making him a scapegoat of its own intra party reflections. Sexist parlays have moved from small fries to even big leaders when former congress party CM Digvijay Singh was heavily flaked and former coal minister Shriprakash Jaiswal criticised for similar derogatory outlooks in public.
In the midst of a issueless UP canvas, a stroke of luck in the form of BJP leader quoting and misfiring evoked all the front benchers of the Congress to nibble an opportunism. As exit polls are on the verge of handing BJP with at least a largest single party, it has thrown a multitude of options other parties are clutching in order to survive politically.