Verbal Violence against women poses a great challenge to democracy. Today women have the access to powerful positions where they can shine their leadership. Despite these significant strides in entering political spaces, they still face disrespectful treatment, sexist comments, and harassment to depreciate their position in a political setting. These traits reflect broader gender inequality and power dynamics in political institutions.
There have been various instances which show us that misogyny is so deeply ingrained into our political system, that somehow it forms the core of Indian Politics. Indian Parliament has shown us everything, from sexist comments passed onto female parliamentarians to keeping them outside the important decision making process.
In 2013 Digvijay Singh, Congress landed himself in another controversy during his public rally in Madhya Pradesh. While he was addressing the public, he called Meenakshi Natrajan, a former MP from Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh “100% tunch maal”. Here he also added that he knew this fact as he called himself “a purana khiladi”. Women activists across the country were demanding Congress to act against him while he was giving explanations that it was not what he meant. He also threatened the news channel and claimed to sue them as they were portraying him in the wrong manner. In 2016, Mayawati was referred to as a “Vaishya-Prostitute” by BJP MP Dayashankar Singh. In 2017, he called her an Elephant– As she takes so much space , which was a jibe at her party symbol and also body shaming too. Mahua Moitra, MP TMC was called Nagar Vadhu , which meant bride of the city or a courtesan by Nishikant Dubey. These words were exchanged after she questioned his educational qualifications before filing his candidacy for the Election Commission.
Anil Basu, member from CPI (M), was questioning Mamta Banerjee on some money laundering issue where he asked her about “bhatar” in Bengali. By this term he wanted to say that she had taken the money from an illegitimate partner from Sonagachi (Asia’s largest red light area). In 2019, during a heated debate in the Parliament, T. Raja referred to a female opposition member as a “flower” and she should keep quiet. During one of his speeches, Lalu Prasad Yadav talked about the development of roads and metaphorically compared them to Hema Malini’s cheeks.
Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam tried to shut MP Smriti Irani by saying, “ Aap toh TV pe thumke lagati thi, aaj chunav vishleshak kese ban gayi”. Another incident happened in the Rajya Sabha when the topic of discussion was Assam Ethnic Violence. Here Sushil Kr. Shinde called Jaya Bachan, and said to her, “Sister, this is a serious matter. Not a filmy subject.” Another such hateful comment came to Jaya Bachan when she excused herself to speak in Hindi, but Raj Thackery, founding chairperson of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena spoke in Marathi that “Guddi has grown in age but no wisdom has come with age.” This is not only done by politicians, but by journalists like Arnab Goswami, from the Republic. He called Sonia Gandhi a ‘Bar Dancer’, in order to entertain his own audience after the incident of Palghar lynching. Rahul Gandhi was issued a notice by National Commission of Women in 2019, when he was taking a jibe at the Prime Minister about the rafale deal and he asked the Prime Minister to come out and answer his questions and not the “Mahila”, who was in fact Nirmala Sitaraman, the defence minister back then.
Such incidents leave women’s contributions trivialized and turn her into a passive object rather than respecting her legitimate political voice. All these comments are not only limited to female politicians but also women in general. When Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, in a public rally he made a comment about Shashi Tharoor’s wife Sunanda Pushkar and said “Waah kya girlfriend h ! 50Cr. Ki girlfriend. In one of his rallies, Mulayam Singh Yadav claimed that only women from affluent families will get ahead and not the rural ones, as they can never get attractive. Digvijay Singh pointed out similarities between Arvind Kejriwal and Rakhi Sawant, as both of them try to expose but have no substance. While opposing the Women’s Bill, Sharad Yadav, Janata Dal (United), said that this bill will only benefit women from rich family backgrounds, and called them “par kati auratein” which was an insult to short-hair women. Sadly, such comments are the by-product of the age-old structures of patriarchy.
According to the Rule 380 of Rules and Procedures and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha gives the speaker of the house to expunge any word or expression used during the debates, that are considered defamatory, unparliamentary and undignified. Whereas the Article 105(2) of the Indian Constitution states that no member of the parliament can not be held liable for anything they say or vote in the house. Parliamentarians use the latter to their advantage.
These incidents occur mostly with women and not men. It seems as if when a woman politician is speaking about certain things, she gets attacked on her character and not her policy making skills. All this happens during dissent. Unfortunately, this dissent is not progressive but regressive as it always turns into hate speech. One agrees that hostility and opposing ideas are valid in a democracy but while opposing if the words do not match up with the context, then it is dangerous.
Across 39 countries, 81.8% of the women parliamentarians are subject to online trolling, which is mostly related to their sex. The prevalence of sexism in politics deters women from pursuing or remaining in political careers. Such an environment creates hostility, feelings of isolation, and lack of support to young girls, wanting to pursue a career in Indian politics. Nationwide schemes such as Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao will be of no use if political parties do not speak about gender prejudices.
It’s evident that patriarchy is deeply rooted, but even small actions can contribute to addressing the larger issue. Therefore one needs to create a safer political environment for women, equal representation in the house, holding perpetrators of sexist comments accountable. More initiatives of sending more women to ground such as done by Biju Janata Dal in Odisha and Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. Political youth wings should create such an atmosphere in the college that it gets easier for young twenty-year-old girls to join small political groups.
DMK Kanimozhi said, “People would like to listen to junior male politicians rather than a senior female leader”, so the society needs to come together as a whole and correct the damages done by Patriarchy.
