Mahua Moitra and the Question of Maryada

A peculiar trial has been carried out in the courtrooms of television channels and the internet since the middle of October this year. It has delineated, even hailed, ideas of garima (honour) and maryada (dignity). These are seen, both, as the distinguishing markers of our collective identity and the standards we must conform to as docile subjects of a paternalistic state. 

An extremely articulate, intelligent and fearless MP, Mahua Moitra, has been the subject of this intense media coverage. Speculation about her domestic, private and social life is rife. There are also allegations of corruption against her – the charge being that she took money and favours from a businessman, Darshan Hiranandani, to ask questions about Gautam Adani’s business dealings in the parliament.

I don’t think any of us is either inclined or able to investigate these amorphous charges against her, so let’s lay that aside for the moment. Of course, with the proof that her log in was repeatedly used from Dubai and that the National Informatics Centre (NIC) portal has been 'compromised’, national security has entered the discussion. Dangerous potential leaks to foreign countries have been speculated on and the stage is set for the entry of the dastardly George Soros. (He has, actually, already entered the picture in veiled references to the Hindenburg report.)

What lies ahead is the grand spectacle of Moitra’s expulsion from parliament on the very first day of the upcoming winter session. This is reminiscent of the unseemly haste with which Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s summary suspension was carried out earlier this year. 

Moitra and Gandhi, by the way, are connected by their focus on questioning Adani. Neither of them shies away from foregrounding the fascism of the current dispensation and the unfolding danger to the Indian polity from this.

Also read: Mahua Moitra Says neither ‘Quid’ nor ‘Quo’, Only Slander; All Questions in Parliament Were Hers

What I would like to focus on here is the use of maryada and garima in the discourse around Moitra. These categories are continually invoked by way of maintaining 'sadan ki garima' (parliamentary decorum) and the language Moitra used at the meeting, which is seen as asansadya (unparliamentary). It is also language which doesn’t suit a woman or as Vinod Kumar Sonkar, the chairman of the Ethics Committee said,"..ek saansad aur ek mahila saansad ko shobha nahin deti’. 

These interchangeable categories are not only summoned in terms of language, but also in other figurative ways. Moitra’s women counterparts from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) invoke, tacitly, the question of women’s honour by their expressive adornment. The mangalsutra and sindoor (vermillion) conveys their own story of the difference between those who stand for conventional Indian womanhood and the likes of 'women like Moitra'. 

In this context, many of us might remember the deployment of the late Sushma Swaraj as the champion of Indian womanhood against a tainted and foreign Sonia Gandhi.

Speech and utterance matter; the measured speech of these women is inscribed within the moral code of this womanhood and its place in the nation. It is a mark of their seriousness as defenders of the regime and its moral strictures. Their speech also stands in contrast to Moitra’s own utterances, censured not only for the fluency of her articulation of very real dangers but also for the possible anarchy that women’s 'intemperate' speech signals. 

 These women say they aren’t the slightest bit interested in Moitra’s personal life. This bit of disingenuousness would be funny if it wasn’t so disturbing, like everything else that plays out these days in this country. 

These noble souls in the committee and outside were invested in her personal life, and they possibly saw in this complaint as an opportunity to chastise her for questioning absolutely everything this government stands for. Why, otherwise, would they have taken on trust and admitted the complaint against her that was made by a man whom she immediately declared, with disarming candour, as a jilted ex? Can it be because the intermediary was Nishikant Dubey, an MP whose bonafides are beyond question?

Why would they have then called upon her to tell her story, which presumably started with her involvement with lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai?

Also read: Mahua Moitra Says People Can Imagine Gods as They Like, Rattled TMC Distances Itself

When salacious questions were apparently put to her thereafter about Hiranandani’s wife by Sonkar, nobody from the BJP in the Ethics Committee intervened. It was left to opposition members to protest.

The women members’ acquiescence in this interrogation is yet another display of their ideological moorings and their staunch adherence to these regulated ideals of womanhood.

These stand in implicit contrast to the apparent chaos in the lives of unregulated women. The BJP members of this committee, both men and women, in speech as well as in action, are thus representative of the gaze it trains upon women who don’t conform, women who display sexual agency, who have autonomy, no husbands or children, saas or sasur (parents in-law), who are, in other words, fair game.

Nishikant Dubey is, therefore, both via media and fixer, the hero of this cautionary tale. 

He was called and 'questioned' by the Ethics Committee, hailed-by himself, as a fearless crusader for the nation, its security and the prime minister. His harassment of other MPs in parliament is both routine and exemplary, as is his continual breaching of any kind of sansadya (parliamentary) honour or dignity.

Interestingly and chillingly enough, the question of 'sadan ki garima', what is permissible or not, is not even referred to when BJP's Ramesh Bhiduri, in September this year, called fellow MP Danish Ali a pimp, a terrorist and other derogatory terms used for the Muslim community. These are the worst sorts of communal slurs, and were voiced within the precincts of parliament. Ali subsequently complained he was not given a hearing, though he gave letters to the speaker and multiple interviews to TV channels. No action has been taken against Bidhuri, in contrast to the stunning speed of the inquiry against Moitra.

At the time one of the few MPs who gave an interview condemning Bidhuri was Moitra. She expressed her outrage at this sort of language being used in parliament and condemned the absolutely despicable nature of this assault that Ali himself called a 'verbal lynching’. Ali, also a member of the Ethics committee, has defended Moitra, and has been given a rap on the knuckles by his BJP peers in the committee for breaching the boundaries.

Significantly, Dubey featured in the Bidhuri-Ali incident as well. He swore that it was Ali who said unspeakable things about the prime minister, practically forcing Bidhuri to utter vile communal slurs.

This entire saga, then, suggests the ineluctable truth that disobedient women and Muslim men will get what they deserve, both within and outside parliament.

Ira Singh taught English at Delhi University’s Miranda House. She is a writer whose most recent novel is Pilgrimage, published by Speaking Tiger books.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.