Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, known for his sudden political about-turns and forming astounding political affiliations to protect his government, was recently in the news for a different reason. While addressing the Bihar Assembly on the subject of caste reservations, he suddenly lashed out at women from Opposition parties, yelling at him, “Hai Hai! (down with him)”.
According to media reports, he was seen wagging his finger at a Dalit MLA Rekha Devi Paswan of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and shouting, “Arre Mahila ho kuchh Janati nahin ho .. chupchap suno..(Listen to me quietly you ignorant woman ).”
“Do you realise,” he went on to say, “it was only after I assumed power that women started getting their dues in Bihar. You are a woman, you know nothing. If you say Hai hai to me, then it is hai hai for all..It was at my instance that you all agreed to a caste survey, and after that quotas for SC/ST OBC and the extremely backward classes were hiked”.
The incident and the extreme anger it unleashed among women of all parties unmask the ugly unspoken secret about misogyny latent in all political power in India. Despite an increase in numbers (24 in 1952 to 76 in 2024) of women in the parliament and 33% reservation for women in village panchayats, men still hugely outnumber women and nearly all important decision-making bodies within all parties.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Most parties are also almost entirely controlled by men. This creates a political view that maleness is omnipotent and women must accept that they alone are best suited to judge the concrete reality of female lives in all spheres. There are examples galore of how if women ask for agency or protest against domestic and sexual violence, or unequal pay, they can be swatted down no matter how each party claims it is committed to ending gender-based inequality.
Not too long ago an influential MP from UP had referred sniggeringly at a film star turned politician as a mere singer-dancer (Naachne gaane wali). Another had defined feminists demanding reservations for women in the legislature as westernised females with bobbed hair, Perkati, and tried to cover this gaffe by saying our fixation with white (Gori) women was silly because he thought South Indian women though dark, were prettier because they could dance.
Also read: Why Aren’t We Dealing With the Lack of Women in Indian Politics?
A saffron-wearing BJP MP said that to meet the Muslims’ threat of demographic imbalance each Hindu woman must have at least four children, another religious leader raised the number to ten. Ironically both were celibate monks. As for sexual violence, a top functionary of the RSS said urbanisation is to blame for rapes. Men do not rape women in rural areas. The mindset may feel ridiculous, but it has very real consequences for women when they enter the legislature as representatives of people who have fought hard and registered victories with large margins.
Talks with most women MPs or MLAs reveal that women politicians are still treated as lesser life forms and when they challenge the male views on policy making, instead of the issue becoming debatable, they are immediately subjected to ugly character assassination. In a country where of late several rapists and serial abusers with links to the political male brotherhood can get bail and party tickets and then go on to terrorise and stalk their victims, women politicians even if incensed must keep mum because their high command wants them to.
The political parties and institutions of state by now are crafted and maintained in such a way that they can prohibit women accessing records and organising a strong debate even within their own party. As Kanimozhi, the DMK MP from Tamilnadu once said no one takes women politicians seriously when they object to obviously improper, sexist remarks in public fora.
A livid Rekha Devi Paswan told the media outside the Assembly after being shouted at by the chief minister who asked her to keep mum and listen to him while he spoke. “The CM may be our CM too, but he seems to have forgotten how to talk properly to a woman. He should apologise to all women.”
Nitish Kumar may claim his government has always encouraged and allocated special educational packages for young girls, “but how much does he know about women’s situation on the ground in Bihar? The kind of crimes being committed against our young women outside? How unsafe they still feel in streets?” asked Rekha Devi .
She said women in 2024 can no longer be segregated from each other on ideological lines when big leaders choose to insult and humiliate them. Soon many voices of protest arose to support Rekha Devi. Rabri Devi, senior leader of RJD, said it was an insult to all women. Then Rekha Sharma, the chair of the National Commission for Women, too protested against the incident. One after another other women MLAs also protested. JDU’s own minister for consumer protection and a member from the scheduled tribes Lushi Singh also registered her ire and brought the focus on the neglect of tribal women.
She said not just her party, but even the government at the Centre (of which Nitish’s party is today an ally) was promoting women in high positions as an act of tokenism. “Why after appointing a female tribal President with much fanfare,” Lushi Singh asked, “Did they invite her to inaugurate the new parliament building in New Delhi? And now they are celebrating nine unparalleled years of progress (Nau Saal Bemisaal). If anything they are likely to be memorable for nine years of repeatedly insulting and haranguing women.”
Some brave female wrestlers a year ago raised the ugly issue of a powerful (now) ex-MP from Gonda and erstwhile president of India’s Wrestling Federation, a serial abuser of young women wrestlers for over a decade. When charged with these crimes, he chose to contest bitterly, even though some of the women he molested are India’s pride and Olympic gold winners.
The protesting wrestlers. Photo: Twitter/@AbhaySChautala
The girls formally complained that not only the man himself but several of the officials of this powerful federation tasked with training and selecting male and female wrestlers for top events misused their position and then used various means to silence the victims’ voices. In 2023, he was exonerated of most charges, but in view of the BJP-led government’s electoral promises of ushering in a woman-friendly government and month-long visibility of protests by the victims, he was denied a ticket. But his son was given one and the father a bit crestfallen though boasted to the media his son would win the seat and he did.
Now Sports and Rights Alliance, a registered body which is a coalition hosted and operated by the World Players’ Association sector of UNI Global union, met up with the women victims and has just released a report that records hair-raising details of the male brotherhood of abusers that operated with impunity within the older Federation. The report also highlights the systemic normalisation of sexual abuse within the system that usually blames the victims instead of bringing their abusive male bosses to justice.
It is clear that in the political system on ground, the male gives and the male taketh away, blessed be The Male. And when the disappointed or exploited complainant is a male, his grievance is addressed suitably both legally and politically. But when women report being harassed and exploited or publically humiliated and shouted at, it is mostly linked to the problem of that being a classic case of ignorance among females about the world of realpolitik and if they persist it gets linked to morality.
These are just a few examples but they are sufficient to underscore that the endless emotional binaries between good and evil, conservative or liberal must be cancelled totally. The question we ask now is basic and political: Does our democracy treat women as human beings on par with the males of the species or not ?
“It is,” confirms Trotsky, “quite true that there are no limits to male egotism in ordinary life. In order to change the conditions of life we must learn to see them through the eyes of women.”
