The great Indian Chauvinist Campaign

Vrinda Gopinath, The Indian Express

The no-holds-barred personal attacks on candidates, especially on women, in the election campaign has set feminists’ teeth on edge. Outraged by insensitive remarks on womanhood, at least 12 women’s organizations have pledged their support to an ad campaign to be released shortly in the print media by the Mumbai-based Communalism Combat. The advertisement nails the BJP and the Sangh Parivar for its archaic view of the role of Indian women in society. It lists gems that reveal the mindset of the Parivar.

There is former Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekawat’s indifference when women’s groups approached him to look into rape cases in Jaipur. He simply shrugged and asked what the hue and cry was about. The BJP’s Mahila Aghadi President Mridula Sinha’s retort in a magazine interview on wife-beating where she blamed the woman for provoking her husband to take the extreme step.

Former BJP vice-president Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia leading a pro-sati march after the Deorala incident saying that "sati" was very much part of the Indian tradition. The Shankaracharya of Puri, Swami Nishchalananda’s protestations that women should be debarred from reciting the sacred texts, forcing Arundhati Roychoudhry to walk out of a function. The instances are endless.

"While other parties may not be entirely pro-women, at least they have not come out with provocative anti-women statements," says Ritu Menon of the feminist publishing house Kali for Women.

"The BJP's doublespeak must be exposed. Their manifesto projects a pro-women agenda by their spokespersons do not hesitate to prescribe the traditional role to women in Indian Society."

The slander campaign took off when I&B Minister Pramod Mahajan attacked Sonia Gandhi at an election rally saying that if the country was so keen to have a foreigner as Prime Minister, then why not have Tony Blair, Bill Clinton or even Monica Lewinsky? This fuelled a raging debate on the urgent need for a gender-sensitive campaign, but did not prevent politicians of major parties from stooping even lower. Like a stubborn case of acne, there were sporadic out breaks of personal attacks on women and women candidates. Samples: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi’s observation of AIADMK leader J. Jayalalitha singing at her campaign: "She may end up dancing in her next campaign." On her campaign song about Vajpayee’s betrayal, Karunanidhi retorted, "If a woman says she has been cheated, we can only draw awkward conclusions."

At a rally, George Fernandes said of Sonia Gandhi: "What is her contribution to the nation? The two children she gave birth to." A BJP leader in Gujarat even called Sonia a bar-girl who danced in an Italian nightclub. Other opponents drew terrifying caricatures of her, liberally dipping into Indian myth and superstition. BJP leaders have called her a "kalmukhi" – someone who brought ill-luck and death to the family. HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi likened the Congress to Ravana and accused it of unleashing Sonia in the form of Surpanakha on the country. Even Jayalalitha was not spared. Mahajan called a vishkanya, "for anyone who touches her does not survive."

The Congress was not far behind in getting personal. Atal Bhari Vajpayee’s adopted family came under scrutiny when Ghulab Nabi Azad and former Congress MP Rajesh Khanna asked "We may have to ask the Prime Minister how, without being married, he was a son-in-law. Who is married to whom?" Protests from the BJP sent the Congress scurrying for cover.

Madhu Kishwar, editor and publisher of Manushi, is however astounded that women wake up only when harsh words are hurled at them. "We live in a time when we are witnessing gross abuse of citizen’s rights and if women ghettoize their concerns to very narrow women’s issues, we have to ask what the greater concern is," says Kishwar. "It is equally important for women to be citizens as well." She is scathing about the BJP’s kalmuki remark, says that the party will pay a heavy price. "Several elections ago, the Shiv Sena had made terrible remarks about women during the campaign and the party was routed."

Besides slander campaigns, women politicians have also come under grave physical threat. BSP leader and former UP Chief Minister Mayawati had a nightmarish stay at a Lucknow guest house two years ago when a mob of her opponents surrounded the boarding house, cut off the electricity and telephone lines and threatened her with knives and guns.

Mayawati was forced to lock herself and her party workers in until the next morning. Jayalalitha was manhandled and abused in the chambers of the Tamil Nadu Assembly. She swore that she would return to the Assembly only after she was sworn in as Chief Minster. She did not have to wait long.

BJP MP Sumitra Mahajan deplores the personal attacks on women candidates, especially the mythological reference to Sonia Gandhi, but she believes anyone who is thrust into leadership top-down is open to such attack. "When I started out I used to ride scooters and bicycles," she says.

"Who is Sonia except a Gandhi bahu and Rajiv’s patni? What is she on her own? Why does Sushma (Swaraj) not have all this mud-slinging? It is because she worked her way up and people respect that." Mahajan says she is under constant attack from the Congress Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh, who makes sexist remarks. Mahajan should be at home looking after her husband and family, for instance. She believes her public recitations of the Ramayana and Mahabarata helped keep her detractors from making personal remarks. But she is stumped for an answer when she is asked why her famous colleague Uma Bharati was not spared a vicious and slanderous attack from her party-men. "What can I say?" says Mahajan, then adds, "perhaps she talks too much."

BJP ideologue K.R. Malkani is equally tight-lipped about the Uma Bharati incident. "Forget about it … things happen," he says but he is biting about the Congress’s personal attacks on the Prime Minister’s family. "Pramod’s (Mhajan) reference to Lewinksy was a slip of the tongue. After all, the whole world was mesmerized by the scandal and it was on top of his mind… but the attack on Vajpayeeji is nothing short of disgusting. And I believe the Congress’s ploy of dramatizing the incident is more objectionable." Malkani does not pardon the use of Kalmukhi, vishkanya and other such references, but he shrugs off accusations that the BJP is set in a traditional mould.

Even Indira Gandhi visited sati sthals, how come nobody complained then? These are traditional institutions." As the campaign hots up, the tenor and content of public speeches show no signs of sobering up despite the Prime Minister's pleas and Election Commission's swift intervention.

It seems it will be a long time before women will have a level playing field in public life.