In Defence of a Sexist Prime Minister

According to our honourable Prime Minister, being intolerant of terrorism is a great thing, especially is someone manages it doing it despite having ovaries. Impressive, wouldn’t you say?

Well, everyone else thought so too. It is indeed quite spectacular to see the leader of the nation doling out a generous serving of a sexist “compliment” to the leader of a friendly nation. One would think he would also feel the same way about one of his predecessors who despite being the only the second woman Prime Minister in the world, held a dim view of the whole terrorist agenda in general.

Just innocent Prime Ministerial banter as usual.

Well, it would be wrong to place the blame for a sexist remark squarely onto his shoulders alone. He is merely the victim of the latent sexism and masochism and the patriarchal mindset that has been traditional in Indian politics for so long that people stopped talking about it in the last century.

Surely our beloved leader did not mean to degrade the office of a fellow Prime Minister and sound condescending in the worst way possible just because that country is indebted to ours for their very freedom. If it came to that, he could make the same innocent mistake with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff or say South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

In fact, there is a counterpoint to this whole thing which shows how much the PM cares about women, even those who don’t need it. His government recently refused to consider sending omen to the front lines in battle because guess what would happen if they were captured and held prisoners of war. Wonder what horrors await them in those concentration camps reserved especially for Indian soldiers in the country that uses pigeons as spies!

Although, I’m sure female soldiers would have preferred the Union Defence Minister treat them the same as their male counterparts. But, this is India, the land where women need to be kept safe from foreign assaults but can be raped, mutilated, murdered and thrown out of moving vehicles in the capital of the country. I’m sure they understand that.

So please stop criticizing the Prime Minister, at least when he is on a foreign visit. He represents our entire nation and our thoughts and our actions and our behaviour. He is the embodiment of all that we are and all that we aspire to be. To speak against the Prime Minister who has male genitalia and is flaunting his oratory skills in a foreign nation is against national interest.

Hope he had a better time than PM Sheikh Hasina.


Note: This post is a sarcastic take on what may or may not have been a highly sexist remark by one Head of Government to another. Definitely not to hurt anyone's feelings and sentiments. it is also not to debase or to defame our PM.

Indian Media teaches Sexism to School Children Now!

Today, the results of the CBSE class 12 results were announced across India and the kids seemed to have done pretty well. Although I don’t believe in the present system of examination myself, I’m sure we have a lot of proud parents today and others who are saying, “Look, Sharmaji’s son got 0.2% more than you! Which college will accept you now? You have destroyed your career and my reputation!”

Meanwhile the media is all about ‘Girls score better than boys!’ ‘Girls beat boys’ and so on and so forth all over social media. They’ll probably do the same thing on the front page of their newspapers tomorrow morning. And well, the news channels will be doing it right now. Really! Go check.

Ever since this dialogue of sexism has come to the forefront in India, we have been all about the empowerment of women and highlighting their successes and praising their leadership skills. All that is well and good and it is actually helping. But then the media goes ahead and creates the kind of tension that is counterproductive to everything else they think they’re doing for women empowerment.

Image Courtesy: dailymail.co.uk

While the only thing they’re doing is:

They’re creating unhealthy competition

Almost every media house in India has tweeted something to the effect that girls have performed better than boys in this academic year. What they don’t seem to realize is that they’re unconsciously widening the gender rift in academia which is already bad in India. Competition is good, but competition based on plain old gender divisive lines is ridiculous.

They’re creating familial rifts

Nobody can understand this point more than those who have risen in a house with a sibling of another gender. In a still very much patriarchal Indian society, a boy scoring less than a girl is perceived as a shame as it is assumed that the boy is going to be the breadwinner of the family. Looking at such headlines from the family perspective, the media is just putting more pressure on boys to do well. No wonder cases of suicides are going up every year.

Their idea of feminism is as evolved as a chimpanzee

The media wants to empower women but they either don’t know or don’t want to believe that feminism does not encourage putting one gender over the other. It is not about demeaning boys but about bring everyone to the same level. By saying, ‘girls outshine boys’ the only thing they’re proving is that they’re knowledge of feminism is as much as the politicians they label ‘sexist’.

Oh Indian media, when will you figure out what you're really doing?

The Politics of Friendship

There is a question or should I perhaps call it a dilemma, about friendship. And it’s not about two genders, but three.

The problem of what ‘type’ of friends we should and should not cultivate has been a question that is perhaps addressed in every household at one time or another in childhood, teen years and sometimes even adulthood.

Usually these questions revolve around bad influences and those few from shady backgrounds or different cultures. But whether one can have friends from the other two genders is rarely discussed. It is simply understood that persons of those category are out of bounds. That discussion is supposedly purely adult talk and taboo for the same people whose choices are being determined. Funny country!

Personally experiencing ridicule in school because of casual conversations with girls, I learned that along with society in general, even the education system is in denial that there is actually a problem of communication between genders. This gap is sometimes also encouraged through ridicule, excommunication from the peer group and marginalization from the opposite gender.

Image Courtesy: Google Images/extension.org.

These deliberate gender-distancing tactics have, I have realized, long lasting effects on the psyche. Talking just about males and females: Men may grow up to be indifferent, hostile and inconsiderate towards women. Women may grow up to be paranoid, disgusted and perhaps even leery of men.

If not given a chance to understand the dynamics of different genders by mingling, problems are likely to develop in a society that has the misfortune to be the one where such individuals grow up. The blinders put on them as kids are likely to stay on forever, the conditioning of a lifetime giving an extremely skewed vision and a closed mindset.

Perhaps this is what has happened to the people of the third gender. Avoided, shunned and “protected” from them, the rest of society treats them as sub-humans. Marginalized by the society that they should have been accepted into as normally as any other person, the people of the third gender have had to fight a long and arduous battle for the most fundamental rights. And even though the Indian government has accepted them as part of society, there is possibly a long road ahead of them trying to be part of society in this country.

This is the politics of the society we have been born into. Something as fundamental as friendship can also be the reason for discord. It makes one realize the potential for division within us.

The Great Indian Gay Rights Debacle at the UN

Russia put forward a motion in the Fifth committee of the UN General Assembly that challenged Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s changes to the international body’s benefits to partners of staff members. The chief of the UN, a supporter of equal rights for the LGBT community wanted marriage benefits to be extended to same sex couple working for the UN.

Surprise, surprise, surprise! India, along with other homophobic and intolerant nations like Iran, Iraq, China… yada yada yada, basically the whole Middle East voted for Russia’s resolution against equality! Why? Just because we don’t like gay people. Period. And also, Russia is our very dear friend and Putin is right in occupying Ukraine and may we please have that other burnt aircraft carrier you aren’t using? Pretty please?

Fortunately, 80 countries voted against this disgusting piece of legislation and supported the Secretary-General, leading to rejoicing among 40,000 United Nations staff members.

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

India has this time definitely shown its class by siding with theocratic, autocratic, monarchical and in-every-way intolerant nations by supporting this resolution. Although same-sex unions are illegal in India (which is ridiculous in the first place), this in no way means that benefits to employees of an international organization should be dictated on the same lame ‘Indian morality’ basis.

I believe, that this time the US is right in pointing out how Russia is bringing its domestic policies to bear on the international front and challenging the head of the UN in making policy decisions. Russia, under the leadership of Putin seems to want to delve the world back into the cold war era and India, instead of being non-aligned as it has been since independence, seems to want to dive head first into those murky waters.

India has taken part in a resolution that reflects how politics is played in its own parliament. The opposition often has a problem with government policies which are even good for the public. There will be endless debates, nonsensical arguments and chair flinging-microphone hurling-money waving-insult flying debacles for every other reason.

I’m only glad that our people haven’t begun doing that at UN General Assembly sessions yet. Because if… I mean when that begins, there will be no hope for the human race.

Besieged on a Train

They came carrying the wind in the tails of their dresses. Claps of thunder announced their arrival and the threat of assault assuaged and permeated the beings of almost everyone but the strongest of will as the wheels of the train turned once more. We knew that we were helpless against them at least till the train came to a stop again and that wasn’t going to be anytime soon.

Trapped!

They moved from coach to coach, seat to seat, identifying their targets, sizing them up. Shifting uncomfortably under their gaze, travellers tried to hold their composure. Only a few succeeded. A few regulars along this route had faced this threat before; many hadn’t. They hardly knew how to react. They had only heard stories of them doing unimaginable “things” to those who didn’t acquiesce to their demands. To face this threat in reality was a completely different ball game. They were living the horror they had smirked at in the confines of their homes. They weren’t finding it so funny now.

As the dreaded ones came upon this shifty bunch of travellers, they saw just the back of some heads and the petrified faces of others through their kohl-smeared eyes that bored through everyone as if in disgust; or was it anger?

The travellers knew what they wanted and few who wished to avoid confrontation just paid them what they could. Others didn’t. Whatever reasons they might have had, they never revealed, instead just turning their faces to look out the window or at each other in supposedly knowing anticipation of what was to follow.

The invaders didn’t take rejection quite well.

Shouts and screams emanated from the coach, punctuated with sobs and claps and o someone eavesdropping, the clamour would have probably sounded like a massacre in progress.

They had taken what they had come for. They always did.

Image Courtesy: www.desertusa.com

This is what usually happens on almost all trains that pass through Maharashtra from Gujarat. People get terrorized by these violent groups of eunuchs who literally demand money from passengers as if it were their right to get paid – just for asking. And if they are not paid, they start screaming, hitting people and in worst case scenarios, even expose their genitals before those who don’t pay up.

They mostly harass men and especially behave very badly with labourers who hardly earn enough for their own bread, much less pay them. It is my personal experience where I’ve seen gangs of these thugs climb aboard and beat up innocent travellers who don’t wish to pay these ruffians.

There’s even more.

There are a number of groups of these thugs who climb aboard a rain at different stations and leave before the next gang climbs aboard. I’ve actually witnessed five gangs come through the train I was travelling in at one point of time. It was the most harrowing experience I’ve had in a train.

Image Courtesy: www.mid-day.com

Now I know that eunuchs are discriminated against and that they don’t get jobs and then this is what happens. But this does not mean that innocents have to suffer for the failure of the system and that the all of them should be blamed for the actions of a few rotten eggs. When asked to comment on this situation, the Public Relations Officer of the Western Railways said that this problem was bound to remain till the government doesn’t resolve whose jurisdiction it is to deal with these miscreants.

And so, even the Indian Railways believes that this problem is not going to be solved anytime soon.

Bon voyage!

The ‘Mardaani’ Problem

A Socratic Question that’s cropped into my mind is:

‘Does a Woman need to be referred to by a Manly adjective like ‘Mardaani’ in order to describe her as being strong or assertive?’

This question has been revolving around my head for a couple of days now since I read a couple of pieces where writers had used this adjective to refer to a specific “breed” of women if I may refer to them as such; women of a strong and assertive nature, who stood up for their rights and fought back against patriarchal society such as it is.

The battle raging inside is whether it is right to refer to women as being strong and (insert synonyms) by using adjectives generally used for men; the word in question here being ‘Mardaani’. How does calling a woman as such have effects on both sides of the scale is the question I’m grappling with.

I totally get the point of calling women ‘Mardaani’ in the metaphorical sense of the word as ‘being like a man’; Man here being the gender generalized as being assertive, brave and strong. This idea is mildly acceptable because it compliments women, as writers I've read have been meaning to do I presume. But the downside of this positive aspect is that it generalizes men as being all those things and that is frankly insulting. Not all men are the same and complimenting women at the same time as insulting men is not the way to do it, methinks.

Coming to the literal part of it, I wonder why a woman needs to be called a ‘Mardaani’ in the first place. I believe that a woman need not be referred to in this particular manner and so do a lot of women I've had the chance to put this question to. It is actually demeaning to women to do so. Feminists who attempt to portray women in a manner which is equal to men are actually doing the opposite by admitting that all these qualities are only in men and that women need to borrow this adjective in order to be complimented or praised.

By taking the basic premise of men having qualities that only some women do, these people are putting men on  pedestal themselves; something I’m sure they don’t want to do if they want to see women on an equal footing and not a rung under the other gender. Even I as a man find it disturbing that people and especially writers are doing this because it is the sacred duty of writers to make their readers think.  When using the word ‘Mardaani’, they put in the metaphorical sense and assume that it is done but what of making their readers aware that it is unnecessary to do this and thereby make them think of how they wish to see women; as dependent on the other gender so as to borrow characteristics or as having those characteristics by and of themselves?

And even though I have an opinion on it, I’m still looking for answers. A little help perhaps? The comment box is just below.