(Brinda Karat is a Politburo member of the CPI(M) and a former Member of the Rajya Sabha.)
Wouldn't it be a step forward towards a Swacch Bharat if the Prime Minister gave as much importance to cleaning up garbage in public life as on the streets? If that is too ambitious, can he at least start with his own Government and party? In a single day, two senior and elected leaders of the BJP made gender-offensive and racist statements.
Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar showed his contempt for working women when he mocked nurses on a hunger strike for better wages, telling them that they would ruin their marital prospects if their complexions darkened by their demonstrating in the sun. He says he has been misquoted, but the nurses stand by their version. His reported statement is objectionable on several grounds. It ignores and trivializes the genuine demands raised by nurses who serve and save sick people in his State, and is thus anti-worker. It is blatantly sexist - would he have said the same for men sitting in the sun? It is racist, because it promotes a discriminatory attitude against dark-skinned women. It is wholly patriarchal with its assumption that the aim of a woman is to get married.
But such are the low levels to which political discourse has descended that this objectionable statement from a Chief Minister was overshadowed by the utterances of a Minister of State in the Modi Government. Giriraj Singh's disgraceful and uncouth comment on Sonia Gandhi got the reaction it deserved: outright condemnation. If he can make personalized comments about the colour of skin of the President of the main opposition party in Parliament, what can women in his constituency expect when they have to go to him as their MP for any assistance they require?
The man is a serial offender. He was banned from campaigning by the Election Commission after his statement that all opponents of Modi should be sent to Pakistan. Three cases were registered against him for hate speech in Jharkhand and Bihar. This did not deter him from making another communal statement that all terrorists belong to one community. Needless to say, he was a vocal supporter of the individuals belonging to the Hindutva brigade who are in jail for terrorist attacks targeting Muslims and the killing of innocent people. He came out in support of the violent love jihad campaign.
But his target is not only Muslims. He is a supporter of the banned landlord militia outfit of Bihar - the notorious Ranvir Sena, a terrorist organisation backed by Bhumihar and other upper caste landlords in Bihar responsible for massacres of dalit families, as in Lakshmanpur Bathe, in the name of fighting Naxalites. In this massacre in 1997, 61 dalits, including 16 children, 27 women and 18 men were brutally killed. The massacre was led by Brahmeswar Singh alias Mukhiya who in 2012 himself became a victim of the violence he had bred, and was shot dead in his village. At the funeral, Giriraj Singh was a prominent mourner. Speaking on the occasion, he equated the killer of dalits as a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and a patriot. At the time, he was a minister in the Nitish Kumar government.
He is both a product and a representative of the brand of politics which India is currently subjected to. The politics propagated by the RSS Hindutva brigade does not just co-exist with, but strengthens the Trimurti of communalism, casteism and patriarchy; they march together in Modi's Bharat and Giriraj Singh is their Ambassador.
BJP chief Amit Shah is reported to have asked him to exercise "restraint." The words sound familiar. Was it not the same advice given to "Sadhvi" or to the notorious "yogi" and others? In truth, these people and others of the parivar are speaking exactly as they are meant to. Their language, the words they use, are meant to polarise society on religious and also on caste lines. Their attitude towards women is part of the DNA of the ideology they represent. Therefore they take the advice of "restraint" as they know they should. Bow your head and wait for the tap on your shoulder for the next election, or the next dispute when your divisive speeches will be the order of the day.
This time the damage has gone further - upto the door of the Nigerian Embassy. It is astounding how the Government practices hypocritical and double standards. A documentary on a brutal gang rape in Delhi if shown will get India a bad image, but an insulting and racist statement actually naming a country by a minister in the Modi Government is treated casually, even though it has caused damage to India's standing among African countries and in the international community.
But even that will not affect our Prime Minister. The legitimate demand to remove Giriraj Singh will be ignored. The Prime Minister's Mann ki Baat is how to ensure the next round of victories in the elections scheduled for 2016. That is the only measurement. So Giriraj Singh will stay on as a minister because of the supposed vote bank he represents, and his apologists will advise us not to make a mountain of a molehill.
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