Political discourse still fails women leaders

Maharashtra politics came to a boil after the ruling Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) protested against the Opposition, mainly the Congress, for calling its national president Sunetra Pawar “Goongi Gudiya” or a “dumb doll”. Ms. Sunetra Pawar is also the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

The irony isn’t lost here. The Congress is the same party which had once raised its voice against similar criticism about its leader and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

And yet, the party refused to apologise or withdraw its comment from its official X account. Instead, the party threw an open challenge at Ms. Sunetra Pawar, asking her to prove that she was not a “dumb doll”. It doled out a list of demands, which, if fulfilled, will prove that she is an avatar of ‘Durga’, the party said. Both the constructs are equally problematic, and reek of misogyny and patronising behaviour.

The incident

What was noteworthy was the presence of patronising behaviour from both the sides. While the Congress faced immediate backlash for its comments, the incident due to which this comment was made, showed Ms. Sunetra Pawar’s own party leader treating her in a patronising manner.

The incident in question was a press conference conducted by Ms. Sunetra Pawar in Beed in Marathwada. While answering questions about several issues, she kept referring to her late husband and former Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, expressing how she was only trying to fulfil his dream and vision. She was flanked by NCP leader Dhananjay Munde, who not only stopped a journalist from asking a difficult question, but also ushered Ms. Sunetra Pawar out of the press event. Mr. Munde kept intervening when questions were being addressed to Ms. Pawar.

It was this video that the Congress tagged, asking Ms. Sunetra Pawar when she will stop being a “Goongi Gudiya”. NCP leader Udaykumar Aher said the comment was an insult to the entire Pawar family; he appealed to Ms. Pawar’s uncle-in-law Sharad Pawar, who heads the NCP-SP and sits in alliance with the Congress, to extract an apology from the party, or leave the INDIA bloc in protest.

Senior Congress leaders said the comment was ‘silly’ and should have been avoided. “Congress has a history and should have taken the responsibility of setting the discourse at a higher pedestal. While there is hardly any awareness about gender issues in our political narrative, it is Congress party’s responsibility to maintain dignity in dialogue,” senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan said.

But a few leaders said that it also reflected the overall deterioration of political discourse in the State. They claimed that outrage over derogatory comments had become selective and that leaders from the ruling dispensation had used worse words while hitting out at the Opposition. Officially, the Congress has, as of yet, refused to issue an apology or withdraw its comment.

Abysmal track record

This isn’t the first time misogynistic comments have been made in Maharashtra’s politics. Neither does the issue restrict itself to any particular political party. A few years ago, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) minister Chandrakant Patil had asked NCP MP Supriya Sule to “go home and cook,” when she had questioned the government about OBC reservations. Ahead of the 2024 Assembly elections, Shiv Sena-UBT (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Arvind Sawant had referred to Shiv Sena leader Shaina NC as “imported maal”.

A 2020 study by Amnesty International India, ‘Troll Patrol India,’ had shown how female politicians face more abusive language. The report had analysed over 1,14,000 tweets sent to 95 female politicians and found that one in seven posts (or 13%) were ‘problematic’ or ‘abusive’.

“This amounted to an average of 113 abusive tweets per day for each woman politician,” it had reported.

The study said that Indian female leaders faced substantially higher levels of online harassment than their counterparts in the U.K. or the U.S.

Now, the NCP has asked Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra if they endorsed this culture in their party, questioning if the Congress will condemn these sexist remarks. In a society where political discourse across party lines rarely shows gender sensitivity, the behaviour of a national party calls for condemnation.