On International Women’s Day, Haryana Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda led a protest march against the state government. In his ‘tractor march’, women Congress leaders could be seen manually pulling the tractors.
He carried out this rally at a time when Prime Minister Modi was hailing the Nari Shakti and applauding women achievers in India.
Women are playing a leading role in India’s quest to become Aatmanirbhar. On International Women’s Day, let us commit to encouraging entrepreneurship among women.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 8, 2021
Today, I bought a few products that celebrate women enterprise, creativity and India’s culture. #NariShakti
In a series of tweets, PM Modi had shared various products made by women artisans across India and encouraged more women to strive to be self-sustainable.
Bhupinder Hooda’s ‘protest march’ where he made women pull tractors, was just few days prior to the no-confidence motion was moved by Congress against the Khattar Government. On Tuesday, while speaking during the discussion on the motion of thanks to the governor’s address, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar got emotional. “This treatment to women MLAs was worse than bonded labour,” the Haryana CM hit out on Hooda.
While Hooda sat on a tractor, women Congress leaders pulled it.
What is worse is that this happened on International Women’s Day. When party leaders like Senior Congress leader and Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi mouth off platitudes on women empowerment.
This, obviously, is not the first time Congress leaders have downright insulted women while giving gyaan on women empowerment.
Congress and women empowerment: A farce
Congress leaders as well as the party’s social media account has regularly indulged in misogynist behaviour. During the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, MP Congress tweeted how under the BJP-led government, women ‘have to sell alcohol’ which is very shameful. Other than the fact that it was a misleading image, since it was clicked during inspection where a woman in uniform was carrying out her duty, what exactly is wrong with women selling alcohol? Isn’t alcohol just another commodity? At least there is dignity of work and not making women pull tractor like an animal.
And while we are at topic of casual sexism, Congress leader Digvijay Singh had caught the spotlight a few years back when while praising a fellow party secretary, Meenakshi Natrajan at a rally in Madhya Pradesh he referred to her as ‘a 100 percent tunch maal’. (Translated from Bhojpuri, the remark roughly means ‘100 percent sexy woman’.) And what about the regular, incessant sexist and misogynist attacks on BJP’s Smriti Irani? Irani, however, responded with a resounding slap by snatching Amethi, the Gandhi-family ‘safe seat’ by defeating Rahul Gandhi.
Rahul Gandhi had once commented “Have you ever seen women wearing shorts working in RSS?” without realising the sexist nature of the remark. It is shocking that Rahul Gandhi thinks that for women to feel and be empowered, they have to wear shorts. In fact, Rahul Gandhi has time and again displayed his toxic masculinity. Ahead of 2019 general elections, while addressing a farmers’ rally in Rajasthan, Rahul Gandhi said that the prime minister who boasted of a 56-inch chest did not attend the court of the public, that is the Parliament. “We demolished the Defence Minister’s speech. The prime minister, who has 56-inch-chest, asked a woman to defend him,” he said.
He had reduced Nirmala Sitharaman, independent India’s first ever Defence Minister to just a ‘woman’. That a woman gave befitting replies to his lies hurt him so much that he used ‘woman’ as an insult to her. The man who wants to become India’s Prime Minister gets rattled when a woman speaks up.
To quote Rahul Gandhi’s own words, “jab tak mahila chup rahe, kuch bole na tab tak mahila theek hai jaise hi mahila ne muh khola usko chup karvao.”
