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Thirty-year-old Swati Maliwal took charge as the Delhi Commission of Women (DCW) chairperson on Monday with a resolve to outdo the last chairperson’s performance in eight months. She said she will lead the commission without bias and that there will be zero tolerance for those who harm a woman’s dignity.
“Can anyone be dearer than one’s husband? Even if my husband does something wrong, he too will not be spared,” Maliwal said.
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Her appointment was questioned by the BJP and the Congress who accused the AAP of adopting “family politics”, as Maliwal is the wife of Haryana AAP leader Naveen Jaihind.
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“Suggesting that a woman gets her identity from her husband shows a patriarchal mindset. It is this mindset that we have to work towards changing. I am Naveen Jaihind’s wife but I have been working at the grassroot level in various movements since 2006. I have lived in slums and worked to help flood victims in Bihar. I was the youngest member of the core committee of the India Against Corruption movement. I got married in 2013. That does not discredit all the work I have done in the past,” Maliwal said.
She said that as chairperson, she will set up a committee comprising international, national and state experts to prepare a blueprint for making Delhi a safe city for women.
“There are five rapes and 12 molestations reported in Delhi everyday. We will work towards making Delhi so safe that even at midnight, if a woman needs to go somewhere, she should feel absolutely safe.”
Maliwal further said the commission will work in harmony with the Centre, the Lieutenant-Governor and the Delhi government.
While the complaints against AAP leaders Kumar Vishwas and MLA Somnath Bharti are pending, Maliwal said she is yet to peruse the papers before the commission. “Whatever I know is based on media reports… The cases have been concluded. But I will have to see the documents before the commission,” Maliwal said.
She added, “I will not allow the commission to become a political battleground. The DCW will no longer be confined to four rooms. It will be out on the roads and working among the people of Delhi. In eight months we will do more work than was done in the last eight years.”
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