Marxist misogyny

Faced with a female opponent whos clearly ahead by all accounts,CPM candidate Anil Basu levelled the oldest insult in the world at her. In an invective-laden speech in his constituency of Arambagh in Hooghly district,Basu took on Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee and her campaign financing methods. Comparing it to what goes on in Kolkatas red-light district,he said that now that the party had bagged a big client like the US,it had no use for smaller clients from Indian states like Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Though his own party disowned the remarks Chief Minister Buddadeb Bhattacharjee calling his words unpardonable and unbecoming of a Communist leader Basu has voiced other such fantasies in the past. During Banerjees Singur agitation,he said that if he had his way,he would have dragged her back by the hair and deposited in her Kalighat home.

Basu only foregrounded the ambient sexism in our public life,by putting it in the coarsest possible words. Any woman who has risen to noticeable stature here is often systematically dissed or ignored especially if she does not hide behind reassuringly feminine roles of mother or daughter-in-law. Women like Mayawati or Jayalalithaa or Banerjee are routinely diminished by their colleagues. These can range from sexualised public shaming to being written off as ineffective or unstable,or being allocated peripheral work considered suitable for women. Its not just men who wield sexism as a weapon Mayawati has had to face down disturbing put-downs from women like Maneka Gandhi and Rita Bahuguna Joshi. Banerjees middle name might as well be mercurial,so strongly has that idea seeped into the public perception of her. This is not to deny that facet of her personality,but to point how a fiercely competitive challenger who is now rocking the CPMs long regime is still largely portrayed as a woman ruled by moods and hormones.

Though that kind of soft bigotry must constantly be fought with through argument,open misogyny of the kind that Basu displayed must be answered with swift,punishing consequences.