Opinion Kangana Ranaut-Supriya Shrinate row to Sonia Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee: The character assassination of women

That’s the reason women politicians themselves must avoid falling into this trap, even be bipartisan about not denigrating each other in the public domain. Unfortunately, the recent cross-fire between Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate and the BJP’s debutante candidate from Himachal’s Mandi, Kangana Ranaut, shows that not only did they fall into that trap, they just perpetuated the stereotype that “women are their own worst enemy.”

What makes this worse is that these two people know how the lens works in image-building and how to harness it. Shrinate has been a journalist and Ranaut a Bollywood actor. Yet, both were part of a PR debacle that was best avoided.

It all began with Shrinate’s social media handle making derogatory references to Ranaut and her eligibility to be a candidate from Mandi; an angular jibe at the latter’s controversial stint in Bollywood. Although Shrinate deleted the post and denied its authorship, saying many people had access to her accounts, the former journalist should have deployed well-thought-out strategies to take on Ranaut rather than allow such slurs to pass. Any citizen can contest elections and become a people’s representative on merit, no matter what their backstory. Of course, Ranaut herself had been guilty of the same misdemeanour in 2020 when she had called actor and then Congress member Urmila Matondkar a “soft porn” star.

Undermining leaders, from Sonia to Mamata and Jayalalithaa
Character assassination of women politicians is not new, with everybody from Sonia Gandhi to Mamata Banerjee being subjected to it. But the bigger problem of Bollywood stars entering public life is that they are now being itemised for politics instead of the big screen, used for advocacy rather than reason, prized for their appearance rather than ability and are drawing accolades and likes that may not be earned or deserved.

Every citizen, including actors, is entitled to his/her ideological preferences but even Ranaut, who took years to craft her own disruptive brand, has now been weaponised by a systemic misogyny that sees women stars as a whiff of fresh air in the dry world of politics.

It is for the same reason that former Trinamool Congress actor-MPs Mimi Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan were appropriated as a political tool. They may have had very few Question Hour moments, but were the most photographed in the sessions they attended with talk veering around their sartorial choices. Women newsmakers from popular culture around the globe face harsher judgement while pursuing politics as parties chase them for their representational value rather than what they can do.

The late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, defeated this mindset by becoming the Puratchi Thalaivi of the masses. She became a respected leader by mastering all the rules of the political game, working the ground, breaking out of the shadows of her mentor MGR and battling the authoritarianism that had already been established by her male counterparts on equal terms.

Woman first, head of state later
Despite successful examples of women’s leadership, women politicians are still to earn the vote of confidence and continue to be stigmatised and targeted much more than men. This trust deficit has been borne out by a recent research called the Reykjavik Index, which assesses attitudes toward female leadership in the G7 countries — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US — as well as India, Kenya and Nigeria.

Only 41 per cent of people in Germany said they trusted a woman head of government despite the long chancellorship of Angela Merkel. New Zealand’s former Jacinda Ardern had to face sexist comments when she resigned citing “burnout” with questions swirling around whether women can indeed have it all. Everybody forgot she was globally lauded for her handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A character flaw is fatal enough to pass a swift judgment on the woman’s credibility to be a mass representative. More than the electoral battle, women candidates have this tougher battle of perception to win. The Lok Sabha that was elected in 2019 just had 14.4 per cent of women MPs, way behind the 33 per cent mark the same House had passed in the Women’s Reservation Bill, 2023. At least for that reason alone, there has to be a solidarity of purpose among women aspirants themselves to raise the level of public discourse. Because everybody would want them to slip back to square one.

rinku.ghosh@expressindia.com