Opinion From Udhayanidhi to the BJP, the same old sexist playbook rules politics across party lines

The legal questions surrounding the detention are separate. The larger political point is that none of this was surprising. Dragging a woman into a political contest, even when she has little or nothing to do with the dispute itself, is among the oldest tactics in Indian politics. Women become symbols to be invoked, demeaned or weaponised, their identities reduced to instruments through which political rivals seek to diminish one another.

From the BJP to Congress to all the various regional outfits, every political formation now professes a commitment to women’s empowerment. Yet almost all have, even in the not-so-distant past, either deployed misogynistic rhetoric themselves or remained conspicuously silent when allies have done so. If Ram Manohar Lohia once mocked Indira Gandhi as a “goongi gudiya” before she became Prime Minister, the same phrase resurfaced in political discourse this week, directed by Congress at Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and National President of NCP Sunetra Pawar. The targets may change, but the misogyny remains remarkably consistent.

When an opponent uses such language, however, parties suddenly rediscover the language of women’s dignity. As former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard memorably remarked while responding to accusations of sexism from Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott: “Oh dear, there’s this thing called sexism, oh my lords, there’s this thing called misogyny.”

Even when parties speak the language of women’s “empowerment” — itself a term with paternalistic overtones — their actions reveal how conditional that commitment often is. Consider the handling of the sexual harassment allegations against former BJP MP and Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. When women wrestlers began protesting at Jantar Mantar in 2023, they were not simply seeking justice against an individual. They were confronting a political establishment reluctant to act against one of its own. Whatever one makes of Singh’s acquittal by a Delhi court this week, the fact cannot be glossed over that it took months of protests and an intervention by the Supreme Court before the Delhi Police even registered an FIR in what was a cognisable offence.

But perhaps something is shifting. During the recent Cockroach Janta Party-led protests in Delhi, women did not occupy the margins of the movement. They led slogans, organised demonstrations and, at times, stood between police lathis and fellow protesters. More importantly, when the protests ended, and the familiar pattern repeated itself, of women becoming targets of sexist abuse, character assassination and doxxing online, the response was different. Instead of treating misogyny as the cost of speaking up, fellow protesters made it part of the political argument. Every attempt by the government or its supporters to focus on the abusive language used by some women protesters was met with a reminder of the sustained misogyny directed at women by the political establishment’s own online “ecosystem”.

That selective outrage is the real story. Sexism is condemned when it hurts one’s own side and excused, practiced and condoned when it harms an opponent. Women are defended not because they are citizens deserving equal dignity, but because they happen, at that moment, to belong to a particular political camp.

The measure of progress, then, is not whether politicians stop making sexist remarks. That day is still some distance away. It is whether misogyny ceases to be a partisan issue at all. When political parties stop asking which woman was insulted and start asking why insulting women remains such an effective political strategy in the first place, is when we’ll know that the much-needed change is here.

The writer is deputy associate editor, The Indian Express. pooja.pillai@expressindia.com