Sexism and politics: Can there be an item girl model of governance?

Even if he may have never watched Miley Cyrus, former wrestler Ramdas Tadas knows we are living in liberal times. Either that, or it’s truly that time of the year when the gloves are off, the niceties put aside and any air of decorum forgotten. How else would a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate use the c*&^%@ word not once, not twice but a total of three times, in the context of the UPA, at a public rally attended by about 80,000 people? “All fake promises,” said Ramdas Tadas, breathing fire at Thursday’s rally by Narendra Modi in Wardha, referring to the UPA’s assurances on various counts. “They’re just making ch*&^%@s out of you.” Three times he said it, and all three times the crowd cheered and laughed. In the bitter run-up to the Lok Sabha election, Tadas, who was advised at the rally by other leaders to give a “dhobi-pachaad” to his opponents, was mincing no words. [caption id=“attachment_1444609” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Used as slang to describe an idiot or fool, the root of the word c*&^%@ lies in offensive sexual and sexist references. But two of the three women journalists at the rally did not seem overly perturbed and I was reminded of the time when the National Commission for Women was being derided as being oversensitive for objecting to the term “laundiya” used in lyrics of a Bollywood song. No doubt, those responsible for the  not-a-filmy-subject barb at Jaya Bachchan, the thumkewaali comment against Smriti Iraani  and the Rs 50-cr girlfriend jibe would imagine the public response to their words to be oversensitive and overblown too. It was disturbing that an aspiring Member of Parliament was using utterly unparliamentary language at a public rally, but there’s too much manufactured outrage floating around and, anyway, what can you say to or about the boorish that they would comprehend? And besides, much of the sexist exchanges of the season are kept well under wraps. A senior journalist recounted how he asked a senior leader in Nagpur about the Aam Aadmi Party’s chances in the city. “Remember what they were called? Item girl, someone people enjoy gawking at,” was the politician’s reply. Unlikely that the leader will be caught saying that in public. The Shiv Sena, or rather its mouthpiece Saamna which came up with that coinage, had no such qualms when it declared the Aam Aadmi Party an item girl, adding for good measure another barb: Even Rakhi Sawant can govern better. Ms Sawant promptly picked up the gauntlet, declared herself a better governor that the “item girl party” and subsequently joined the BJP. The item girl barb is not just sexist, it’s also misplaced. If you leave aside the term itself, the “item” part of it at least, the formula of the dance number is a winning, effective one: The performer is a professional, she raises her game for the occasion, she can deal with criticism, she gets a small window of opportunity to make an impact. Who wouldn’t want a government like that?