Appeasing Women, Not Enough

If 2019 Indian elections will be known for anything that is the unprecedented personal attack on Indian Prime Minister and BJP leader Mr. Narendra Modi by the opposition leaders especially the women leaders. No, this was not due to his anti-feminist behaviour or any behaviour undermining women or their capabilities. Rather he was the man who drove many welfare schemes for women including the ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ that was strongly opposed by us, the masculinists.

Women Most Abusive

But in spite of all his women appeasing programs in the last five years, we have seen that in 2019 elections it was the women leaders of various opposition parties who were most vocal and most abusive against him. Most often these were personal attacks rather than against any of his policies.

In the list of leaders who were at the forefront of using abuses against PM Modi was the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Ms Mamata Banerjee. Her comment that she wanted to slap Modi with a slap of ‘democracy’ was the most abominable comment. Even though she used the word ‘democracy’, her expression while uttering those words showed clearly that she was violent and abusive and meant physically beating the PM.

When Modi replied in one rally in West Bengal that even Didi’s ‘Thappad’ (slap) is a blessing for him, Mamata changed her attitude and said, she meant teaching him a lesson in a democratic way. Problem is, she forgot that the power to democratically teaching anybody a lesson lies with the people, not with her. She can only appeal to the people of West Bengal to teach Namo a lesson, if at all. But when these leaders spoke about the arrogance of Modi, they themselves have shown huge arrogance in the electoral process.

In another rally, Didi has referred to Modi and Amit Shah as goondas, hooligans. And there she directly told, “Modi is a goonda, Amit Shah is a goonda” etc. Problem is when she uttered those words she was extremely violent and abusive. She was not restrained. We have not seen any leader behaving like this against any of the women leaders ever.

Compared to the violent attitude shown by Mamata, the behaviour of Priyanka Gandhi and Mayawati was rather restrained. However, when Maya wanted to justify abuses against the PM Modi saying, ”it’s only those who do anything worth getting abuses are abused and not others”, she showed her arrogance as well.

Problem is in no case described above did these leaders try to justify their views with data and logic. It’s not that people don’t understand this but whether this understanding will be reflected in the ballot is the question.

When Election Was Personal

In fact, in 2019 elections personal attack on PM Modi was so much that the opposition has made it an election to dethrone him. Many opposition parties clarified that they were fighting this election simply to replace Modi and bring anybody else. So, in the madness of personal attack, they openly clarified that they don’t bother about the quality of the leader but want an incompetent person as a PM. While this showed the lawlessness among these parties, it also showed a lack of vision and concern for the nation. This behaviour clarified that these parties were fighting for their existence, their greed and their addiction to power. By attacking only one person the opposition themselves made Modi great, a sole power that is more than powerful and more visionary than the entire opposition put together.

However, these abuses were not all. In his rallies, PM Modi has listed down the abuses thrown to him by various political leaders. Words like ‘Neech’ (mean person), ‘Gande Nali ki Kida’ (gutter worm) etc were used against him.

Question is when the opposition used these words, did they justify these? No. Almost never did any of the opposition leaders clarify why that is what should be said against him. And that is the biggest problem of India’s democracy.

Even Rahul, Kejriwal is Abused

However, it will be worthwhile to mention here that when Modi was attacked by the opposition leaders, Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal were also attacked many times by people of India. If Modi was attacked during the election, these two leaders are attacked all the time.

Some Men’s Rights Activists do have the opinion if Congress had a female president, she wouldn’t have been attacked like Rahul. They show this as prevailing misandry in our minds. To understand this, when we compare the public wrath withstood by Sheila Dixit, a previous Delhi CM or Ms Mamata Banerjee, the present WB CM; we will know the difference. The kind of language used against male leaders always stoop to new low compared to that used against any of the female leaders.

But it’s important to note here that when people use abuses against leaders, there is always a good reason or based on explained situations. If Rahul Gandhi was referred to as ‘Pappu’, it meant ‘idiot’ to some, and a ‘child’ to others. Pappu is also not an abuse but a derogatory comment for a leader. Time and again he proved this behaviour to netizens. The amount of money Congress spent to groom him to a mature leader is well known. This was used more often by non-political ordinary citizens of India because of various reasons. People of India wanted to see a mature opposition leader from Congress and they failed to deliver one in so many years and couldn’t shift their focus from the family politics. And Rahul could never shape himself up.

In this aspect, both RaGa and Kejriwal has become self-derogatory through their actions. Kejriwal initially wanted to use his IIT tag to his advantage but once that AAM Admi tag fell-off due to his visible incapability, people were more attacking towards him. But if that is the reason of attacking Kejriwal incessantly, then why Mamata Banerjee is spared. People of West Bengal know what the situation is there and how Mamata has failed to bring WB upto the speed with rest of India and how she lacked any vision for West Bengal even during the 2019 election. Still, Mamata might be told Hitler but she was not abused like any of her male counterparts.

Why Anti-Misandry Drive is Important

We will understand why India needs a strong anti-misandry drive now when we understand how many women leaders are getting away with their incompetence simply because India is a feminist society. We will explain this objectively using examples from the 2019 election campaign.

Since this was the election for the Indian parliament, all political parties were supposed to show their vision for India. Regional parties could give priority to their region however, they should have shown a proper vision for the nation as well. But we have seen the opposite happening. All opposition parties were busy bashing Modi without showing their vision for the nation. Mamata Banerjee in all her rallies focused on attacking BJP and Modi and when she mentioned about unemployment problem in Bengal, she said, ‘students will solve that’. So, clearly, her government wanted to wash off their hands from the responsibility of creating more job opportunities in Bengal. Mayawati for instance was focussed on her Dalit (backward class) politics without elaborating her plans either for India or for UP.

Problem with these women leaders not shown their real worth in public forums but the male leaders like Kejri and Rahul attacked all the time, shows the incessant misandry prevailing in Indian society and some states continue to suffer from the incompetence of the female leaders. Recently when Congress introduced Priyanka Gandhi to campaign for the party with the hope that she will bring more votes to the party and wanted to promote her as a great leader using paid media, some men has rightly observed the situation. They bashed the media for promoting a novice in politics as a great leader and for deviating people.

We have seen many other examples of incompetent women being brought to the forefront as MP candidates. West Bengal again showed the way, where Didi wanted to bring some young female movie artists as leaders. The artists like Mimi Chakroborty, Moonmoon Sen or Nusrat Jahan went to seek vote based on their filmy capabilities and not on any other leadership qualities. All of them were seen to either boast about Didi or directly said that people will see them ‘often’ if they became their MP. If these are the qualities based on which India chooses their leaders, then surely it will only become a show-off in no time.

Incompetent Leaders, No More

It is important that India realizes that we don’t need incompetent leaders any more. So, while we continue asking uncomfortable questions to Modi, Rahul or Kejriwal; we should continue to keep those attacks on our women leadership. The unsupported personal attack on leaders like Modi should be criticized and the power of NOTA can be used to teach all those incompetent leaders who still need to get lessons of democracy.

Another point is what will these abusive and incompetent leaders do in an international scenario? Will their abuses work in the UN or in any international negotiation or decision-making scenarios? Can Mamata Banerjee who uses endless abuses for a democratically elected PM of her own country, use the same against any other nation’s PM without consequences? What these filthy mouthed leaders are really worth then?

It is thus important that we become misandry-free and we start valuing competent politicians not based on their gender and show the way out to abusive and incompetent women leaders.

Misandry Against Leaders, Permeate to Everyone

Last but most important point is this misandry shown against the male leaders percolate to lower levels and we see that even in our society males are abused like this for no reason. We are victims of this daily abuse in our lives for no reason. Women, even most incompetent and most criminal women get away with their abuses with no consequences. So, before we show this highly misandric attitude to our male leaders for no reason, we need to understand that this will come back to us one day.

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