Poor Narendra Modi. The Iron Man. The man of muscle. One who claims to have a 56-inch chest. One who keeps bellowing about machismo. You are not fit to call yourself a man, he thunders, if women do not feel safe. One who has positioned himself as the top alpha male of Hindutva politics. And now suddenly, unbelievably, quite out of the blue, his masculinity seems to be in question.
“We are not accusing you of being a murderer,” said Congress leader Salman Khurshid. “We are accusing you of being a napunsak!” Harsh choice of word there, since napunsak means the emasculated one — or simply a eunuch. The Hindutva brigade rose in angry protest — demanding apologies, resignations and everything in between. But Mr Salman Khurshid was unperturbed. He had used a perfectly decent word, he said, “impotent” meant powerless. Mr Modi could do nothing to stop the violence against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, right? So he was impotent, wasn’t he? “I am not his doctor,” Mr Khurshid added chirpily, specifying that it was really not his business to comment on Mr Modi’s physical condition.
Of course the napunsak remark captured the imagination of a media dominated by 24-hour news channels that are perpetually starved for TRP-friendly news. But is there really any reason for such shock and horror? True, this is perhaps the first time anyone has called the mucho macho Mr Modi impotent. Or a eunuch. It is indeed a shock to the system that stoutly believes that male aggression and virility defines political power and success. And that mucho macho Mr Modi epitomises this power. But it is not the first time that the masculinity of a leading male politician has been questioned by political opponents simply as an insult. And the Hindutva brigade, with its patriarchal stereotypes of power, have been leaders on that front.
Last year Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Karnataka’s ex-deputy chief minister K.S. Eshwarappa called Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a hijra. Which is eunuch in slang as opposed to the formal napunsak. Shocking, appalling, dreadful, horrifying, uncivil, yes. But not the first time the Prime Minister was called a eunuch. In the run up to the last parliamentary elections, Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray had called the Prime Minister a hijra. And recently BJP’s high profile yogic ally Baba Ramdev decided to be more inclusive and called the entire Congress party a party of homosexuals.
Earlier Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Ashok Singhal had called Atal Behari Vajpayee’s government napunsak for failing to build the Ram temple at Ayodhya. Subramanian Swamy had called it impotent, with regard to the Cauvery water dispute. And explained that he had used a parliamentary word which simply meant powerless. “I did not use it in the Viagra sense,” he clarified, tongue firmly in cheek.
It has been a tradition in our patriarchal culture to insult men by verbally stripping them of their masculinity. It is so easy to insult men by casting aspersions on their gender identity. A man can be insulted if called napunsak that is “un-man”. Or if called “womanly”. Or by questioning their sexual preference.
And in our sexist society, politicians encourage such gendered insults. Especially now, when politics has become more about personality and drama than about issues and ideologies. When non-stop television news channels encourage a curious politics of slander and one-upmanship, squarely set within the stereotypes of a regressive, chauvinistic social order.
Today politics is heavily dependent on media, especially television. Political players shamelessly use the media to build a brand — like NaMo, that is Narendra Modi, for example — and keep him in the public eye. They use the easiest available models, the time-honoured stereotypes of power as masculinity, as they focus on the personality and capabilities of the individual neta. In this narrative, politics is essentially male, essentially aggressive and individualistic. Women are generally the supporting cast, or guest stars. Unless they represent a powerful family like Sonia Gandhi.
Exceptions may be made for woman leaders who strictly shun the woman’s prescribed roles as wife and mother, have no family of their own, and prove that they can play politics like a man. Like J. Jayalalithaa, Mamata Banerjee or Mayawati.
So India — a democracy that gave equal political rights to men and women from the moment of its birth — has a shameful record when it comes to women’s representation in Parliament. Only 11 per cent of the Members of Parliament are women — half of the global average, and far less than even Pakistan.
Political parties still prefer to field men rather than women as candidates for elections. Even within the party, women hardly have a voice. They could also be conveniently sidelined by dumping them in a “women’s wing”. And when women do get a say it is usually in areas that the men have no interest — like in matters of women and children.
And sexist insults dot the political landscape. Long, long ago, Morarji Desai had shocked India by calling Indira Gandhi a “chhokri” – a mere chit of a girl. Earlier, Ram Manohar Lohia had called her the “gungi guria” or dumb doll. But as soon as Indira Gandhi established herself as the foremost political leader of India, she was labelled “the only man in her Cabinet”.
Even today, clever women leaders like Ms Banerjee, who have internalised the power of sexist ways, routinely use sexist insults, like offering bangles to male political rivals. Successful woman politicians use sexist insults too. They have reached that position of power that allows them to think like a man.
As long as we remain shamelessly sexist and personality cults remain the defining character of Indian politics we will have netas attacking each other’s manhood. Words like napunsak and hijra will keep cropping up as insults in the political discourse.
Or may be not. Deliverance from this disgusting sexism may come from unlikely quarters. Last year Mr Eshwarappa was slapped with a defamation case for calling the Prime Minister a hijra. It was filed by the Karnataka Eunuchs’ Association. They had sued him for using the word hijra as an abuse.
A good lesson for our politicians. But only if they are willing to give up playing dirty and are ready to play absolutely clean. And only if there is a level playing field. A field totally different from the sexist, casteist, majoritarian and super chauvinistic turf that is Indian politics today.
