When a leader is a woman, entrenched bigwigs are deeply threatened. When she is powerful, patriarchs shriek in outrage. Mamata Banerjee is the self-made leader of a political start-up, the All-India Trinamool Congress. She’s a three-time chief minister, four-time Union minister and seven-time Member of Parliament. She’s never baulked in the face of the relentless abuse which has been hurled at her all through her public life.
In a rare and rather belated act of censuring misogyny, the Election Commission has acted against the latest politician to abuse Banerjee. The EC has barred Abhijit Ganguly, the BJP’s Tamluk candidate and former judge of the Calcutta High Court from campaigning for 24 hours for his foul language about India’s only woman chief minister.
In a campaign speech on May 15, Ganguly sneered: “Mamata Banerjee, what is your price? Is she (Banerjee) even a woman?” Pronouncing the ban on Ganguly, the EC observed: “Ganguly has brought damage and disrespect to Bengal which has a distinguished tradition of respect for women.”
Ganguly, a former “jurist”, was recently seen on TV, infamously weighing moral options between Mahatma Gandhi and his murderer Nathuram Godse, apparently undecided about who, the Father of the Nation or his hate-filled assassin, offered a better ideological choice. That Ganguly thinks it acceptable to ask a senior woman leader what-is-your-price in public, is not surprising. After all, a woman politician like Banerjee, who has never needed to be propped up by family or a male mentor, sets off seismic shocks of wrath and envy not only among politicians but also in the media. Whether caricaturing Mayawati’s choice of clothes or directing racist slurs at Sonia Gandhi’s background or deriding Banerjee’s speeches, India’s chauvinist media takes delicious pleasure in treating women politicians with satirical disdain.
Hypocrisy about women lies at the heart of the ruling BJP. Its slogans of “Nari Shakti” are meaningless. Saffron traditionalists are cast into shuddering fury by modern exceptional women. Visible women upset the power balance. The BJP despises them. During Bengal’s 2021 polls, Narendra Modi cat-called Mamata Banerjee with his “Didi oh Didi” taunt drawn out in insulting tones. He likened Congress leader Renuka Chowdhury’s laugh to a demon’s cackle. As Gujarat CM, Modi said Sonia Gandhi was a “jersey cow,” and “pasta-ben.” The BJP’s Bengal leader Dilip Ghosh has questioned Banerjee’s parentage. “Decide who is your father,” he heckled Mamata Banerjee in public. Ghosh’s remarks only received a mild rap from the EC. Modi has never been censured.
In September 2023, the Modi government passed the Women’s Reservation Bill with great fanfare, providing for 33 per cent representation to women in state legislatures and Parliament. Modi announced that “God has chosen me for this sacred work to empower women.” But what about the BJP’s treatment of women? In these Lok Sabha polls, the BJP has given less than 15 per cent tickets to women, the Trinamool Congress has given almost 30 per cent. The two high-profile women ministers in the Modi government, Nirmala Sitharaman and Smriti Irani, are hardly in decision-making roles either in party or government. Sitharaman is an unelected appointee, Irani is confined to her role as Gandhi family challenger. Neither is projected as a future chief ministerial candidate. Vasundhara Raje is a two-time Rajasthan CM and the Rajasthan BJP’s most recognisable face. The BJP unceremoniously cut her to size by denying her the CM’s post after the party won in Rajasthan in 2023.
The formidably eloquent Sushma Swaraj outperformed her male colleagues in Parliament but was never considered a prime ministerial candidate. Swaraj was sent into hopeless battles such as against Sheila Dikshit in 1998 in Delhi and against Sonia Gandhi in 1999 in Bellary, ever the scapegoat and fall girl. Modi appointed Swaraj as Foreign Minister but reduced her to a Twitter (X) minister, taking all the big foreign policy calls himself, demoting Swaraj to tracking lost passports on X. The fiery Uma Bharti led her party to a big win in Madhya Pradesh 2003 only to be shunted from the CM’s post and dubbed a “rebel.” “Empower women”, “Nari Shakti”, blusters the BJP. Empty words. There’s not a single woman state leader in today’s BJP. The saffron entity won’t act against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, charged with serious sexual harassment. Women leaders in the saffron camp must remain confined within a lakshman rekha. Shine, but as supporting cast to the male leadership. Toil in tough battles redolent in sindoor and mangalsutra but stay content in a secondary enclave. Be a showpiece, not a player. Stay colourfully stormy, don’t try to share real power.
Politically mature Bengal has created a remarkable woman leader and a party committed to women. Banerjee’s story is far more compelling than Modi’s. Modi, cocooned, groomed and promoted by the RSS and Sangh Parivar with its vast network and resources both in India and overseas, could count on this hydra-headed Sangh support system to enable his rise. Banerjee, by comparison, had no one. No support from any secret networks, no male mentors. She had nothing except her own fighting spirit. That she has succeeded in creating a highly successful party, defeating the 30-year rule of the Left Front and winning three consecutive elections on her own, is an achievement that makes Modi’s Sangh Parivar-facilitated rise pale in comparison.
Nor does she market her life story or her grassroots credentials. Banerjee is not a well packaged glitzily marketed product projecting her personal journey via 24×7 multimedia platforms, one day a “chaiwallah”, next day a “fakir.” Instead, she’s a rooted leader of people, perpetually rushing to those in need and remaining by their side. Pollsters may underestimate her, pundits may refuse to acknowledge her political nous, but Banerjee is one of a fast-disappearing breed — the last of India’s great mass leaders. In fact, Banerjee has a far greater claim to be prime minister than Narendra Modi.
When a woman strides, she strikes fear. When she fearlessly stands as a true leader of people, she upsets the fussy little stratagems of the BJP’s divide-and-rule plotters and connivers. Will the EC’s ban on Ganguly deter others from using similar language against women? Will the insults stop? No, they won’t. Yet with each election a new force is making itself heard with more determination than ever before: The woman voter. Today, the woman voter has become the heart of elections. But women politicians remain victims of vicious misogyny.
The writer is Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, All India Trinamool Congress
