In this story of the disgraced MP, what is notable is not the protagonist but the context which empowered and protected him. (PTI Photo)
Prajwal Revanna, JDS MP and joint BJP-JDS candidate in Hassan, has reportedly fled to Germany after multiple video clips depicting sexual assault on women — some government employees — started circulating online and an FIR was registered on a complaint by a former employee. However, in this story of the disgraced MP, what is notable is not the protagonist but the context which empowered and protected him. It is now clear that there was knowledge of his behaviour. Yet not only was no action taken against him, he was made the joint candidate for the BJP-JDS alliance, with the Prime Minister himself campaigning for him.
This tells us something about our political sphere. First, our political class — especially the ruling party — has repeatedly shown itself to be incapable of setting a bottom line for acceptable behaviour. Members of the BJP, or those close to it, have shown a special proclivity for defending men with serious allegations against them — Prajwal Revanna, Brij Bhushan, Bilkis Bano’s rapists, Kuldeep Sengar — but an instrumental detachment from norms exists across party lines. Sengar reportedly made his way across all parties in Uttar Pradesh; Prajwal Revanna has been the joint candidate of two opposing alliances. It is true that in many instances, this detachment is an outcome not of active permissiveness but intense partisanship. This partisanship has made the acquisition and consolidation of power the supreme value bar none. However, it would be wrong to argue that this detachment arises solely from political constraints, rather than also from a certain sense that ethical norms are dispensable under duress. The callous way in which the sexual assault videos were made public, exposing the victimised women to further public scrutiny, is indicative of this dispensability — the desire to secure justice for the women concerned is of secondary importance.
At the same time, it is evident that democratic politics is ultimately about the commons. Revanna’s behaviour was known and documented in thousands of video clips, as also a letter to the BJP state leader specifically on the matter. Even in the case of other offenders, it strains credulity that the truth about their behaviour became known to the party apparatus only when it became known to the public. But in each instance, what propelled the party into action — whether suspension or expulsion or a slowing down of ascent — was public outrage. In this instance too, what finally made the two parties — BJP and JDS — distance themselves from Revanna was not his reprehensible behaviour, but the completely separate fact of his behaviour becoming public.
Third, it is evident that for all the rhetoric on women’s empowerment, women’s issues have not solidified into enforceable normative standards. Consequently, women are mobilised as voters and are targets of welfare schemes but issues such as respect, equality, agency, and security, which are related to women’s collective consciousness remain on the periphery. In fact, even when such issues are articulated, they remain in the rhetorical realm as campaign promises or as part of partisan one-upmanship. It would also be a mistake to see representation alone as shorthand for political empowerment. Equitable representation is an end in itself in a democracy. However, political empowerment goes beyond representation to the ability to set normative standards and enforce them either through organisational or collective consciousness. In fact, the cynical and trivial exertions of the National Women’s Commission and selective silences of women representatives have shown that representation must go hand in hand with norms to translate into actual empowerment for the community. This also points to another aspect of our democracy: The acquisition of power and its exercise remain top-down. The “people” are not coming together to power the rise of a party or a leader but are instead being mobilised from the top through a complex web of messages and party machinery. Consequently, representation often reflects top-down delegated power; nor is the electorate able to cohere together as “the people” to extract any meaningful accountability from representatives and/or political parties.
These various aspects of our political sphere interact with each other to produce a culture of impunity in which norms cannot be reliably enforced. Consequently, the onus of pursuing accountability has fallen on individual women. In the instance of Revanna, it is not clear that the videos going viral alone would have been sufficient to impose tangible consequences if not for the courageous woman who came forward to file a police complaint. The Unnao rape survivor was able to get Sengar convicted but paid a heavy price for it, losing her father and other family members in the process. While systemic impunity extracts a high price from the fearless women who speak up, it diminishes those who operate under it too. Revanna, the 33-year old MP, had enviable access to power, which he could have exercised to do good for his people. Instead, the pervasive environment of impunity allowed him to wield his power in ways which limited his horizon to his own person.
The writer is the executive director of Future of India Foundation
