Sharad Yadav’s penchant for provoking feminists is strangely at variance with his otherwise progressive views. Talking about his latest faux pas, comparing a “daughter’s honour” with the value of a vote, Yadav told BusinessLine that he genuinely believes that the sanctity of adult franchise is being undermined by corrupt election practices, and restoring “the honour of the vote” is no less valuable than protecting his own daughter.
Why have you again made a scurrilous comment about women?
I will make it again. Because privileged people like you do not understand that the right to vote is the only power that a vast majority of our disempowered masses have. And that has been undermined over the years with allurement, corrupt practices. Our people need to understand the value of their vote that, if wrongly exercised, has the power to elect the wrong kind of people, people who announce demonetisation and threaten to wage wars. They need to understand that this is their only tool to gain access to social mobility, education, health, the basics that every decent democracy should provide to its citizens. And it doesn’t in India.
But did you have to make an objectionable comparison?You have to talk to people in the language they understand. I honestly believe that the same care that I, as a father, would take in protecting my daughter, in seeing to it that her future is secure, that she is protected, is taken when I cast my vote. A vote is every bit as valuable as a daughter. This was the sentiment behind making that statement. I am not apologetic. I am a person of the masses, I talk to them in the language they understand.
Was not your comment on “South Indian women being more beautiful” similarly offensive?
This is what happens when people who do not understand India and are half-literate try to analyse statements without proper reference to the context. I was talking about white supremacy and the way it clouds our thinking, the obsession with the Western idea of beauty and how market dictates these terms. The educated elite in India has a disconnect with real India, which is populated with dark-skinned people with a certain cultural identity. What is wrong in saying that women in the southern India are beautiful as opposed to these foreign-looking models in Bollywood films that dictate the idea of beauty?