Mahua Moitra, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and the disproportionate accountability of women

Dilma Rousseff, the first and only lady President of Brazil was removed from office in 2016 for breaking the country’s budget laws. She is now the President of BRIC’s led New Development Bank.

Let’s contrast that with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the current President of Brazil. While out of office (Lula was President between 2003–10) he was accused of corruption and was arrested in 2018 before being released by the Supreme Court after 580 days.

Let us look at South Korea now, where Park Geun-hye was the only female President ever between 2013–17. In 2017 she was removed from her position on various charges, including being influenced in her decision of an alleged Godwoman. Park Geun-hye was jailed, and subsequently pardoned.

Compare the severity with the 2022 candidates Yoon Suk Yeol and Lee Jae-Myung and their campaigns. The tenor, language, and accusations were all ignored without an iota of repulse.

Or take the US elections of 2016. On one side was Hillary Clinton who was a successful lawyer, already served a term being Secretary of State. The other side was Donald Trump, a controversial mouth businessman with no public experience. The US chose the latter, and after a disastrous term and multiple lawsuits, Trump is one of the favorites for 2024. Hillary is nowhere.

And here is a surprise, Trump is 77 years old, and Hillary is 76.

The number of women in politics globally is still negligible ( for example in India it is 14% in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha), but the accountability seems disproportionately high for women. The recent case of Mahua Moitra again demonstrated that — the glee of many to “evict” and “silence” a smart, articulate, self-made, courageous lady was much a matter of glee. And just compare that with the utter disdain with which we dismiss the allegations of molestation and more against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, even when some of the best athletes in the world moved everything within their capacity to be heard.

And this is not restricted to politics only. Or for that matter in many cases, it does not even matter whether the woman in question is directly involved.

I remember how Anushka Sharma was put in the witness box every time Virat Kohli failed on the field. Or when a leading actress in Karnataka accused her husband, a leading actor, of adultery the film association was quick to ban her for failing to hold the family together.

Of course, some things are changing, but with Sakshi Malik quitting, because he could not even get a hope of justice, things are miles away from even being barely acceptable.

Men have traditionally been brought up with a sense of entitlement, and while it is breaking down, we need to accelerate. And it is where women need to play a large role.

I quite often find it depressing to find women supporting patriarchal practices, or at best being silent. But I also understand that there are reasons for these. And for that, we need to categorize women based on where are coming from. There are roughly four groups I see:
1. The vast majority do not have a voice, anyway. They are anyway part of the vast majority of the country, but among them too the women are on the lower end of the strata.

2. A significant minority who have the means to express their voices, but have been conditioned on patriarchal thoughts and have lost their ability to have independent views. At times they may have a view, but they avoid making them known for fear of ridicule or opposition or worse.

3. A small minority who has everything it takes to be a vocal patron for women’s rights, but they keep their demands to only what matters to them. So we will find that there will be protests when some patriarchal comments about women smoking or drinking, or on dress and culture, but radio silence when patriarchy plays out at the community level.

4. And that leaves a small minority, who use patriarchy to be cozy to the men with patriarchal mindset but also power and/ or money. These are the likes of the political leaders at the highest levels, who dismiss rape in their constituencies or look the other way when their male colleagues are accused of molestation.

Of course, there are few good women, just like a few good men. But I hope that a few good women will soon become many good women fast, as their voices are heard more because of authenticity, and they can demand and bring changes much faster.

Hoping!