Less than Fair

Sharad Yadav, the man under our consideration, is a speaker who often employs sarcasm to make his point but now finds himself in a peculiar position because of it. His sarcasm has been ignored and the words taken literally after a speech in the Rajya Sabha that delved into the colour of women’s skin. In his version of events, he was actually making the opposite point, of exposing Indians to their own sexism, and got accused of it for his troubles. Is he a sexist? Or a repeat sexist after he again reportedly slandered Smriti Irani who questioned his initial sexism? Or is he just a man who finds himself at the wrong end of a take-no-prisoners feminism that condemns politicians without hearing them out, ignores vehement protestations and coldly spurns offers of a debate on what was actually said?

In the Rajya Sabha website, which, except for expunged words, puts out verbatim the debates held in the House, there does seem to be some merit in Yadav’s stand. If one reads his speech on the Insurance Bill in its entirety and the words in context, they sound disconnected but far from any abuse.

At a point he asks why any investor would come to India even if the FDI limit in insurance is raised to 49 per cent since no one came when it was 26 per cent. Then he says, veering off-topic, that only people like the late Warren Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide when the Bhopal Gas Tragedy happened, would be the ones coming. He follows this by a leap in yet another direction to speak about Leslee Udwin, the woman who made the recent BBC documentary on the 12 December Delhi rape case, and says that she got access because she was a White woman. “Yahan to safed chamdi waalon ko dekhkar aadmi dhung reh jaata hain (Here people have a fascination for white skin),” he states. Note the context: criticism of Indian fawning over Whites that he then conflates and confuses with ‘white skin’.

In that vein, he next talks about matrimonial advertisements asking for fair complexioned women, a point of fact, followed by a rhetorical question on how dark people can be so bad if the gods we worship are dark in complexion. At some point, some other MPs jump in to offer their two bits. Nothing to generate any offence, except that there is also a portion expunged from the transcript. This, as per newspaper reports, is the part where he talks about south Indian women being dark skinned and alludes to their bodies and dancing skills. Lousy humour, but not said in derision. It could be construed as sexist and so would his talking down to Smriti Irani when she told him not to talk about women’s skin in the Rajya Sabha. Yadav doesn’t find any sexism in his words, a reason why no apology is forthcoming despite the bad press he has got. He is from that bunch of politicians who were once part of the Ram Manohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan-led anti-Congress movement of the 70s that overturned the Brahmin polity of the Hindi heartland. Leaders of that ilk— Nitish Kumar, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav, etcetera—rallied under the banner of socialism and eventually converted it into a new form of caste politics. Politicians talk to votes and Sharad Yadav’s conversation is not with urban India, or in its language. Not because he is illiterate or uneducated— he is a gold medallist in electrical engineering and claims to have been put on to reading books by Osho Rajneesh, a lecturer at his college then—but because those sensitivities are irrelevant to his politics.

He might not care for the nuances of language or what’s offensive in the urban liberal space, but, to be fair to him, there are also degrees of offence. A Mulayam Singh saying that our boys sometimes rape women and should not be hanged for it is one degree. The singer Yesudas saying women should not wear jeans is another degree. To eulogise dark skin seems to be rather mild in comparison.

About The Author

Madhavankutty Pillai

Madhavankutty Pillai has no specialisations whatsoever. He is among the last of the generalists. And also Open chief of bureau, Mumbai  

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