Sexist Remarks in Indian Politics Continue to Disrespect Women
“If you have to deliver, I will get it done in Haliyal,” said R.V. Deshpande, a senior Congress MLA in Karnataka, to a woman journalist who had asked him when Joida taluk would get a multi-specialty hospital. The flippant reply, given on September 1, was to a serious question highlighting the trouble pregnant women from Joida have to undergo because they have to travel long distances to undergo prenatal check-ups and deliveries.
What’s galling was that Deshpande referred to the journalist’s own childbirth. That he winked after making the remark made it worse. The journalist, editor-in-chief of a TV channel, was bewildered at Deshpande’s reply and demanded an apology. At the time of writing, he had not apologised to her.
Deshpande’s reply is typical of politicians who think it is their birthright to give non-serious replies or repartees to women journalists who ask them tough or inconvenient questions. (Doing so is the duty of journalists.)
Also down south, Tamil Nadu forest minister K. Ponmudy lost the post of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) deputy general secretary after he made a disparaging comment against women, and Vaishnavite and Shaivite religious symbols. Besides the opposition parties, Kanimozhi of his own party condemned the remark. The Madras high court stepped in and ordered the police to file a case against Ponmudy.
Years ago, Sambhaji Bhide, a proponent of Hindutva and president of a right-wing outfit, refused to speak to a journalist because she did not wear a bindi. Bhide, whose name as one of the accused in the January 2018 Bhima-Koregaon violence case was dropped in 2022, told the woman she should not look like a widow. The remark of Bhide, recorded by television cameras, earned him a notice from the Maharashtra State Women’s Commission.
Bhide is described as gold medalist in atomic physics who worked as a professor in Pune’s Fergusson College. Guruji, as he is known among his followers, has an admirer in Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Bhide Guruji did not invite me here. I came here on his orders,” Modi had once said while addressing a meeting in Maharashtra.
Deshpande, a seasoned politician who has been a minister multiple times, represents Haliyal in the Karnataka legislative assembly. He is chairman of the Karnataka Administrative Reforms Commission. At one time, his name was said to have been considered for the chief ministership. In September 2024, he made no secret of his desire to become chief minister.
It is surprising that this nine-time legislator did not think twice before commenting about a very personal matter of a woman journalist. That he sidestepped a question pertaining to his constituency highlights his possible ignorance about – and clear indifference to – the lack of a super-specialty hospital in Joida, which is considered one of the most backward places in Karnataka.
Deshpande’s frivolity invited censure from the BJP, Karnataka’s principal opposition party. BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla wrote on X: “After Abusing PM Modi mother, now Shocker from Congress Karnataka leader RV Deshpande. Journalist: When will Uttar Kannada region get a good hospital? Congress leader R.V. Deshpande: When you deliver a child. Replying to a woman journalist like this?”
The Janata Dal (Secular), the BJP’s present ally which shared power with the Congress in the past, condemned Deshpande’s utterance. “Is this the respect you show to women? As a senior legislator, Mr. Deshpande, your arrogant words are an insult to the dignity of women. Apologise immediately to that female journalist,” the JD(S) posted on X.
The BJP’s condemnation of Deshpande’s remark is alright because the opposition must expose the follies of people in the ruling party.
However, there is one problem: BJP leaders themselves indulge in behaviour similar to Deshpande’s – even worse. They preach, moralise, and demean women.
In June 2025, Kailash Vijayvargiya, a minister in Madhya Pradesh, tried to teach women a morality lesson: They should wear “good clothes”. He refuses to get pictured with women who wear “revealing” clothes, he said.
The obsession of politicians with women’s cheeks came to the fore again when, months before his party colleague Vijayvargiya made that garment prescription, BJP leader Ramesh Bidhuri promised to make the roads of Kalkaji, a New Delhi locality, like Priyanka Gandhi’s cheeks. Lalu Prasad Yadav was the first to make a roads-like-cheeks promise, the target of his innuendo being actress Hema Malini.
The sexual harassment saga involving the BJP’s Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, now a former MP, is well known. Seven women wrestlers had accused him of sexually harassing them. The BJP doggedly defended him until the Supreme Court intervened. It denied him a ticket to the Lok Sabha only when it realised he would be more of a liability than an asset.
At an election rally in Himachal Pradesh in 2012, Narendra Modi called Sunanda Pushkar the “50 crore girlfriend” of Shashi Tharoor. His “Didi o Didi” jibe at Mamata Banerjee during the heat of the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections raised hackles. In August 2022, the same Modi said in his Independence Day speech from the Red Fort: “For some reason, a distortion has crept into our conduct, our behaviour, our words so at times we insult women.”
It is not clear whether Modi realised what he was saying in 2015 when he complimented Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on having zero tolerance for terrorism despite being a woman. Modi’s utterance drew protests from opposition parties and on Twitter.
Some are tempted to think communists have a higher level of thought and speech. This was clearly not the case with CPI leader Atul Kumar Anjan. In 2015, he held forth on a condom ad featuring actress Sunny Leone. He said the commercial would increase rape cases, and felt he would vomit after watching the ad. The CPI distanced itself from Anjan’s remark.
Politicians of all hues and ideologies are guilty of making disparaging remarks about/against women, and of prescribing to them the clothes they should wear, how they should conduct themselves and whom they should befriend or marry.
Women require no such homilies. Prescriptive politics is something they can do without.
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