What do Sushma Swaraj, Smriti Irani, Vasundhara Raje and Pankaja Munde have in common? They are all ministers accused of wrongdoing? Wrong. They are all high-profile BJP politicians? Wrong. They are all women ministers, who have brought shame to the BJP with their feminine foibles. That, at least, is what the some of the more inspired elements of the Congress offensive would suggest, giving the BJP an opportunity to complain about the Opposition’s misogyny.

Much of the furore over the last week has swirled around a quaint compound noun, “women ministers”, rather like “lady doctors” or “women drivers”, all rare hybrids to be observed with care. It is to be presumed that they go about their ministering and doctoring and driving with handkerchiefs clutched between their fingers and dangerous hysterias radiating out of their bellies? Is it any wonder there are so many road accidents these days or that the BJP is on a collision course?

Objectionable rhetoric

When the storm first broke over Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje allegedly signing an affidavit that backed Lalit Modi, Congress party spokesperson Ajoy Kumar cautioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to follow “Raje dharma”, an apparently noxious female variant of “raj dharma”. It seemed to be an allusion to the legend that, after the 2002 riots, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had advised Modi, then the chief minister of Gujarat, to follow “raj dharma”, the idealised form of statecraft. Raje dharma, in contrast, stood for a support of black money and corrupt practices.

More objectionably, another Congress spokesperson, Raj Babbar, lamented Modi’s silence on the controversy ‒ “four women have turned helpless the most frank and outspoken man”. The insinuation seemed to be that the BJP had been harangued and “henpecked” into submission by troublesome females.

The trouble, of course, lies partly in the fact that the BJP has always projected a gendered notion of governance, starting with Bhishma Pitamahas such Vajpayee and LK Advani, who now appears to be starring in his own version of The Autumn of the Patriarch. Modi came to power promising a vigorous, muscular style of governance, the kind that could only be provided by the “vikas purush” roaring at his “hoonkar rallies” and beating his “chappan inch ki chhaati”. The women in the BJP who were given positions of power were usually meant to be super bahus who would manage their ministries much in the same way they kept house. If rivals are to hold the BJP to its own gendered codes, it is perhaps inevitable that they should come across as sexist.

Default setting

Not that sexism or misogyny needs an excuse in Indian politics. From Congress MP Abhijit Mukherji’s comment about “dented and painted women” to Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray’s exhortations to women to send choodiyan (bangles) to former Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil, sexism seems to be the default. The BJP’s own favoured method of attacking Congress president Sonia Gandhi is to call her a “videshi bahu”, as if the term were automatically a calumny.

But in this case, sexist remarks deflect attention from the real matter at hand, even undermine the Congress’s case against the BJP. Four prominent ministers, two of them heading key ministries at the Centre, have been charged with irregularities and their party has either maintained a silence on it or tried to defend them. How does a government that came to power pledging clean governance justify its stand? That is the vital question which needs answering. Rest is noise.