West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party chief Dilip Ghosh on Sunday claimed that women had “lost all decency” and were being made to stage protests under the influence of drugs, the Hindustan Times reported. Ghosh made the derogatory remarks on International Women’s Day while commenting about an incident at Kolkata’s Rabindra Bharati University that led to massive outrage last week.
“Destructive protests are going on over the past few days,” Ghosh said. “Women are being made to protest under the influence of drugs and are shouting throughout the day.”
“It is a matter of deep concern how some of the young women are [forgetting about] self-respect, dignity, culture, ethos and committing indecent acts in video,” Ghosh said, according to PTI. “We must introspect where the society is heading.”
“The indecent manner in which young women are behaving and campaigning is very unfortunate,” Ghosh added.
The vice chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University resigned on Friday after photos on social media showed men and women on campus with derogatory words written on their bodies. One picture showed four women in saris standing side by side, each of them with a word from a line of a Rabindranath Tagore song written on their backs – the original words were, however, replaced with derogatory ones. The university said those in the photos were outsiders.
Dilip Ghosh said women who behave in such a manner will become victims of crime. “If these women behave like this on the roads, how will the people behave with them?” he said.
Trinamool Congress leader and West Bengal’s urban development minister Firhad Hakim criticised Ghosh for insulting women and called his remarks “uncivilised and barbaric”, PTI reported. “He should not insult women because of a stray incident,” he said. “I don’t know whether he is under the influence of drugs.”
Ghosh has in the past made derogatory remarks against people protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh and in Kolkata, calling them “uneducated men and women who get biryani purchased with foreign funds”. He had also said that the protestors should be “shot like dogs”.
Limited-time offer: Big stories, small price. Keep independent media alive. Become a Scroll member today!
Our journalism is for everyone. But you can get special privileges by buying an annual Scroll Membership. Sign up today!