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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Modi’s Nari Shakti pitch is fake. Men hold real power in BJP

Why is the Modi-led BJP waiting for a law to start giving more tickets to women?

Each time Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the nation, it is met with a sense of foreboding. From the shock of demonitisation—abruptly announced at 8 pm on 8 November 2016 when Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes were rendered invalid with just four hours’ notice—to the nation-wide Covid lockdown declared on 24 March 2020, which halted public transport and triggered a mass exodus of migrant workers on foot, Modi’s televised addresses tend to generate fear, anxiety and alarm. 

But last Saturday, Modi seemed to be in the grip of a rather different mood. Using the platform of India’s public broadcaster Doordarshan—paid for by the taxpayer—he delivered a blisteringly partisan speech, shedding the restraint and dignity expected of constitutional high office to lash out at the Opposition in strident, hostile and vindictive language.

Modi’s vitriolic, campaign-style speech on Doordarshan during the election campaign for the West Bengal and Tamil Nadu Assembly polls was a gross violation of the Model Code of Conduct. But the swaggeringly self-important Modi recognises no restraints, refusing to abide by constitutional propriety or moral responsibility. He operates like a wayward absolute monarch, arm-twisting democratic institutions to his every whim, flaunting executive overreach, talking down to the public in a sneering tone, and using any means available to pursue his frenzied ambition to win elections. 

Lust for power doesn’t even begin to describe it. Modi is driven by a greed for power that sometimes seems almost irrational and deranged. Shockingly, Modi even went so far as to call the defeat of the amendments to the Women’s Reservation Bill in last week’s special session of Parliament as “Bhrun Hatya” (or foeticide or aborting a female child). Such a word for a legislative defeat is not just grossly inappropriate—but deeply offensive. It’s a brazen exploitation of women’s trauma to score political points in a political speech.

What was defeated in Parliament by a united Opposition was not the Women’s Reservation Bill. That was unanimously passed by all parties in 2023 and has now been notified. Women’s Reservation is the law of the land. What was rejected instead were the cunning amendments to the Bill, which linked it to an outlandish delimitation formula—raising the number of seats in Parliament to 850—and to the 2011 Census, even though the new census exercise has already begun.

The Modi government was using the Women’s Reservation Bill as a shield to bring in an outrageous........

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