MULAYAM SINGH YADAV: WRESTLING WITH WOMEN’S WORTH

“Vartmaan swaroop men mahila aarakshan vidheyak pass hua tho sansad men udyogpatiyon evam adhikariyon ki aisi-aisi ladkiyaan aa jayengi jinhe dekhkar ladke peeche se seeti bajayenge.”
(If the Women’s Reservation Bill is passed in its present form, then such daughters of industrialists and officials will enter Parliament who would invite catcalls and whistles from the boys.)
Thus spake Mulayam Singh Yadav, one of India’s senior, surviving socialist leaders and former defence minister of India and former chief minister of the state of Uttar Pradesh.
Yadav made this comment while unveiling the statue of India’s biggest socialist ever, the late Dr. Rammanohar Lohia, at the eponymous hospital in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh.
The statement reflects the level of thinking of this insolent male chauvinist who would use or throw women for his political ends without any compunction. He perhaps forgot in the heat of the moment that he himself has in the past encouraged daughters and wives of officers and industrialists and even Bollywood actresses, not to talk of his own daughter-in-law, to enter politics by giving tickets to them in parliamentary or assembly elections.
The statement is nothing new. His anti-women stance came to the fore even earlier too, when, on March 14, Yadav described the Women’s Reservation Bill as an “international conspiracy” to weaken democracy. How would that happen?
The IANS news agency reported: “He was of the view that 33 percent reservation for women in legislatures would finally make it a nearly all-women parliament…. ‘just imagine what would be the fate of this nation in the hands of inexperienced leadership, with both Pakistan and China sitting across our borders with their own nefarious designs’?”
“I am not opposed to reservation for women, but I am opposed to the bill in its present form,” he added, perhaps not to be seen as a misogynist. http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/politics/mulayam-fears-an-all-women-parliament_100334553.html
What is interesting is the venue – the unveiling of Dr. Lohia’s statue – Yadav used to vent his sexist bias. For his information, the web site of Dr. Lohia – whose ardent follower he claims to be – says this about the attitude of India’s pioneering socialist leader towards women:
“More than half of our population comprises women. Their condition is pathetic. Cooking food, breeding children and being a slave to her husband -this is woman's fate. A woman is not considered equal to a man, such is the blind belief sustained through the ages. The law has guaranteed equality to women, but that is only on paper. Equality has not been practiced. Hence jobs must be reserved for women in all walks of life. They must be freed from the tyranny of homework. The latent talent of women should be brought to the limelight. Society does not progress as long as women remain oppressed. Society must be rid of deep-rooted beliefs and old practices. Beginning with women in villages every woman should be given justice. Lohia strove for this cause. According to him the emancipation of women was the foundation of social revolution; without this there can be no prosperity.”http://www.drlohiacentenary.org/index_more.html