Tripura’s CM is back in the news again, and as usual, it’s not because of politics.
One would imagine that the chief minister of Tripura would have a lot on his plate. Clearly not.
After his infamous claim that the internet existed during the times of Mahabharata, Biplab Deb has now gone on to give his unsolicited advice on what ‘Indian beauty’ really means, and who should have won the Miss World title.
Then he went on to say what most average Indian men would – pick fair-skinned women over darker ones. Yes, he chose Aishwarya Rai over Diana Hayden. Mind you, he also condemned the very concept of beauty pageants, and called it an international import that had brought about a great social evil: cosmetics.
All his comments lead us to conclude that Deb, apart from being the chief minister of Tripura, also moonlights as a time traveler, Einstein’s protégé and Shahnaz Hussain. Einstein’s protégé because he has proved what the great scientist only theorised – breaking the time-space continuum to discover internet during the Mahabharata. And Hussain, because he claimed Indian women have always relied on mud baths and ‘methi water’ for their beauty—something Hussain has been advising in her columns for decades.
But he is part of another curious, and disturbing, pattern here.
As shocking as it might be, a fine line connects Deb’s comments and a struggle in Indian feminism. How often do women find themselves on the same fence as nationalists and right-wingers.
Deb’s comments on western imports and diktats on what is beautiful, mirrors what many Indian feminists have said too.
For different reasons, of course.
In 1996, the first Miss World contest was held in India. Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai had already brought home the crown a few years earlier and became celebrities overnight. However, the hosting of the event itself on Indian soil sent everyone into a tizzy.
Hundreds of protestors, mostly from the BJP, were arrested for creating a ruckus on the streets and injuring policemen. Right-wing groups claimed that the competition was not part of Indian heritage and culture.
Women’s groups too protested against the event on the grounds that beauty competitions tended to commodify women’s bodies and highlighted the western concept of beauty (and more importantly, what cannot be considered beautiful).
The same debate has started again in Tripura, over two decades later. Deb condemned beauty contests, but his main thesis was comparing Rai’s beauty with than Hayden’s. The hypocrisy here is that Deb’s notions of what is beautiful, too, is affected by Western beauty standards—fair and Aryan. (And Deb probably doesn’t know, but Rai uses, and endorses cosmetics, many of them Western, as well.)
Yes, Biplab Deb, Indian feminists too reject commercialisation of beauty and commodification of women’s body, but we do not live in denial of a woman’s choice to do what she wants.
Also, the winners of Miss World probably do not crave for your validation.
Hayden has responded to Deb saying she is proud of her dark skin and that someone in the chief ministerial position should not be saying the things that Deb has.
If elected representatives stuck to governing and empowering women without patronising and patriarchal comments, it would probably be in tune with what their jobs actually require them to do.