Congress leader downplays BJP’s ‘Beti Bachao’ campaign, says it’s the grand old party that gave India its first woman PM, President and Speaker.
If democracy is under attack, spaces for women to speak out are further narrowed, Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi, who is consistently trolled on social media, has said.
“A miniscule percentage of women speak out about politics in India because they think they can escape the trolling and the anger,” said Chaturvedi, who was speaking at the latest addition of ThePrint’s ‘Democracy Wall’ at PSIT Kanpur Friday.
“Political difference becomes the point at which the abuse begins, and when they get support, it emboldens the trolls further. By issuing threats, you are only reinforcing the belief that women can be silenced,” Chaturvedi added.
Democracy Wall is a monthly free speech campus initiative organised by ThePrint in collaboration with Facebook.
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She said the ruling BJP keeps track of her tweets and trolls her whenever she makes a comment.
“It seems like the BJP keeps a close eye on my Twitter. As soon as I write something on my feed, the trolling begins,” she said.
When asked about Modi government’s women-centric schemes such as ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’, Chaturvedi offered her counter. “It isn’t fair to say that. The Congress gave this country its first woman Prime Minister, first woman Speaker, and first woman President,” she said.
“And let’s not forget the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution,” Chaturvedi said, referring to the formalisation of panchayati raj and the strengthening of urban local governments, moves that encouraged women’s participation in grassroots-level politics.
Given the December 2012 Nirbhaya case, women’s empowerment became a core issue for the 2014 elections, she said. “And here we are in 2018, and we’re still hoping that Parliament will pass the 33 per cent reservation bill,” she added.
Transparency in party funding
There were a number of media reports on the Congress extending support to an amendment to the Foreign Contributions Regulations Act, which allowed parties to accept foreign funding without scrutiny. But Chaturvedi seemed to contradict these reports saying, the grand old party was “absolutely not” in favour of this motion.
“This bill reduces the scope of transparency as well as the scope of holding political parties accountable for where they are getting their funding from,” she said.
Whose democracy is it anyway?
Why is it that the Congress supports the Savarnas and Dalits whenever it suits them, a member of the audience asked. “We ought to have one foot in every community. It is the government’s responsibility to safeguard the interests of every member of the nation,” she replied.
On the issue of caste-based reservation and the alleged atrocities on Dalits, Chaturvedi chose not to cite the multiple instances of atrocities against these groups in Uttar Pradesh and instead continued with the equality-for-all rhetoric.
“Don’t you think those in power should work towards empowering everyone equally,” she asked.
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Another question – met with loud cheers from the crowd – was why it was that when another political party such as the BJP is in power for four years, the Congress feels like democracy is crumbling and under threat?
To this Chaturvedi made no reference to the BJP’s notorious crackdowns on dissent and, instead, said, “The legacy of our 70-year rule is that even if someone says democracy should be done away with, it isn’t possible. If someone feels like democracy is in danger, then it is democracy itself that allows that fear to be voiced. We want to protect all such voices.”
“Democracy isn’t just 70 years old. It is written in this country’s history, and has existed for thousands of years on this soil,” she said.