‘If Trolls Can Harass An MP Like Mahua Moitra, How Do Ordinary Women Survive?’

Bengaluru-based Aparna Tummalapalli says public gaze on Mahua Moita’s personal life shows how deeply patriarchy and moral policing are embedded in society. Her views:

Trinamool party MP Mahua Moitra has recently been the victim of vicious online trolling regarding her recent nuptials to Pinaki Misra of the BJD party. Several individuals have targeted her for choosing to remarry at a later stage in her life and have even been raising questions about her promiscuous attitudes. What do these online comments say about the mindset of our modern-day society? Is it the long-lasting impact of an established patriarchy, a cultural attitude itself that grant legitimacy to these comments?

To my mind this is a clash of patriarchy and modern-day feminist values. With the advent of modern-day feminism, it is much more acceptable for women to remarry or even have their first marriage later in life. However, India has been slow to adopt these values and has been resistant towards the 21st century liberal ideologies. We often see a clash between the two opposing systems, leading to women being victims of it.

Most individuals are disconcerted and are wary of losing their position of privilege in society as a result of the patriarchy. Hence as a result, project openly sexist behaviours in an attempt to suppress feminism and retain their position of power.

Remarrying in Indian culture: In Indian culture, women are judged based on their ‘purity’, It is often a make-or-break criterion when it comes to arranged marriages, in Indian culture women who are open to exploring their sexuality are often looked down upon or seen as loose. Moreover, marriage is viewed as an extremely sanctimonious institution, and choosing to remarry can be seen as a deliberate violation of that sanctity.

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Most individuals would assume that the majority of the online trolls are men. However a quick inspection show a different story. In equal parts, men and women are trolling and subjecting her to sexist remarks. What does this say about women in India and their approach to feminism? Why is it that they are not standing up for a fellow woman who is being subjected to blatant chauvinism?

Misogyny is so ingrained in our society, that even women don’t spare their kin. Feminism is seen as an aggressive, uncompromising and, at times, illogical system of belief that portrays all men in a negative light.

However, this couldn’t be farther from the truth, real feminism is all about equally uplifting all sections in society and working in tandem to achieve unity, the small pockets of neo-feminism and tone-deaf opinions of extremist feminist figures are not to be taken as representation of an entire ideology.

Another vice in today’s age is ageism; people believe that our lives must follow a defined path that is dictated by age restrictions and social norms. Most people have a misplaced belief that at an older age one must have their entire life sorted, and must be “settled down” in order to ease through the final stages of life. However every individual is different, and every individual approaches their life differently, as a society we must accept that regardless of age people are free to make choices that satisfy them, be it following their passion or even pursuing marriage. These attacks also expose the deeper cultural fabric of society, as a culture that is extremely rigid in its ways.

The attacks against Moitra shows a reflection of a society that is still seeped in sexism, atheism and a rigidity to accept new age values. If women in power and influence are subject to such vitriol, then it is safe to hazard a guess about what common women are subject to. It’s perhaps a patriarchal tendency to keep women as muted, restrained and asexual.
The ascetic woman is what society wants!

Public performance of virtue, honour is what even the independent woman is expected to stand by.

As told to Mamta Sharma

Mahua Moitra

Will Not Get Back Down, Says Mahua’s Advocate

After alleging that former Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra was conducting surveillance against him, Advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, says that he has filed his complaint with the CBI and will not back down.

Advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai was also the complainant in the alleged ‘Cash for Query’ case which led to the suspension of Mahua Moitra from Parliaments.

Speaking to ANI on Wednesday, Advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai said, “I have given my complaint to CBI. This is a very serious issue and there are people from Odisha who are financing and supporting those against whom I have filed a complaint (to CBI). This fight is a bit dangerous but I will not back down. “

Earlier, Advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai on Tuesday alleged that TMC leader Mahua Moitra is carrying out “illegal surveillance on him with her contacts in West Bengal police”.

In a letter written to CBI Director Praveen Sood and Union Home Minister Amit Shah dated December 29, Advocate Dehadrai said that there might be a possibility that the TMC leader is “tracking” his physical location by using his phone number.

Dehadrai in his letter, also alleged, “Moitra has a demonstrated history of misusing her clout and connections with certain Senior Officers of Bengal Police to obtain the Call Detail Records (CDR) of private individuals to satisfy her desire to stalk the precise whereabouts of certain individuals as also the details of the individuals they are in touch with.”

Advocate Dehadrai also stated in his complaint that earlier, the TMC leader was actively “tracking a person named Suhaan Mukerji in 2019”.

“Moitra informed me orally on multiple occasions in the past as also in writing (on WhatsApp on 26.09.2019) that she had been actively tracking her ex-boyfriend, one Suhaan Mukerji as she suspected him of being in a relationship with a German lady,” the letter read.

Jai Anant Dehadrai further alleged that Moitra, with the assistance of “Senior Bengal Police Officers”, had the entire call records and history of Mukerji’s phone in which she had precise information about the individuals who had been “in contact with Mukerji as also the precise physical location of Mukerji’s phone for all hours of the day”.

The Advocate also stated that Mahua Moitra has made several threats to him in the past and also said that on several occasions he felt that his car was being followed outside his residence in Delhi.

Responding to the allegations made in the complaint, Mahua Moitra in her post on X, urged the Home Ministry to appoint a Special Director in the CBI for complaints by ‘jilted exes’ all over India.

“Urging MHA to set up a special Director CBI to probe all complaints by loser jilted exes pan India. Gratified to see Shahenshah of all Peeping Toms cc’d on the complaint. – he honed his surveillance skills covering up for his Sahib in Gujarat and can supervise CBI,” she said in a post on X.

Moitra, facing cash for query allegations, was expelled from the Lok Sabha after the Parliament adopted the report of its Ethics Committee, which was probing the matter. Moitra said that the Ethics Committee, without getting to the root of the investigation, decided to hang her. (ANI)

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