Of Women And Their Vices

Actors and politicians are more alike than they seem. For one, there is acting involved in both professions. It would be naive to say that politicians don’t play-act. Second, both politicians and actors are constantly under the public eye. And third, both are dependent on their audience’s approval for survival. But when it comes to women, both politicians and actors, there is one more thing in common — both are plagued by sexism. 

Take the case of two famous women in the country —one politician and the other, an actor— who have been receiving more than their due share of negative limelight since last week. 

Mahua Moitra, a Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP, who is currently facing a serious corruption charge, has been trolled to no end on social as well as several legacy media platforms for having a drink and smoking a cigar at a private dinner party. 

The images —cropped to edit out others at the party— seem to be part of an online smear campaign targeting Moitra which began soon after BJP MP Nishikant Dubey accused the Bengal MP of being involved in a 'cash for query’ scandal. Dubey has accused Moitra of allegedly accepting “bribes” and “favours” from businessman Darshan Hiranandani to ask questions pertaining to the Adani Group and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Lok Sabha. Moitra has remained combative and kept up her attack on the Adani Group, insisting the allegations have been instigated by it and that the BJP’s “IT cell” has been circulating her personal photos to malign her.

Since the emergence of the photos, ‘troll armies’ on social media have dubbed her “vile and disgusting”, painting her as an amoral woman with questionable character, unfit for governance. Moitra, in her usual style, has refused to cow down to the rampant sexism being directed her way. The Krishnanagar MP tweeted: “Most amused to see some personal photos of me being circulated on social media by BJP’s troll sena. I like green dress better on me than white blouse. And why bother cropping - show rest of the folks at dinner as well. Bengal’s women live a life. Not a lie.”

The Other prominent Bengali woman politician and Moitra’s party chief, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, has conspicuously remained silent on the issue, as has the rest of TMC. The party remained silent even when a cropped photo of Moitra with Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor of Congress holding what appears to be a wine glass in a toast appeared on social media and immediately went viral earlier this month. The trolling was so intense that Tharoor himself took to Twitter (now X) to shame the trolls, explaining that the photo was taken during Moitra’s birthday party which was attended by at least 15 other people including Tharoor’s sister. He added that though Moitra was not a “child”, he saw her as one and that she was 20 years his junior, alluding to the lurid and callous nature of the comments the photo was generating. 

Alcohol consumption and cigarettes are moral taboos in India, even for men and male politicians will not be hitherto caught with a drink in hand or a smoke in public. But Moitra was NOT in public when these photos were taken. On the other hand, male politicians like Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray and former President of India Pranab Mukherjee were often seen sporting a tobacco pipe. Others like Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s Sitaram Yechury, TMC’s own Saugata Roy and Kalyan Banerjee and Union ministers Ashok Gajapathi Raju, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Kiren Rijiju, as per a report in Scroll, were frequent visitors of the erstwhile smoking room in Parliament. Raju, who is a former civil aviation minister, in fact, received flak in 2015 when he said that he carried matchboxes on flights. 

While critiqued, none of these men were called amoral or loose for smoking. Their personal lives were not dragged into the equation. And yet Moitra’s personal life is being dragged through the mud on the basis of some photos of her smoking and drinking. 

In the multi-pronged smear campaign, trolls have also dug up videos and images of Moitra “hiding” her designer handbag during a session in Parliament — a reminder of the time when Moitra was called a “champagne socialist” for arriving at a Parliament debate on poverty carrying an expensive bag. Moitra, who changed her bag next day had nevertheless pointedly got back to the trolls and Opposition by tweeting “My dears, this is also Louis Vuitton, the Pochette. Do look it up. It will save you time trying to figure it out.”

It is to be noted that the US-educated Moitra is a former investment banker who has in 2019 declared assets worth over Rs 2.64 crore, including bank deposits in the United Kingdom. She has previously lived and worked in New York and London before becoming an MP in 2016. Does that justify her penchant for designer bags? No one bats an eyelid when BJP’s Ghatkopar MLA Ram Kadam with declared assets of Rs 46 crore (as per media reports) shows off his fleet of luxury cars including Mercedes E350 Cabriolet, Jaguar XJ L, Rolls Royce Ghost and a Bentley (as per media reports). In 2016, he gifted a Mercedes to his son on his 13th birthday and seemingly tweeted about it, though he later claimed someone else tweeted the photos from his account.

Moitra, who has been an ardent critic of the BJP government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is no stranger to personal and political attacks (which in the case of women often compound). Nishikant Dubey and Moitra have also been sparring for sometime. In 2021, Dubey had accused Moitra on Twitter (now X) of abusing the people of North India, Biharis in particular, by using the phrase “Bihari Goonda” (Bihari goon) during a meeting. Moitra had refuted, stating that the “meeting” of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology on the Pegasus controversy issue —in which she had supposedly said the words— had been aborted and never took place. 

The same year, Dubey and another BJP MP, PP Chowdhary, gave a privilege motion notice against Moitra for her comments against former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi on the floor of the House. In their notice, they cited a breach of Article 121 of the Constitution which censures discussing the conduct of a judge. Gogoi, however, was a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha at the time of Moitra’s comments and the TMC MP responded by saying that she will not be “bullied into silence”. 

But in a country where even a goddess cannot get away with her vices, Moitra is a mere mortal. She was booked for stating that Kaali, the Hindu deity worshipped in West Bengal and other places, is an alcohol- and meat-accepting goddess. Moitra said so at a time when a woman director’s film poster depicting a woman dressed as Kaali while smoking sparked outrage.

Speaking of films, Deepika Padukone, a Bollywood actress who has also previously been seen supporting dissidents of Modi and the BJP (her cameo at a JNU protest, for instance), also stirred trolls with her monologue on the popular celebrity talk show Koffee With Karan. Appearing with actor and her husband Ranveer Singh, Padukone spoke candidly about her dating life and how she dated multiple men before marrying Singh. Many men and women seemed personally offended by the remark, slut-shamed her and some meninists even felt the need to run hashtag campaigns like “JusticeForRanveerSingh”. The actress was compared to other actresses —her peers— and called “characterless” in comparison. This isn’t the first time Padukone has been hassled on social media. The actor who has for years been speaking about mental health and depression, was shamed for her clothes and “provocative” dance moves with Shah Rukh Khan in the recent ‘Besharam Rang’ song from the 2021 film ‘Pathan’. More than the dance, many objected to the choice of clothing: a saffron bikini. Trolls were convinced she was intentionally sporting saffron while romancing a Muslim actor on screen to spite the Hindus. 

Why do women like Moitra, Padukone and so many others who choose to be vocal about their opinions and dare to take a stand, face censure in India? Even actor Priyanka Chopra, UNICEF Goodwill ambassador who is generally seen to be on the right side of the present dispensation, couldn’t get away with a photo of her smoking on a private yacht on her birthday in an exotic location. The trolling happened soon after the actor spoke up against bursting crackers on Diwali as an environmental and health hazard. She should have known better than “hurting Hindu sentiment” if she wanted her personal life to be left alone.

There is, of course, the matter of privilege. Both Moitra and Padukone come from upper caste, upper class, Hindu families and have considerable generational privilege to boot. Smoking and drinking among women are associated with a privileged status and thus these women are seen as antithetical to the “common-man” image that film stars and politicians need to maintain in a populous and diverse nation like India. But when it comes to women, class privilege and progressive views or so-called “western” attitudes (smoking, drinking, dating for instance) equals promiscuity. It implies an amoral character, a “vile and disgusting” woman, as the chagrined X user wrote on social media about Moitra. This link between progressive liberal and promiscuity can be observed when it comes to any woman in any profession. Political parties thus like their women to look like servile bahus (daughters-in-law), or masculinised “tom-men”, (in case of unmarried or divorced women). In doing so, they eschew the question of gender bias and gender profiling and create a homogenous role of the “ideal” woman. It’s a role that even an actor cannot pull off for life.