Haryana minister Anil Vij the new face of old India's 'Beti Hatao' mindset

Haryana's health minister Anil Vij welcomes controversies with open arms (I'll explain his compulsions later) - and like the many misogynist motormouths in his party, he clearly doesn't subscribe to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's grand "Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao" initiative.

It was he who declared, in the wake of the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri on the suspicion that he was eating beef, that the cow should replace the tiger as India's national animal. Even Manu would have balked at the idea.And now, sitting on his ministerial high horse, Vij is back to where he loves to be (national headlines) by getting Fatehabad SP, Sangeeta Kalia, transferred because she refused to obey his illegal demand that she leave a meeting of the district public grievances and public relations committee that was being chaired by the division commissioner.

Not only was Vij being a lout on a public forum, showing no respect to Kalia's gender or her office, but he was also sending out a message in a state that has a terrible gender parity track record that it is all right if a woman, even one in a powerful position, is treated like chattel. As a minister who occupies his office only because people mistakenly believed his party stood for all-inclusive development, Vij should be more concerned about the state of women in his state, than about the status of the Holy Cow.

The same minister, who's very active on social media, had tweeted some time back (with an eye on the headlines of course) that he wanted Bollywood actress Parineeti Chopra to be the state's brand ambassador for the "Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao" initiative.

If there's anyone who deserves to be a brand ambassador, it is Sangeeta Kalia, the daughter of a retired painter of police stations who, inspired by the television series Udaan, overcame economic odds to become an IPS officer. Vij chose to insult this exemplary beti of the state, whose father believed in the slogan that has only now become fashionable.

Ironically, Vij got his Ambala Cantonment seat in 1990 after it was vacated by Sushma Swaraj, one of the BJP's three showpiece women leaders, but although he's a five-term MLA (in the last 25 years, he has lost only one election), he has not seen his stock rise in his own party and for a legislator of his seniority, he's in charge of three innocuous ministries - health services, elections, and youth affairs and sports. Political observers in the state attribute his penchant for controversies to this failing of his.

The minister's outburst against Kalia was untenable because, apart from forgetting the rules of basic etiquette, he was not chairing the meeting. In fact, the one who was officially chairing it, the divisional commissioner, continued with the meeting even after the Vij drama and allowed Kalia to be where she was, as she was meant to be.

The minister's mishbehaviour was also flawed on a narrowly legal ground. If there's illegal trafficking of alcohol taking place in the district, it is the business of the state excise and taxation department to take cognisance of the matter, and had Kalia or her officers not cooperated with it (and there's no proof so far of such cooperation not being extended), the minister may have been forgiven for being a vigilante type who lost his cool on a matter of grave concern. But the minister was being a misogynist acting on misinformation.