Tripura CM saying Diana Hayden is not an Indian beauty shows he neither understands women nor Constitution
When you think of the job description of the chief minister of a state, the last thing that would come to mind is judging beauty pageants and their winners, especially, those that happened two decades ago.
But this is exactly what Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb did while addressing a workshop for handlooms and handicrafts. The chief minister said: "We see women as goddess Laxmi, Saraswati. Aishwarya Rai represents the Indian women. She became the Miss World and that's all right. But I do not understand the beauty of Diana Hayden."
There are so many things that are wrong with this statement that you'd be hard pressed to find a starting point. So we start at the beginning. Women are being likened to goddesses forgetting we are individuals with thoughts, feelings and opinions.
It is much easier to slot us as divine figures without human characteristics or any taint of human flaws. But the irony is that just by glancing through a newspaper, we can quickly see that women are treated as anything but goddesses. Rapes, dowry deaths, domestic abuse, female foeticide, and so many more atrocities are committed against women every single day.
Why then there exists this need to deify us? So that it restricts our ability to act independent of watertight narratives that refuse to see women as individuals beyond the structures of family, home, and religious and social morals. Mystify the woman, and keep her chained. Tie her to religion and family, and her "honour" will stay intact.
Tripura CM Biplab Kumar Deb turns beauty pageant judge, questions how Diana Hayden won Miss World title #ITVideoFor more videos: https://t.co/Nounxo6IKQ pic.twitter.com/YIbpj7ZHfi
— India Today (@IndiaToday) April 27, 2018
Then, of course, there is the not-so-subtle racism inherent in seeing a fair-skinned woman like Aishwarya Rai as the ideal representation of an Indian woman. What makes Diana Hayden "less Indian"? What does it even mean to be Indian? For a country that is known for its diversity, it is dangerous to have just one interpretation of what "Indianness" means.
Call it a colonial hangover, but the Indian obsession with fair skin, more so when it is tacitly endorsed by our leaders, further fuels the toxic relationship most Indians have with their skin tone. (Think matrimonial ads seeking only "fair" brides, the market dominance of fairness creams like Fair & Lovely, the prevalence of skin bleaching, to name a few).
At a time when the fashion industry is witnessing a revolution centred around the idea of inclusion, and Indian models like Pooja Mor and Bhumika Arora are making a mark on the international runway, it is disappointing to note that perceptions within the country remain markedly grounded in the idea that "fair is beautiful".
You would think that this madness would have stopped at that here, but it didn't. Deb went on to reveal his mindset brazenly. "Indian women did not use cosmetics in the old times. Indians did not use shampoo, they washed their hair with methi water and bathed with mud. These beauty pageant organisers are international marketing mafia, who spotted a huge market in the country. Today, there is a beauty parlour in every corner of the country," he said.
What is history to our political leaders? Anything can be rewritten these days. Forget that kajal has been used in India for centuries, or that the word "shampoo" comes from the Hindi word "champo". What matters here, according to Deb, is that Western beauty pageants have made Indian women vain. The proliferation of beauty parlours is a clear indication of the degradation of the moral values of the Indian woman. It is all a conspiracy to take over our culture and, in the process, our money, with women flocking to buy Western beauty products.
The backlash was swift with activists like Kavita Krishnan terming Deb's statements as "stupid, sexist, and communal", and with Diana Hayden herself stating, "I am proud of my skin colour, and I am hurt with the comment."
But is this enough?
We can outrage and scream ourselves hoarse over all the sexist, racist, and misogynistic things that our leaders are uttering on a daily basis, but that doesn't change the fact that we are the ones who voted them to power in the first place. How can women expect to live dignified lives when the people tasked with upholding the rights of equality and dignity seem determined to undermine these very values? It's a classic damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Men objectify women. But also want women to be untainted goddesses.
Here's a revolutionary thought: We are neither. Women are people. Before being somebody's daughter, sister, and mother (or goddess for that matter), women are individuals with the right to be treated with dignity and respect.
And when it comes to what is "Indian" and what is not, there's this book. Our leaders should be told about it. It lists down in detail what it means to be Indian. They should give it a read. It's called the Constitution.