[*7-time CPIM MP’s Sexist Abuse to Mamata Banerjee (from Indian Express, April 24): *
*Addressing a rally yesterday, Basu made references to Sonagachi — Kolkata’s red-light area. “Where is she getting the money from?” he asked. “From which bhatar(Bengali derogatory slang for a woman’s “illicit male partner”) did she get Rs 24 crore to fund the Trinamool Congress’s poll expenses?”* *Saying that prostitutes in Sonagachi “do not even look at smaller clients” when they get a “big client”, Basu said now that the Trinamool has got a “big client” — the USA — to fund its poll expenses, it is not interested in the “smaller clients” from Chennai, Andhra Pradesh and other places in the country.”* *Earlier too, after the Singur agitation, Basu, a seven-term MP from Arambagh, had said that if he had his way he would have taken Mamata by the hair and dumped her at her Kalighat house instead of allowing her to continue her sit-in protest at the gate of the Tata factory.”*] *Whether we agree with Mamata Banerjee’s or the CPIM’s politics or not, the point here is that Anil Basu’s misogynist abuse personifies the patriarchal humiliation to which a woman in public life is repeatedly subjected. * * * *Basu may have won 7 elections but he has shown that he cannot deal with politics as politics when women enter it. When it comes to a woman political opponent, he immediately dumps political arguments, and falls back instead on the easy patriarchal staple - attacking their sexuality and branding them as prostitutes. * During the Singur agitation, too, Anil Basu had declared that if he had his way he would have taken Mamata by the hair and dumped her at her Kalighat house instead of allowing her to continue her sit-in protest at the gate of the Tata factory. *Apparently, this CPIM leader could not contend with an agitation led by a rival woman leader without resorting to the patriarchal imagery of a mythical Dusshasana’s methods.* The West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharya has said the language used by Basu is ‘unpardonable’, and he has asked the CPIM to issue Basu a warning. Basu too has reportedly issued some sort of regret for his 'careless' remarks. *But if such verbal violence intended to humiliate women in public life is indeed unpardonable in the CPIM’s eyes, how can a warning or apology be sufficient? Why has he not been expelled from the CPIM yet? Won't Anil Basu be prosecuted for his misogynist hate-speech against women?* * * On previous occasions, too, CPIM leaders have responded with similar patriarchal taunts and abuses. *The late Suhas Chakraborty ridiculed the Trinamul leader’s Maa-Mati-Manush slogan saying: “She is an infertile woman; what does she know about Maa?”* *CPIM’s Central Committee member Benoy Konar asked CPIM’s male cadre to “bare their backsides” to Medha Patkar at Nandigram. On those occasions, when electoral considerations were not immediate, there were no condemnations/apologies forthcoming from the CPIM. * * * *The CPI(M) also needs to apologise to the sex workers of Sonagachi, for the humiliation Basu has heaped on them.* Pushed by a system that has thrown these poor women into the margins, so that they can be devoured, all they have done is struggle to eke out a living and survived. Why should they be invoked as a symbol of shame? What have they done to be ashamed of? Basu has no business tearing apart the dignity of Sonagachi’s sexworkers; rather he and his party should be answerable as to why women in Sonagachi continue to live such deprived lives after more than three decades of CPIM rule. Kavita Krishnan, National Secretary, AIPWA -- Kavita Krishnan 9560756628 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an email to greenyouth@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to greenyouth+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB.
