Reports of nearly 3,000 videos featuring multiple incidents of sexual assault allegedly by Hassan’s sitting MP, Prajwal Revanna of the JD(S) are sickening. How did he even get a ticket to contest and what does this say about the misogyny of our politics? Read on… The Big Story Is this the worst case of sexual perversion known to us? News reports of the alleged sexual perversions of Prajwal Revanna took me back to the 2012 street protests in Delhi that followed the gang-rape and subsequent death of a medical student. Back then citizens vented their anger at a broken system in a spontaneous protest. There was no whataboutery, and the politics—it was Congress in power both at centre and state—was irrelevant. The government’s initial response was to shut down the protests with tear gas and water cannon. But when they showed no sign of abating, it decided to listen to the people and, eventually, changed the law. Under this amended law, the crimes being attributed to Revanna are defined as rape (Rahul Gandhi is right and the media’s description of a ‘sex scandal’ is absolutely misplaced). They are there, reportedly, 2,796 videos of some 400 women. The special investigating team set up by the Siddhiramaiah government will hopefully unravel the extent of this ongoing assault—how it happened, who was aware of it, who enabled it, and for how long it’s been going on. Perhaps his pedigree gave the 33-year-old Prajwal Revanna a sense of impunity. He is the grandson of former prime minister HD Deve Gowda and son of HD Revanna, a sitting MLA. Prajwal himself is a sitting member of Parliament from Hassan who won the sole JD(S) ticket in 2019 in alliance with the Congress. This time around the alliance is with the BJP and he was given the ticket to contest from the same seat again. Days before Hassan went to the polls on April 26, hundreds of pen drives with the videos mysteriously appeared, placed in bus stands and, eventually, on social media. According to some accounts, in one, a 68-year-old employee is pleading with Prajwal to spare her. She is reminding him that she had fed him as a baby. A case has been filed against Prajwal and also his father, based on a complaint by a woman who had earlier worked at the Revanna household. She says she was sexually abused by both father and son multiple times between 2019 and 2022. As I write this, comes the news that, based on a complaint filed by a second woman who has come forward, Prajwal will be facing rape charges. Prajwal who is MIA in Germany and says he’ll be back in a week claims the videos are doctored. How much did alliance partner BJP know? Before the elections, Prajwal got a restraining order from a civil court preventing media from using the videos. So, he clearly knew they were in circulation. So did local BJP leader from Hassan, Devaraje Gowda who says he alerted his party’s leaders and warned in a letter to state BJP chief BY Vijayendra that if they allowed Prajwal to contest on an alliance ticket, “we will be tainted as a party that aligned with the family of a rapist.” Prajwal got the ticket anyway. How did a party that declares women to be a core constituency, that can’t stop harping about nari shakti allow an alliance partner to field such a person? [I wrote about the growing power of the woman voter in my last newsletter here.] Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not yet said a word. Home minister Amit Shah acknowledges the egregious nature of the alleged crime but pins responsibility on to the Congress party. “Why have they not taken any action till now?” he asked at an election rally in Guwahati, ignoring the fact that action was taken as soon as the videos became public and a complaint was filed by one of the women. Other BJP spokespeople claim that the party had no role in the selection of individual candidates put up by alliance partners. This is pure deflection. Voters and in particular women deserve a more convincing answer. Winning at all costs Prajwal is not the first person associated with the party to be accused of sexual assault. On Thursday, the BJP announced that Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the former Wrestling Federation of India head and a six-time MP from Kaiserganj, Uttar Pradesh, accused by India’s leading wrestlers of sexual assault, would not be getting the ticket. Instead, the party announced, it will be going to his younger son Karan Bhushan Singh. This laissez faire runs through all parties who in public are so vociferous about women’s empowerment and protecting their ‘sisters’ but are quite willing to turn a blind eye to charges of sexual assault when it suits them. So, when charges of sexual assault are made against the TMC’s Shahjahan Sheikh in Sandeshkhali, West Bengal, the BJP is happy to talk of the plight of their poor sisters. And chief minister Mamata Banerjee, otherwise voluble about women’s rights, ignores these charges, despite protests by the women of the area. It is only when the case is handed over to the CBI that Sheikh is packed off to jail. Let’s not forget Kuldeep Senger, now in jail for raping a minor, was welcomed by all parties from Congress to Samajwadi Party until his eventual explusion from the BJP. Swami Chinmayananda, another BJP ‘leader’ accused of rape was eventually acquitted in court. M.J. Akbar, then a junior external affairs minister had to be sacked after 20 women spoke up during India’s MeToo movement in 2018. He hasn’t given up, despite losing in trial court, and continues to pursue his defamation case in court. According to an August 2023 report by the Association of Democratic Reform, 21 MPs in the outgoing Lok Sabha and 113 MLAs in the state assemblies had cases related to crimes against women against them. The BJP took the lead with 44 MPs and MLAs, the Congress 25 and AAP 13. If Prajwal’s alleged perversions were known at least within political circles, how could he even get the ticket? Reportedly, his grandfather Deve Gowda guaranteed a win from Hassan. That guaranteed seat in a high-stakes election was enough to gloss over so much that was already common knowledge. This tells us as women and citizens everything we need to know about the misogyny that informs our politics. The Prajwal case confirms that we have come to such a sorry pass where electoral victory even of a single seat, trumps morality. And where leaders will turn a blind eye in the interest of winning. There’s a word for it. Hypocrisy. |