Is this the worst case of sexual perversion known to us?

Reports of nearly 3,000 videos featuring multiple incidents of sexual assault allegedly by Hassan's sitting MP, Prajwal Revanna of the JD(S)

Trouble viewing this email? View in web browser

Sunday, May 05, 2024
By Namita Bhandare

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.

In numbers

To Baramati goes the credit for being the constituency that is fielding the most number of women candidates, seven, this election. These include, sitting MP Supriya Sule who will be facing off with her sister-in-law, Ajit Pawar’s wife, Sunetra Pawar.

But don’t be misled, this is as good a time as any to tell you that 40% of all constituencies in phase 3 of the elections on May 7, have no women candidates at all.

Source: The Quantum Hub

Smells like an election

After donating a kidney to her father, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad, Rohini Acharya is back in the news, this time as her party’s candidate from Saran. The Singapore-based Rohini was accompanied by her father, mother Rabri Devi, eldest sister Misa Bharti and two brothers, including deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav when she filed her nomination papers on Monday. “I have left all the facilities which I was getting abroad and have come here to make Saran a beautiful, developed and modern constituency,” she said.

Tribal women from Palghar, Maharashtra in a unique protest have returned the free saris being distributed to them under a November 2023 state government scheme. “Give us jobs,” they demand. “We want work, we are hardworking. We are not sitting at home,” Ladkubai, a 52-year-old told The Quint.

News you might have missed

Parveen Shaikh, the principal of Somaiya School in Mumbai, who is facing heat for her social media activity, including an apparently pro-Palestinian stance, has been asked to resign by the school board. The board’s decision to ask Shaikh to step down comes on the heels of the publication of an article in a news website known for its right-wing views.

Shaikh who has led the school for seven years has the support of a section of parents who have rallied around her and urged the school management to take back its decision. At a time when freedom of expression is being debated on American campuses, Indian schools must foster an environment where students, and certainly their teachers, can ask legitimate questions on current affairs. Fortunately, Shaikh has, so far, shown no signs of fading away into the sunset. “I live in democratic India. I hold the principle of freedom of speech in high regard as it is a cornerstone of democracy.”

Delhi lieutenant governor VK Saxena has approved the removal of 223 staff working on contract with the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW). The removal comes with immediate effect apparently because the appointments were made “without following due procedure”. Swati Maliwal, the former DCW chairperson now in the Rajya Sabha, said the DCW had a sanctioned staff strength of only eight people. But given the scale of its operation—from running the 181 helpline to rape crisis intervention and mahila panchayats—hiring contractual staff becomes a necessity. Over the past eight years, DCW has handled 170,000 cases with the 181 helpline taking over 40 lakh distress calls. Over 60,000 sexual assault survivors have been counselled through its crisis intervention centre.

A woman employee at Kolkata’s Raj Bhavan has accused West Bengal governor CV Ananda Bose of molestation at least twice in his chamber. Bose says he will not be cowed down by “engineered narratives”.

And the good news…The Supreme Court has set aside one-third of seats in the executive committee of the Supreme Court Bar Association for women. The reservation is to guarantee a minimum representation by women and will kick in from the 2024-25 election to be held on May 16 this year.

Field notes

If you’re still wondering why we need a gender responsive approach to health, a new study published in The Lancet Public Health finds stark differences between women and men.

Women, finds the study, live longer but endure higher levels of illness, such as mental health, headache disorders and musculoskeletal conditions in their lifetimes. Men, on the other hand, are disproportionately affected by illnesses (cardiovascular and liver disease, for instance) that lead to early death.

Read more here.

Around the world

The ‘m’ word made it to the steps of the US Capitol as Halle Berry, 57, said, “I’m in menopause, OK?” Berry is joining a group of bipartisan senators to push for legislation that would put $275 million toward research and education around menopause. It would enable the government to spend more on clinical trials as well as hormone therapy to treat symptoms. “Our doctors can’t even say the word to us, let alone walk us through the journey,” Berry said.

The French Parliament will, in deference to a demand made by actor Judith Godreche, be creating a commission of inquiry to look into sexual and gender-based violence in cinema and culture. In February, actor Judith Godreche had told Parliament’s upper house of France’s “incestuous” film industry. She said she had been sexually assaulted by directors Benoit Jacquot and Jacques Doillon when she was a teenager. Several big names of French cinema, including Gerard Depardieu, have been accused of sexual abuse. The new commission will be formed by May 13 and start hearings a week later.

        

Were you forwarded this email? Did you stumble upon it online? Sign up here.

That’s it for this week. If you have a tip, feedback, criticism, please write to me at: namita.bhandare@gmail.com.
Produced by Mohd Shad Hasnain shad.hasnain@partner.htdigital.in.

Get the Hindustan Times app and read premium stories
 Google Play Store  App Store
View in Browser | Privacy Policy | Contact us You received this email because you signed up for HT Newsletters or because it is included in your subscription. Copyright © HT Digital Streams. All Rights Reserved

--
Click Here to unsubscribe from this newsletter.

Previous Post Next Post

Contact Form