oppn parties TMC Leader Akhil Giri Pulled Up For Body Shaming President Murmu

News Snippets

  • Supreme Court says all cases of mob violence and lynchings should not be given a communal angle
  • Supreme Court tells petitioners who want elections to be held with ballot papers as they fear EVM tampering to back their claims of tampering with data
  • PM Modi says he is indebted to the Constitution which is an article of paith for his party
  • Mamata Banerjee says people do not have freedom to eat what they want under NDA then how can they have freedom to speak
  • Bengal, wary of clashes on Ramnavami, has tightened security all over the state, especially in pockets that witnessed such clashes in previous years
  • Ramdev and Balkrishna of Patanjali offered apology to the Supreme Court for misleading advertisement with folded hands. The apex court had earlier said their apology was not worth the paper it was written on
  • A whistleblower has claimed that China bribed senior UN officials to keep the lab leak angle out of reasons for spread of Covid
  • Two men from Bihar were arrested from Gujarat for firing at actor Salman Khan's home on Sunday morning. Mumbai Police said they wanted to kill the actor
  • Supreme Court order West Bengal governor to appoint VCs to six universities from the names provided by the state government in one week
  • Wow! Momo raises Rs 70cr from Z3Partners in the latest round of funding
  • IMF raises India's growth forecast from 6.5% earlier to 6.8%
  • Re plunges to a new low of 83.54 per dollar as global tensions mount
  • Stocks remain weak and negative on Tuesday: Sensex plunges 456 points to 72943 and Nifty 124 points to 22147
  • Candidates' Chess: D Gukesh draws with Ian Nepomniachtchi and with six points each, both reamin joint leaders. Pragg also drew with Vidit Gujrathi
  • IPL: Table-toppers RR beat KKR by 2 wickets
Encounter at Kanker in Bastar in Chhatisgarh: 29 Maoists, including 3 'senior commanders' gunned down by security forces
oppn parties
TMC Leader Akhil Giri Pulled Up For Body Shaming President Murmu

By Anukriti Roy
First publised on 2022-11-14 06:33:47

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Anukriti is a student who dabbles in writing when she finds time.

The patriarchal mentality considers women as objects and child-rearing machines which means they are evaluated by their looks. Even if men are not good-looking (this is a subjective term and should not be used but is being used repeatedly in this article to highlight the discrimination), they prefer their female partners (or those in public service, as in the instant case) to be perfect as per the 'values' society associates with them - mainly, fair complexioned, slim with long hair and demure. Any woman that does not fit in to this description is often body-shamed.

It is against this backdrop that we must see what Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and Bengal prisons minister Akhil Giri spoke about President Murmu. To a wildly cheering group of supporters, Giri said that President Murmu is not good-looking, is she? And they laughed, clapped and said no. So now the President of India will be evaluated by her looks as per the wishes of a politician and not by her work. Giri was angry that the BJP had said that he was ugly (or not good looking) and to show that not all politicians or those who hold public office are not good looking, he made the obnoxious comparison.

The TMC has distanced itself from Giri's remarks and he has been reprimanded. Meanwhile, BJP leader Locket Chatterjee has lodged an FIR against Giri for "insulting the President". The TMC, which has sent many good looking film actors from Bengal to the Lok Sabha, must impress upon Giri that looks do not matter and body shaming, if it is made with reference to the President or any common person, will not be condoned. Giri has issued an apology mixing it with the attack on his own 'looks'.  He called the remarks against the President "a momentary lapse of judgment". This will not do. He must issue an unconditional apology to President Droupadi Murmu.