While many were outraged at the recent comment made by Uttarakhand chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat at a national-level seminar conducted by the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR), several also opined that his statement is being quoted out of context.
Recently, the CM stated while addressing the seminar on substance abuse among children, what values will a woman who wears jeans ripped at the knees teach her children. Such trends are blind pursuance of westernisation, he added. The CM also received backlash for his remarks with the hashtag ripped jeans trending on various social media platforms on Thursday. Prominent figures like actress Gul Panag, Jaya Bacchan and her granddaughter, Navya Naveli Nanda also opined that the CM’s remark was derogatory to women.
In Uttarakhand the remarks have elicited mixed reactions. According to a school teacher from Mussoorie, Sapna Negi, there are several serious issues to deal with in the State but the ministers here are busy telling women how their clothing can make them bad mothers. “Why are women always targeted in the name of decency and culture? We do not get talent and intelligence from our clothes,” added Negi. Priyanka Garg, a resident of Rudrapur also opined that the CM should not have associated the dressing style of women with her capability to teach good values to their children. On the other hand, an engineer, Dinesh Joshi opined that there is nothing wrong with the CM’s statement. “He only expressed his opinion on the basis of Indian culture. People are judging him even without knowing in what context he said those things. We always tell our children to wear decent clothes in public too and it applies to both genders. Just because he mentioned a woman as an example in his address to convey a message, it does not mean he intended to insult women,” said Joshi.
Neuropsychologist Dr Sona Kaushal Gupta, the CM was just expressing his opinion like everyone has a right to do in the country. “As a woman, a psychologist and a senior citizen, I also expect men and women to dress gracefully in public places. The CM also tried to express the same thing in his address which is taken being out of context,” she stated.
Psychotherapist Aditi Arora stated that it is a grey area to understand what the CM exactly intended to convey with his statement as he was also talking about blind pursuance of western culture. However, having a certain dressing sense has nothing to do with providing good values to children, said Arora. According to her, it is more important to focus on uplifting women in rural remote areas of the State rather than paying heed to women’s way of clothing. Meanwhile, the SCPCR chief, Usha Negi asserted that some people picked certain lines from CM’s address and blew it out of proportion without knowing the context. “The CM was talking about how children today get easily influenced by western culture and try to imitate it. He was addressing a seminar on substance abuse among children and everyone should focus on that issue,” added Negi.
Friday, 19 March 2021 | PNS | Dehradun
