Furore over ‘Rashtrapatni’ remark reignites gender debate

In the last 75 years, there have been multiple calls for a gender-neutral term for the head of the State

NEW DELHI: The suggestions included ‘Sardar’, ‘Pradhan’, ‘Neta’, ‘Karandhar’ and ‘Chief Executive and Head of the State’, but the Constituent Assembly settled on the term ‘Rashtrapati’ for India’s top constitutional post.

However, in the last 75 years, there have been multiple calls for a gender-neutral term for the head of the State and debates over it. This has been reignited by the political furore over President Droupadi Murmu being referred to as ‘Rashtrapatni’ by Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury who claimed it was a “slip of tongue.”

Some women rights activists on Thursday said over the years some words and phrases have been replaced with more gender-neutral terms in various think he wanted to be very specific about gender because he wanted to make a patriarchal statement. We never judged Pratibha Patil like that.

“One can think about going gender-neutral while referring to the president, but he (Chowdhury) made the statement for a different reason altogether. However, there must be a suitable term for the post in the future,” Bhayana said.

Social activist and human rights campaigner Shabnam Hashmi said there should be a gender-neutral term for president like that of chairperson. “Mantri also doesn’t reflect gender but the moment you say ‘pati’ and ‘patni’ there are other connotations too,” she said.

However, some activists believe that since president is a constitutional post it is already gender neutral. Ranjana

Kumari, a social activist and the director of the Centre for Social Research, said whether male or female, the president has similar power, and authority and it is a constitutional position. “So I don’t understand why people are confused.”

“But if at all the government wants a gender-neutral term they can call it ‘rashtrapradhan’. But I don’t see why we should look at rashtrapati as a genderloaded term because ‘pati’ is not really anyone’s husband here so I don’t see the reason for controversy.”

There has been debate on the term ‘rashtrapati’ before too. During a Constituent Assembly debate in July 1947, an amendment called for replacing the word ‘Rashtrapati’ with ‘Neta’ or ‘Karandhar’, but it was not pursued further as a committee was to look into it.