Shobhaa’s Take

When men laugh at cheap jokes cracked at the expense of women by some idiotic “unpadh” fellow in their midst, not only does the “joke” backfires badly on the jester himself at some point, but it instantly cheapens the reputation of all those who laughed at it. So, what I am saying is that had citizens en masse condemned the pathetic remarks made by the Janata Dal (United) party chief Sharad Yadav in Parliament this week, we might have seen an entirely different political response to the outrage. For, it wasn’t Mr Yadav alone who caused it. When an otherwise civilised Bharatiya Janata Party MP Ravi Shankar Prasad was caught laughing at Mr Yadav’s crass comments, the outrage was further compounded. Ever since that unfortunate slip up, Mr Prasad has attempted to distance himself from the embarrassment by claiming to “disassociate” himself from the controversy and asking Mr Yadav to “withdraw” the offensive words. But would the arrogant Yadav do it… and salvage what remained of his tattered image? Of course, not! Three days later, he was at it, again.

The man is incorrigible and impossible. It is only in our great country that people like Mr Yadav are not kicked out of office and publicly humiliated. We are far too tolerant towards such people. It is equally shocking that so many women in Parliament did not rise to their feet in protest and demand an immediate apology. The ones who did were rebuffed by the coarse and ill-mannered Mr Yadav, who had the nerve to insult human resources development minister Smriti Irani by