Nagpur: Indian politicians have always been in the headlines for one thing or the other. Here are some politicians who have made bizarre statements on rapes and sexual harassment cases in India. The sexist comments passed by the politicians have put them in trouble.
1. Tirath Singh Rawat: Former Uttarakhand chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat said “Showing bare knees by wearing ripped jeans just to look like rich kids is the value given now which is just a race towards westernisation when the Western world today is following us. Ripped jeans pave the way for societal breakdown and are a bad example parents set for children.”
2. Mulayam Singh: Samajwadi party chief Mulayam Singh in April 2014 opposed death penalty to three men convicted in a gangrape case. He said “boys will be boys, they commit mistakes.” Singh further blamed girls for rape and claimed girls get friendly with boys and when they fight and have differences, they term it as rape.
3. KJ George: Former Karnataka Home minister KJ George in 2015 said, “two men raping a woman cannot be termed as gangrape.” This statement comes after a 22-year-old girl was gangraped by the driver and helper of a tempo traveler in Bengaluru at night.
4. Harsimrat Kaur Badal: Former union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Tuesday said “I urge the government that in rape cases judgement should be pronounced in number of months equivalent to the age of the victim. So if the victim is 20 years old, the trial should be concluded in 20 months.”
5. Om Prakash Chautala: Former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash CHautala said “Marry off girls early to prevent rape in order to stop increasing number of rape cases.”
6. Mohan Bhagwat: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in 2013 said rapes are an urban crime caused by westernization. He said, “Crimes against women happening in urban India are shameful. But such crimes won’t happen in “Bharat” or the rural areas of the country. You go to villages and forests of the country and there will be no such incidents of gang-rape or sex crimes”
7. Abu Azmi: Samajwadi party leader Abu Azmi in 2014 said, “If a woman is caught (in a rape case), then both she and the boy should be punished. In India, there is death penalty for rape, but when there’s consensual sex outside marriage, there’s no death penalty against women.”
8. Ramesh Kumar: Senior Congress MLA and former Karnataka assembly speaker KR Ramesh Kumar stoked controversy in the assembly by saying “when rape is inevitable, lie down and enjoy it.”
