Ladies, the BJP does not care about you

Source: wbur.org

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a Hindu nationalist party which was founded in 1980 and is led by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Modi, alongside many of the members of his party have lifelong links with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right wing, Hindu nationalist organisation, which desires India to be defined as a Hindu nation and is considered as the unofficial parent of the BJP.

Due to these ties with the RSS, the BJP advocates the ideology of a traditionally Hindu nation so that India can ultimately be defined in the terms of the Hindu values.

Whilst many aspects and criticisms source from this, such aslimited benefits towards Punjabi communities, and the treatment of Muslims across India, a key issue that stems from the BJPs’ advocations is the lack of empowerment towards women.

For years, the BJP has claimed to have women’s’ best interests at heart in terms of their rights and place in society. However, a look at their campaigns can quickly reveal the truth in that everything that the BJP are willing to do for a woman will ultimately benefit the man.

Launched in 2016, the Ujjwala Yojana scheme aimed to provide free cooking gas connections to poor families across rural areas. The scheme quickly fell through and the free connections that were promised quickly required payment which most families benefitting at first simply could not afford. With the one-time subsidy being cruel enough, the initial publicity surrounding the scheme is just as horrifying.

Source:transformingindia.mygov.in

Posters for the scheme showed images of young girls sitting by the stove with no evidence of any other future for herself. Other images included multiple generations of women clinging to the gas cylinders as if it was their sole source of happiness. The images reinforced the idea that this campaign was only meant for women, in turn implying that men have no direct link to the cooking of the food and are simply required to just enjoy the food that is made for them.

The images weren’t officially claimed by the government but drive anywhere in Dehli and you will find it hard to miss perfectly airbrushed billboards of the prime minister – they clearly have the control over what images represent them.

Ultimately, all that the Ujjwala Yojana scheme was able to amount to was showing that when the BJP make the promise to invest in women, they simply fail to follow through.

Another example of this is the is the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao scheme translating to “Save Girls, Teach Girls”. The campaign aimed to create opportunity for girls using education services, whilst also generating awareness towards female foeticide in India in a bid to save the declining child sex ratio. Many promises were made but when it came down to it, only 24% of the funds were actually distributed to the states, whilst over half of the funds were spent on publicity for Modi and his involvement.

Under Modi’s government, women are even controlled in their pregnancies, especially the amount of pregnancies that are desired of them.

The Hindu right remains unmoved in its mission to ensure that India remains as a Hindu majority, with the magic number increasing from three, to five and then ten children per family, according to the wishes of party leaders.

The government are so insistent on producing more Hindu children, yet basic benefits are limited to the first birth for each woman, meaning that 86% of pregnant women are excluded.

Is it not obvious now that Modi is using women as a vehicle to create the right-wing Hindu India that he so deeply desires?

Thank you for reading!

Aman