A Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Uttar Pradesh has vented his anger on the corrupt bureaucrats. Obviously he was playing to the gallery, speaking on the 'so-called 'warning day' the party observed. Hapless common man loves to hear someone berating his eternal tormentor, the bureaucrat. However, trying to buttress his point, MLA Surendra Singh compared vile bureaucrats to prostitutes. He didn't just make a comparison, but declared that dirty bureaucrats are worse than prostitutes.
That's pretty mean. Who gave him the rights to judge the morality of prostitutes? Are they not human beings? Can someone like Surendra Singh, or anyone else, assume that prostitutes are the lowest end of a so-called morality pyramid? Are there no worse human beings than those engaged in the world's oldest profession? When will a civilised society stop the eternal benchmarking of a certain class of people as the lowest in value, morality and worth?
This is what he said: "Prostitutes are better than government officials; at least they take money and do their work and also dance on the stage. But officials, even after taking money, don't do their work. There is no guarantee that the work will be done."
If you cuss out the government officials who fatten themselves up with ill-gotten money and then insult the common man, that's a good thing. Of course if the MLA's words are genuine. If he's eager to jump into the bed with the corrupt babu later, as most of his tribe would do any given day, that's a different matter altogether.
However, what gives him the right to vituperate and insult the prostitutes? Why should the prostitutes be treated as the worst imaginable personification of vice? Are there really no more vicious people around?
Of course there are. If you are out there measuring virtue, and apportion blame to everyone according to their real actions, prostitutes will not be the ones to land at the bottom of the heap. They are not the worst beings in human form. So no MLA has the right to insult them carte blanche.
Chauvinism and misogyny
On a broader level, Singh just represents the d**k-headed strain of male chauvinism and utter misogyny. A sort of patriarchal dismissal of the vulnerable people as mere dregs. It's clear that Singh doesn't view prostitutes as individuals. For him, they are primarily women, and then social outcasts.
Singh should know that prostitutes are part of society. If they are bad indeed, they are, at least, NOT worse than the politicians and bureaucrats who leech on the people. Politicians, bureaucrats and prostitutes are all the product of this society. Some are good, some are bad. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.
More than that, while almost all prostitutes are the victims of a patriarchal society, few politicians are pushed into a 'dirty' profession against their wishes. They rush in even as angels fear to tread. They beg, loot and kill to reach where they reach. It's a pity that they invoke the 'night's angles' when they want a dirty metaphor.
If only the phallic-centred judgment of women, and an ignorant display of toxic masculinity, stopped!
(Opinions are personal)
