ARTICLE AD BOX
An Indian lawmaker has been criticised for blaming women survivors of the deadly Kashmir terror attack for not fighting back against the armed gunmen to save the lives of the men who were killed.
Ram Chander Jangra, a member of Rajya Sabha, or the upper house of Indian parliament, from prime minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was speaking at a public gathering in the northern Indian state of Haryana on Saturday when he accused the widows of lacking the spirit of a warrior.
He was referring to the attack on a popular tourist site in Kashmir’s Pahalgam on 22 April which killed at least 26 men, most of them Hindu tourists.
According to the survivors and the witnesses of the attack which pushed India and Pakistan to a near-war situation, the armed gunmen approached the male tourists – several of them on honeymoon – and shot them dead.
The witnesses said the attack was carried out by four to six gunmen in military fatigues who emerged from a nearby forest and unleashed a barrage of gunfire from close range.
“The brave women we had there, whose sindoor (vermillion powder many women wear on their forehead and hair parting to indicate marital status) was snatched away – they lacked the spirit of a warrior woman, lacked passion, emotion, heart, and so, with folded hands, they became victims of bullets,” Mr Jangra said in Hindi language while addressing a crowd in Bhiwani.
He said the casualties would have been lower if the women had fought back. “They should have absolutely fought back. If they had, there would have been fewer deaths and fewer people martyred. Who spares anyone just because they fold their hands? They had come to kill… they were terrorists. There was no mercy in their hearts,” the lawmaker said.
The lawmaker also said the casualties would have been lower in the attack if the tourists would have received India’s latest flagship military training under the tour of duty style Agniveer scheme. “Had our tourists passed the training, the three terrorists could not have killed 26 people,” he said.
Mr Jangra has been widely condemned by the Indian opposition for putting the blame on women who were victims of one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Kashmir.
“The shameful statement of BJP Rajya Sabha MP Ramchandra Jangra has once again exposed the petty mentality of RSS-BJP,” said Mallikarjun Kharge, the president of India’s main opposition party Congress, referring to the ideological organisation of BJP.
“Even when the wife of the naval officer martyred in Pahalgam was being trolled on social media, Modi ji was silent,” Mr Kharge said. He was referring to Navy officer Vinay Narwal who was on his honeymoon in the picturesque Indian federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir when he was shot dead in front of his wife by militants in one of the worst attacks on tourists in the Himalayan region in decades. His wife, Himanshi Narwal, was targeted in a online hate campaign after she called for peace. "People going against Muslims or Kashmiris – we don't want this. We want peace and only peace," she said. It led to a hate campaign by Internet trolls accusing her of dishonouring her late husband's memory.
Mr Kharge added: “There is a competition among BJP leaders to malign the victims of Pahalgam and our brave army.”
He also called for the lawmaker’s sacking. “You say you have sindoor in your veins … If this is so, then you should dismiss these foul-mouthed leaders of yours for the sake of respect of women,” he said in a direct appeal to Mr Modi, who said at an election rally the vermillion powder “ran in veins”, referring to the military operation named Sindoor to hit back at terrorist camps in Pakistan.
Another Indian opposition party, the All India Trinamool Congress, also condemned the statement calling the remarks by Mr Jangra “vile and inhuman”.
The BJP has “mastered the art of degrading women”, the AITC said. “Misogyny isn’t a bug in their ideology, it’s the core. And PM @narendramodi dares to talk about Naari Samman (women respect)? Spare us the hypocrisy. Women are NOT your vote bank slogans,” the party said in a statement.
The backlash comes days after an Indian lawmaker faced criticism for making offensive remarks against a Muslim army spokesperson in the aftermath of the conflict with Pakistan, with opposition leaders calling for his apology and resignation.
In a public speech earlier this month, Vijay Shah, also a member of the BJP, suggested that Colonel Sofiya Qureshi, who addressed the media on India-Pakistan air strikes, was from the “community of people” who had attacked India.
English (US) ·