Bihar CM Nitish Kumar is in the news today for his vulgar, crude display of hand gestures and bizarre remarks inside the assembly, where he was trying to explain “sex education”, in terms of his deputy CM. While addressing the assembly the Bihar CM, using extremely crass language and with hand gestures, stated, “When men and women get married, the men ‘do it’ every night, especially in winters. If the girl is educated, she will not let him ejaculate inside. She will make him ejaculate outside her body. So eventually the population will come down.”
The CM, smirking at his own assumed smartness, was seen proudly gesticulating to explain his statement. He stood laughing and looking at his fellow assemblymen for support, beaming with pride at his imaginary smartness, he was showing crude finger and hand gestures to ‘explain’ the act of sex and even waiting for laughter after making his so-called joked.
As expected, the men inside Bihar assembly did not disappoint him. Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav was seen roaring with laughter at this statement and gestures. Ironically, Tejashwi Yadav is also the minister for Health and Family Welfare in Bihar. Now we know how serious he must be in his job.
Nitish Kumar’s crude, vulgar and distasteful blabbering is not just a disrespect to the assembly’s honor and a shame on his constitutional post, it is a pathetic display of the very mentality that causes the dismal condition of healthcare in his state and other states across the country. That prurient, ribald callousness mixed with the hubris of power and position that is so common in Indian politicians is the reason why Bihar has been one of the worst states in terms of women’s health and maternal mortality rates, rape crimes, dowry deaths, infant mortality, and women’s overall general suffering.
As on December 2022, Bihar’s performance in terms of maternal mortality rate was worse than the national average. Bihar showed the MMR of 118, much higher than the national average of 97 in terms of maternal mortality per lakh live births.
In 2022, a report by the CAG highlighted that the second tier health infrastructure in Bihar is crumbling. In its sample study of 5 districts including Patna, none of the district hospitals had a functional OT, a functional ICU or a blood bank. The shortfall of beds was at 90% and 60% of patients spent money from their own pocket for prescribed medicines. Diagnostics facilities were nil.
The problems with Nitish Kumar’s statement are not just about impropriety and shamelessness. The whole affair was crass, pathetic and disturbingly problematic at multiple levels.
There are 29 women MLAs in the Bihar assembly. Nitish Kumar’s crude gesticulation and Tejashwi Yadav’s laughter enabling and encouraging that behavior is the proof that the Bihar assembly is not a safe workspace for the 29 women MLAs. Imagine the CM of the state making sexual hand gestures and cracking ribald jokes about women’s private parts and sexual acts at the workplace while other men laugh like maniacs. News stories and the entertainment industry often present stories telling how Bihar is unsafe for women. Bihar CM today displayed why exactly that is the case. The ruling elites of the state have zero respect for women’s safety and health.
Nitish Kumar, despite being the CM of the state for the longest term, throws around casual, ribald remarks about a matter as sensitive as women’s health and birth rates. What the CM essentially meant was “Men will anyway do it, it is the woman’s job to prevent pregnancies”.
The Bihar CM has perhaps not heard of condoms or other methods of birth control, and neither does he care about the sensitive issue of family planning that should ideally involve both partners, keeping in mind their physical and mental well-being. The CM of the state essentially told women of Bihar, “It is your fault if you get pregnant, You could have prevented it by making your man ejaculate outside, because men will ‘do it’ anyway, they need to do it every night”.
How different is that statement from saying ‘it was her fault for getting raped or getting molested’. This shameless disregard for women’s dignity, health, and reproductive health is the reason for so many of our social issues, destroying families, claiming lives, and plaguing generations of Indians year after year.
Nitish Kumar, by his shameful remarks, has put the onus of birth control, pregnancy, and childbirth only on the women, displaying the very attitude that causes horrific maternal mortalities in this country even decades after independence. The very mentality of indifference while millions of women in this country suffer from anemia, risky pregnancies, and subsequent problems all their lives because of lack of proper healthcare around pregnancies and childbirth.
For people like Nitish Kumar and the late Mulayam Yadav, men will be men, they will have unprotected sex every night, they will rape anyone they want and they will be entitled to sex whenever and however they want, it is the woman’s problem what happens after that. It is just entertainment for the man, as per the politicians ruling states.
The casual way the CM of a state passes crude remarks about birth rates and the foolishness of claiming idiotic things like “especially in winters, men will want to ‘do it’ every night”, shows how serious the JDU-RJD government is about women’s health and reproductive health in their state. They laugh it off like shameless illiterates, they giggle about it while the general public of Bihar faces the consequences of their incompetency.
It is indeed a sad state of affairs in Bihar.