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Don't shame item girls: Bharat, our country is named after an item girl's grandson

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Renuka Narayanan
Renuka NarayananDec 04, 2014 | 11:08

Don't shame item girls: Bharat, our country is named after an item girl's grandson

Bah, what a reek of rancid ghee today in Bharatvarsh of once-upon-a-time "malayaja-sheetalam" ("cool winds of delight", in Vande Mataram). Another foul gust just blew our way from Navin Tyagi, general secretary of the UP unit of the Hindu Mahasabha, the nationalist organisation that once had adherents like Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, founder of Banares Hindu University.

Navin Tyagi, who does not sound like he paid attention to the nolej in kolej, wants to brand under-clad actresses who dance item numbers “prostitutes”. He also wants a khap-style ban on skirts, jeans and mobile phones for schoolgirls.

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This self-declared authority on Indian culture, manners and morals (for women) reportedly said: “The girls who perform item numbers in films and remove clothes should be declared prostitutes. We feel the women who earn money by indulging in obscenity are prostitutes. They are spreading filth in society”. He apparently plans to take the matter to the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the very law he plans to supplicate has taken a dim view of Akil Malik (who sounds like Tyagi’s blood-brother lost in childhood at the mela) for slapping actress Gauahar Khan. And why did he do that? When he slapped Gauahar, he told her it was because she, a Muslim woman, was dancing in “short dress”. And when the police took him away, he told them that it was because he was attracted to Gauahar, whom he saw dancing in public that he slapped her - for dancing in public.

Well, I have something to say meanwhile to this crypto-Wahabi, Tyagi, who’s trying to call the shots for women in India and I hope he falls off his buffalo hearing it.

Our country, "Bharat", is named after the valiant king Bharata of myth, right? So, get this, Tyagi and all Ram Sainiks and Rahim Sainiks: King Bharata’s granny, our Desh ki nani, no less, was an item girl, the apsara Menaka. Our country is named after an item girl’s grandson... and his mother, Shakuntala, was technically illegitimate.

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It’s never bothered me because I’m a Hindu, not a crypto-Wahabi. Consequently, I’m proud of these vivid and fascinating heroes and heroines of our myth and legend and do not think judgmentally of modern women who dance for a living.

But if crypto-Wahabis are trying to turn Bharatvarsh into a fiefdom of ISIS or the Taliban, it's time they're reminded of such facts.

Perhaps the BJP is learning from how that "sadhvi" of theirs just united the Opposition with her uncultured rant on "Ramzadas".

Certainly, Swami Chakrapani, national secretary of the Hindu Mahasabha and Lalitha Kumaramangalam, newly-appointed chair of the National Commission for Women (NCW) did not hand out a swarna-kamal to Tyagi. Even BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra reportedly distanced himself from this caballero and said the party was “…proud to have a culture where women have led from the front.”  

We’ll see what the BJP actually does to curb its Tyagis and bogeys.

As for us, let’s remember how, at the stroke of the midnight on August 15, 1947, when India finally attained "her" freedom from slavery, it was Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya’s son, Govind Malaviya, who reportedly blew the conch thrice to announce India’s Independence.

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January 26 will soon be upon us. The women of India, and their supporters, should blow a loud raspberry that day at the hostile "men" of India, these Ram-Rahim Sainiks, who are united in being horrible to Indian women, if nothing else.

Last updated: December 04, 2014 | 11:08
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