Agencies of women should be empowered without demeaning men: Smriti Irani

Smriti Irani claimed that India was the only country in the world to deliver the ration to 800 million people for a period 2.5 years.

Union minister Smriti Irani on Monday said that there were certain narratives and a projected fear among the Western countries that vaccination would have been prejudiced from a gender point of view in India during the Covid pandemic.

Smriti Irani at HT G-20 agenda summit (HT )

Addressing the topic of ‘women-led development’ - a key agenda item at the G20 Summit - during an event organized by Hindustan Times, the women and child development minister said that six million women led the pandemic effort in the entire country to bring people to medical care during the lockdown.

When asked whether the women's development was affected by the pandemic, she said, "When the lockdown was announced, there was word from New York that 80% of women in India will get beaten up in their homes."

"When I called up and said why did you say, he replied, we think that in India, women are locked up in their families, husbands tend to be very violent in India, and partner crime is very high," she added.

Irani further said when she asked for proof of these claims, they didn't provide any empirical evidence and said it was a projected fear. She also said that there are many narratives that are internationalised while not taking into consideration of the true nature of what has happened.

Emphasising women's contribution towards humanity during the pandemic, Irani said that six million women in India went from one house to another collecting samples, delivering pharmaceuticals, checking on women who were in active pregnancies, and ensuring delivery of rations at the doorstep of children as aganwadis were shut due to pandemic.

She claimed that India was the only country in the world to deliver the ration to 800 million people for a period of 2.5 years.

She further said that men and women both get disenfranchised in challenging times, so the agencies of women should be empowered without demeaning men and that would be true gender justice.

Read here: ‘Language of tech, AI’: Smriti Irani on barriers to women on digital divide

While praising the works of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the union minister said that there is a man in this country who ensures that women should get sanitary pad at Re 1, prioritise building toilets for women, which she claimed was not even on the agenda of any political party, and ensures that medical termination of pregnancy at 24 weeks as a bill got passed in the parliament.

Irani concluded that she is proud of her country where not a single man, whether political or apolitical, spoke against the reproductive rights of women.