Big Picture: Barkha Dutt Rolls Out the Couch for Smriti Irani, Karan Johar Chats, Tharoor Claps Along — Cocktail Feminism, Served Well

✍️ Written by Saket Suman

There was a time when Smriti Irani was the ruling Indian political party, the BJP’s showstopper, a former soap queen turned political slayer who handed Rahul Gandhi a shock defeat in Amethi back in 2019. She was an icon of ambition, grit, and transformation, or so they told her story. But as India’s electoral tide turned last summer, Irani found herself on the wrong end of a quiet political battle. This battle was not led by dynastic clout or prime-time optics but by a man they mocked as a “peon” and that was a fitting departure for her from Amethi.

Image Source: Dr. Nimo Yadav on X

Kishori Lal Sharma didn’t have glamorous titles or PR agencies. He had four decades of ground work, loyalty to the Gandhi family, and, as it turned out, the pulse of Amethi remained in his favour till the very last vote was polled. 

When he promised he would defeat Irani, people laughed. But on result day, it was a complete political obliteration, the annihilation of Irani's showbiz pride. Sharma defeated the sitting Union Minister by a staggering 1.67 lakh votes.

But Irani’s defeat was an accountability verdict because when women across Karnataka were crying out in pain, when one of the biggest political sex abuse scandals broke out last year allegedly implicating Prajwal Revanna in horrifying crimes against dozens of women, Smriti Irani, the then Minister for Women and Child Development, chose silence.

Yes, the same Irani who once thundered in Parliament with tearful monologues about national honour and gender justice. But when the videos surfaced, thousands of them, so disturbing that SIT officers had to sift through the visual horror frame by frame, the minister who should have been front and centre was missing in action.

No press conference. No solidarity. No moral outrage. No visit to Karnataka.

And while officers pored over hours of footage, while women activists begged for justice, while the accused fled the country and victims feared stigma, Irani said nothing.

Not. One. Word.

The silence was deafening. And the people of Amethi heard it loud and clear. Every woman who has ever been humiliated, molested, touched wrongfully, heard her speak loud and clear. The people of Amethi made an example of her.

Fast forward to today — and there she is, back in the spotlight. 

Not in Amethi. Not in Hassan. But in London. Draped in designer smiles at Barkha Dutt’s “We The Women” event, sandwiched between Karan Johar’s brand of Botox-ed wokeness and Tharoor’s Oxford shoutout. Ironically, they spoke about empowerment and resilience and the usual buzzwords that now pass off as feminism.

Let that sink in: the former WCD Minister who didn’t say a word when women in her own country were being exploited on camera is now being celebrated as a “Changemaker” for women. You couldn’t write satire like this.

Backed by the money of the Vedanta Group— yes, that Vedanta — and hosted by a journalist whose own feminism has gone from reportage to red carpets, “We The Women” has now officially become the Davos of Denial. It became a space where serious issues were diluted into TED Talk reels and trauma was just a backdrop for selfies, far removed from the reality of this country they have lost touch with.

A visitor reportedly called it “the most awful thing ever.” Perhaps she was talking about the organisational chaos. But others might argue it’s the moral decay that’s worse, a feminism that claps for Irani in London while forgetting the women of Karnataka still waiting for justice, and the numbers that are mounting everyday with many who will never seek justice, and others for whom it will be perpetually delayed.

Let’s be honest. What Barkha Dutt curated in that echo chamber of elite approval was a eulogy for accountability. And that is the next level rot of the Indian media, where the word "independent" has become fashionable even if you are backed by a heavy corporate cheque book.

The cocktail circuit now runs on curated hashtags and curated feminism. Here you can fail women completely as a minister but be rebranded as an icon with a change in venue and outfit. 

A woman who kept mum during a national crisis was now rewarded for “holding space” and “amplifying voices.” What voice, exactly? Because the only voice Smriti Irani raised in the past year was in congratulating her own friends and posing for the cameras. Meanwhile, the survivors of the Revanna horror are still navigating trauma. The legal process drags on. And the silence from our so-called feminist icons continues.

Shame? That word is too polite.

This is about a system, and this social club, that rewards performance over principle. It is about Barkha Dutt offering platforms to those who failed to speak when it mattered most. It’s about Tharoor clapping along. It’s about Karan Johar nodding on cue. It’s about what happens when feminism becomes a festival pass instead of a political force.

(Saket Suman is the author of The Psychology of a Patriot. Among other roles, he was a Special Correspondent at The Times of India and the head of Arts/Books/Culture verticals of what was India's largest independent newswire.) 

(Views Expressed Are Author's Own and Do Not Reflect The Views of This News Outlet)