Recently, the Indian Parliament has been involved in a controversy surrounding the gender-neutrality of official words. In this case, we are specifically talking about the position of the President - Rashtrapati.
Droupadi Murmu was sworn in as the 15th President of India taking office in July 2022. An inspirational life that has seen her struggle not only against casteism and racism but also against corruption and bureaucracy. She has been through a lot in her life and every citizen of India.
But when a parliamentarian called her Rashtrapatni, it became a big issue. Why? I’m not really sure.
There was a huge uproar, but that only brings to light the lack of gender-neutrality of these parliamentarian terms. For reference, Rashtrapati is a Hindi word that would directly translate to Country Husband.
I know, that sounds really weird.
But it is what it is. And it is on the current generation to not actually try to use those words and be more inclusive. I’m not asking for ground-breaking changes, it is just a gender equality issue. Surely, we can come up with a different word, one that sounds much more gender neutral than Rashtrapati. Especially since we’ve had multiple personalities at the highest levels of Indian government.
Anyways the issue was resolved with a formal apology, not the way I would have preferred. I think India needs to do better in terms of gender neutrality and moving away from the rampant patriarchy. When the first citizen of the country is called a male-pronoun, it is cause for concern.
Ofcourse, the legality of it is that the Rashtrapati - is a gender neutral term. But you ask any Indian and you will realize it is not. Why not just name it Rashtrajan or something - which stands for People of the Nation - that even sounds like a cool nickname or translation.
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