Gender Politics, Operation Sindoor: InSAF India Stands with Dr. Madri Kakoti, Neha Singh Rathore, and Shamita Yadav
InSAF India stands in solidarity with Dr. Madri Kakoti, Neha Singh Rathore, and Shamita Yadav, who are now facing FIRs and legal harassment for their critical public commentary in the wake of the Pahalgam attack. We condemn these charges – purportedly for “inciting unrest” and “threatening national unity” – as more politically motivated attacks on dissent. Dr. Kakoti (a linguistic scholar who writes as “Dr. Medusa”) and folk singer Rathore are being subjected to criminal investigations merely for questioning the official narrative of the attack. Similarly, political satirist, Shamita Yadav (“The Ranting Gola”), has been accused of “anti-India propaganda” because her video critiquing the government’s response was reposted in Pakistan. These retaliatory FIRs are another alarming escalation of politically motivated suppression of free speech under the guise of nationalism.
The targeting of Kakoti, Rathore, and Yadav in the aftermath of ‘Operation Sindoor’ seems especially pernicious when looked at from a feminist lens. The current regime’s Hindutva politics actively instrumentalizes gender to bolster a hyper-nationalist retaliatory military response to the Pahalgam massacre. Sindoor – the vermilion mark worn by married Hindu women is symbolically (and theatrically) mobilised to rally public support for a militarist chauvinism. As Poonam Singh writes:
“A robust feminist politics that resolutely says no to this war remains the need of the hour. At the same time, such a rejection of war-mongering, that predicates itself both on Islamophobia and a deeply problematic patriarchal politics, must stand on a larger rejection of the sindoor symbolism and politics in everyday life. Yet, embracing such a feminist politics right now, is to risk being called an ‘anti-national’” (groundxero).
In an ideological current where women are idealized as martyrs, mothers, or wives of the nation—never as independent political actors—any woman who steps outside this prescribed role becomes a target. The persecution of Kakoti, Rathore, and Yadav thus fits a pattern: in their persecution, the state reinforces its chilling message that dissent – especially women’s dissent – will be crushed in the name of protecting the nation’s “honor.”
InSAF India emphatically rejects this toxic mix of authoritarianism and misogyny. We stand with Dr. Madri Kakoti, Neha Singh Rathore, and Shamita Yadav in their exercising of the constitutional right to free expression. We demand that all frivolous cases against them be dropped immediately and that the harassment of independent women commentators be checked. In this fraught moment, defending the freedom to criticize is not just about standing with these women – it is about safeguarding India’s crumbling commitment to pluralism, gender equality, dissensus, and democratic debate.
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