I have been observing some people take great pleasure in calling Scindia a creep for touching a female student while speaking to her in a group.
I won’t go into details on this, but just no. What he’s doing is perfectly normal. I like it in fact that he is talking to the students and reassuring them. That touch is neither creepy nor crossing a line. It is something RaGa would have done too. Come on, folks. Heck, I would do that, and so would any empathetic, cultured, educated person. Also, Scindia would probably be doing it to others, just not all are being captured on camera. He is being a concerned and caring authority figure and that is actually good to see rather than the previous video showing his highhandedness and pompous behaviour. I prefer this Scindia. So, in my opinion, he was not ‘touching her’ like the recent nudge-nudge-wink-wink insinuations are buzzing about on liberal Twitter or FB.
Honestly, people. Is there not enough already for you to criticise that you have to go looking for imagined shit?
The government may have messed up the initial days of the war, but its response diplomatically and on the ground has been quite satisfactory since. The outreach, the backroom talks, the buses and planes being arranged, the ministers supervising it personally is not just good optics (that you can expect from this government) but good work. There have been points earlier on when they dropped the ball (the confusing directions and advisories by the Embassy, the delay in coordinating with Russians, and so on), and points when the politicians went overboard with enthusiasm (the political slogans, the friction with locals, the credit taking, and so on), but I think they have corrected themselves after the initial stumbles and are doing quite well, under the circumstances.
There are a million things wrong with the government that are fair game to call out and expose. This is not one of them. You’re wasting your time.
Give the man (and the government) a break. A pompous prick he may be. Creep he isn’t. Or at least doesn’t seem to be to me.
P.S: Here’s a prediction: If RaGa or anyone non-RW were to be seen doing that and the RW folks would have raised a stink, I would bet the liberal response would have been that ‘these people are so regressive that sex is all they think of because they’ve never really had women as friends or interacted normally with the opposite sex and all touch is sexual and filled with innuendo to these frustrated incels, chhee.’ I bet that would have been our response.
P.P.S: I understand that this is a grey area and only the person being touched can have the final word on what it was. From what I have seen in another video (identity not 100% verified though), she is quite outspoken and not afraid of anyone. I also understand that as a man, I am not in the ideal position to evaluate whether it was innocent or inappropriate. That said, I’ll repeat: There are other things to talk of, call out, expose, and raise when it comes to this government, even within the confines of the subject of women’s safety and consent. This is the least of it. By focussing on this, we are reducing the more important issues we need to raise.
Later addition: Below is him touching another student, a male this time, in a similar way. Forget what he is saying about the PM and all that jazz. That’s optics. Check out his style of speaking with empathy and care, and his touch. Then, make up your mind. What he did has to be seen within the cultural context too. In my opinion, at best, this is perhaps awkwardly expressed empathy, and at worst, a patronising attitude that we have imbibed from childhood about ‘elders’ and people in authority. But sexual? I think we should ask the girl before jumping off the cliff for her.
