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Speak head of state, not president

Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has created a storm by uttering the word ‘national wife’ instead of the President. He had spoken this word yesterday somewhere outside the Parliament. Many local BJP leaders and workers are protesting at different places in the country, saying that this is an insult to the new President Draupadi Murmu. He will not tolerate this. The proceedings of Parliament have also come to a standstill on this issue.

BJP ministers and MPs are urging that Adhir Ranjan apologize in Parliament. Adhir Ranjan says why should he apologize to BJP workers? Congress President Sonia Gandhi said that she has already apologized to the President. He is sorry to have slipped his tongue. She is Bengali. They do not know Hindi properly. This argument is weak. Can a Bengali say that he does not know the difference between the words husband and wife? By the way, Adhir Ranjan is already known for making such mistakes.

He once gave the analogy of ‘Gandi Naali’ to Narendra Modi. He had described Kashmir as the only geographical part of India. He even called Jagdeep Dhankhar, the Governor of Bengal, ‘mad’. It is expected that this anger-show of BJP will make them from Adhir Ranjan to Sudhir Ranjan now. But this controversy has put a finger on an old ache of mine.

Fifty years ago I used to think that if a woman rises to this highest position of our country, will we call her the ‘President’? Then I thought that some alternative to this word should be found or else a very ridiculous situation would arise. Then the alternative word that came to my mind was- Head of State! If a woman is elected to this post, we can easily call her ‘Head of State’.

But our country is a slave of the English. In that the word ‘President’ can be used for any woman or man or both, then the Hindi translation of ‘President’ of English ‘President’ can also be imposed on both. In my opinion this is wrong. Are we not insulting the women’s society of India by calling the word ‘national wife’ objectionable?

But the proper solution to this question is that we should not get caught in the quagmire of husband and wife and instead of President and wife, we should use the words Head of State and Head of State. The same usage can be for the Speakers and Speakers of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, though the word husband is not such that it should be used only as an antonym of wife.

Shubham Bangwal

Shubham Bangwal is a Senior Journalist at Youthistaan.com You can follow him on Twitter @sb_0fficial
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