DEHRADUN: In the eye of a storm for the past three days after your comments on what women should wear, Uttarakhand chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat He finally sought to explain his statements on Friday. He said that he “is not against jeans, but just ripped jeans.”
He added: “I am not against people wearing clothes of their choice. I also have a daughter. But while clothing is an individual choice, people must respect their culture and traditions … We have examples like Rani Laxmi Bai, who fought battles in a sari. ”
On Tuesday, Rawat had associated ripped jeans with social collapse and expressed “shock” by a “mother” wearing frayed denim. For two days since then, protests continued to roar both on the ground and online, with #RippedJeans and #RippedJeansTwitter trending and sweeping Twitter with more than 1 lakh of mentions on Thursday.
On Friday, he said there was a context for what he had said: “The statement was made as a father. The event where I said that was about women and children. I said that since a student is in school for five to six hours and spends most of the time at home, traditions and values can best be instilled at home. ”
However, he also maintained his objections. “As children, when our pants were torn, we would put a patch over the tear so that the teacher wouldn’t scold us at school. Now children deliberately cut their pants with scissors, which should not happen, ”he added, reiterating what he had said Tuesday at the Uttarakhand State Commission for the Protection of Children’s Rights workshop on substance abuse. .
As backlash mounted, the prime minister’s wife, Rashmi Tyagi Rawat, came to her husband’s defense. “The statement has been twisted to paint the entire episode in the wrong color,” he told TOI. “He is a very progressive man. It was because of his focus that I excelled in my career. ”
Rashmi Rawat, who teaches at DAV PG College in Dehradun, said there are many “positive things” she has already done for the state and that this is a “conspiracy” to distract. He added that his statements were intended to impart wisdom about culture. “The CM was telling the children about our culture and tradition to motivate them and take pride in their Indian identity. He just gave an example and it was over the top. ”
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