Mahesh Sharma: Never 'skirts' a controversy; here are other samples

Union Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma recently advised female tourists, especially foreigners, not to wear short skirts while roaming around Agra city during the evenings.

However, after a journalist sought Sharma's justification, the latter retracted or amended his view by saying that the suggestion was made with regard to visits to religious places.

"Cultural state"

The foot in mouth disease has plagued Sharma on and off, and Saturday's comments seem to indicate a relapse.  

According to reports, he said: "When visitors land at the airport, they will be provided with a welcome kit. The kit contains a card, a pamphlet which describes do's and dont's. Where it will ask the visitors not to travel at night, ask them not to wear skirts."

"In that kit, there is a pamphlet which says that India is a cultural state where apparels change with respect to religious places like temples and asks the visitors to mind their dress codes," he added.

He also asked visitors to take a photograph of every vehicle's number plate as a precautionary measure while travelling.

Dissonance

What is worrisome though, is that his remarks seem to be in dissonance with the Tourism Ministry's outreach to foreign tourists and investments in the sector. 

Even as Sharma was busy giving his suggestion to tourists, the Union Tourism Ministry was organising a roadshow in Shanghai over the weekend. The intended goal was to attract Chinese tourists to India and Chinese investments in the sector. 

BJP's enfant terrible

Sharma, who holds Prime Minister Narendra Modi to be India's "biggest tourism ambassador", likes to shoot from the hip from all appearances.

From former President APJ Abdul Kalam's nationalism to a woman's place being in the kitchen, Sharma believes it to be in his purview to make comments and issue diktats on a plethora of issues.

Here are the Union minister's other remarks: 

1) In September last year, Sharma, according to The Indian Express, had said that former President APJ Abdul Kalam was a “great man” and a “nationalist and a humanist”, “despite being a Muslim”.

2) Days before his remarks on Kalam, Sharma had vowed to rid India of "cultural pollution". 

According to The Telegraph, during a meeting with leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, in September last year, Sharma had said: "We will cleanse every area of public discourse that has been westernised and where Indian culture and civilisation need to be restored  be it the history we read or our cultural heritage or our institutes that have been polluted over years."

3) September proved to be the breakout month for Sharma.

According to The Times of India, while speaking to a TV channel, Sharma had said: "Girls wanting a night out may be all right elsewhere but it is not part of Indian culture."

4) In an interview with India Today Television, the Union minister said that while he respected the Bible and the Quran, they were "not central to the soul of India in the way as Gita and Ramayana were".

This particular case also occurred in September. Sharma had been speaking in the context of curriculum for schools in the country. He had pitched for making Indian epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and scriptures from the Gita a compulsory part of the syllabus for school-going children.   

5) Of course, he did not stop there. In the same interview he went on to criticise what he viewed as "Western culture" and pitched what might be called an atavistic notion of what Indian culture should be like. This time too, his aim was women and their role in society, or the kitchen to be exact.

"Culture defines a nation. The time has come to win back our culture from the negative influence of Western culture," he said, adding, "In our culture women of three generations cook food in the same kitchen... in Europe, a 16-year-old leaves home."

While Sharma's preoccupation with safeguarding what he views to be Indian culture continues, the the Ministry of Culture has found itself in a tough spot in terms of staff shortages. 

According to the Sharma himself, over 5,000 posts are lying vacant in 45 organisations, including Archaeological Survey of India, under the Ministry of Culture. The vacancies are leading to difficulties in ensuring the security, conservation and preservation of historical monuments in the country.

"These vacancies have occurred over the years and we have taken a number of steps, including appointing people on contractual basis, to fill the vacant posts," Sharma had said earlier this month during the Question Hour in Lok Sabha.