Women Seated In Front Row, Swami Leaves Without Delivering Speech

In a yet another case of discrimination against women, a motivational guru left a program after seeing women audience seated in the front row. The incident took place during the last day of Raj Medicon 2019 held in Jaipur, which was organised by The Indian Medical Association (IMA) and All Rajasthan In Service Doctors Association (ARISDA).

Swami Gyanvatsalya who was there to give a speech had asked the organising committee to not allow women to be seated in the first three rows during the program. When the lady doctors came to know about this, they started protesting against it.

Swami Gyanvatsalya who was there to give a speech had asked the organising committee to not allow women to be seated in the first three rows during the program. When the lady doctors came to know about this, which in fact was a condition put down by the motivational guru, they started protesting against it. Not only this but some other doctors also joined in and decided to boycott Swami's speech. The issue was then resolved by mutual consent between the organising committee and the doctors that the first two rows will remain vacant.

The event was organised at Birla Auditorium in Jaipur. However, when Swami came to deliver his speech and saw women seated in the front row, he just walked away without delivering his speech. Also, earlier when he arrived at the backstage, he had asked the organisers to announce that no woman should be sitting in the front three rows during the program. Dr Ritu Chaudhary, one among the other doctors present there, told Zee media, that some female doctors were sitting in the front row. Also, there were many other women sitting in the first three rows. All of them were waiting for the motivational guru to deliver his speech, but suddenly, there was an announcement that no women should be seated in the first seven rows. Then again it was announced that no female should sit in the first three rows. When the female doctors asked the reason behind this confusion, they were told that this was a condition put by Swami Gyanvatsal. Though the female doctors were stunned by this protocol, they were ready to follow it since the speech of the Swami is considered to be good. However, even after agreeing to his demands, he decided to leave the venue without delivering his speech.

“These kinds of misogynist dictates shouldn't be allowed to mediate in science and medicine and every other thing."            - Kavita Krishnan

Meanwhile, a senior ARISDA official Dr Ajay Chaudhary has said that Swami Gyanvatsal left because of the presence of women in the front rows. Kavita Krishnan, Secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association, a member of the politburo of the Communist Party of India, and the editor of its monthly publication, Liberation, says, “These kinds of misogynist dictates shouldn't be allowed to mediate in science and medicine and every other thing. In fact, I would say that someone should tell them that if they want to remain in the 19th century, they are free to do so but don't drag women there. They do not get to reflect their patriarchal views today and so they try to import them to medicine and science and every other thing.”

Photo by Peter Hershey on Unsplash

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