Sexist statements in Indian politics are like the monsoon floods in Mumbai. They wreak havoc with alarming predictability, evoke angered reactions from a host of people on primetime television, and despite knowing better they peter out with us hoping that given the vicious public reaction they won’t happen again.

In the past month, three senior politicians have been hung out to dry by the Indian media over the horrendously cringe-worthy statements they made about women. Om Prakash Chautala thinks younger brides don’t get raped, Dharamvir Goyat believes that rapes can somehow be consensual in the first place and Sriprakash Jaiswal finds that wives become less charming by the time the seventh or eighth anniversary rolls around.

Given that the reactions on news channels and in the papers were so vicious, what gives these “leaders” the gall to make statements that are so incredibly offensive? Is it that they don’t know better? Nah, that’s too simplistic an explanation for the actions of those who are seasoned politicians and know very well the impact and penalties of misspoken words. I think this brazenness arises from a sense of impunity. From knowing that a misogynic statement is ultimately not going to have an electoral retribution. This is why, no matter how well Ravish Kumar, Ranjana Kumari and Jagmati Sangwan cornered Ajay Chautala over his party’s refusal to renounce Khaps (NDTV India, October 11, 2012) and lambasted a Khap representative for advocating that girls get married at 15, it isn’t going to alter the levels of sexism in our public discourse.

While this by no means implies that reactions on panel debates amount to nothing but impotent anger, the fact that we are treated to repeat performances of the same does point to the fact there is something missing in the content of news media-aided condemnation. Here’s what it is. The offence has been made by the political class and therefore the retaliation needs to come from within it. The media can, at best, give vent to anger. It can’t compel elected representatives to behave with sensitivity unless they are rebuffed by their counterparts, who also have the power to make a legal, political and social difference.

The BJP and Congress spokespersons or even a local Haryana politician should have come on TV and unequivocally denounced the Khaps for the extra-legal bodies that they are while calling out the ludicrousness of the medieval claptrap spewed by their colleagues. Instead, we are treated to a spectacle of Chautala’s sons feebly trying to defend and clarify what daddy “actually” meant (India Decides @ 9, NDTV 24X7, Oct 10, 2012 and Prime Time on NDTV India). While there was that rare occasion where both Meenakshi Lekhi and Mani Shankar Aiyer agreed on something and denounced Sriprakash Jaiswal’s statement (Face The Nation, CNN-IBN, Oct 3, 2012) it was more an exercise in distancing their parties from it than a sincere condemnation. Let us also face the fact that though Jaiswal’s statement may have been crass it ultimately only showed bad taste. What Chautala and Goyat said has the potential to do a lot more harm because it smacks of a leadership whose attitudes will do nothing to improve the law and order situation for women in their states.

And yet, someone like a Chautala will go unchallenged because taking him on by extension means taking on the Khaps. It’s a vicious cycle. Politicians say inane stuff because there are no consequences, there are no consequences because women aren’t a constituency and women aren’t a constituency because there isn’t a single politician/political party who has identified gender equity as a core election issue.

The media then, is just a channel of communication between the rulers and the ruled as well as a tool with which to apply public pressure. It cannot be expected to bring about change in the way the fairer sex is talked about in public life by itself unless there is the political will to do so. There are enough examples to show that as a channel of communication, it has lived up to its mandate. Namita Bhandare has written two excellent columns in the Hindustan Times deploring the association of rape with false constructs such as honour while scalping the political class for its opportunism. Madhu Kishwar does a brilliant job of female advocacy every time she’s on TV, and the October 15, 2012 Delhi Edition of The Hindu has devoted a large chunk of its editorial and op-ed space to sexism in politics.

All of these examples are of those who speak for the ruled. In other countries, the media has been used with clinical efficiency to speak to them. Last week, the Australian prime minister lanced the leader of the Opposition for his sexist record in a speech that has gone viral. A remark by Todd Akin in August on “legitimate rapes” not leading to pregnancy brought him under fire from his own party-men and almost cost him his senate race.

It is high time that in India panel debates, press conferences, televised speeches and column spaces be used as fora in which our elected representatives set the rules for what sort of speech is acceptable and what isn’t. Perhaps this will happen only when our votes really do begin to count. I’m sure Captain Planet would forgive my mangling of his catchphrase to say –The power should ideally be ours.

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