When Rekha Sharma joined the National Commission for Women as a member in 2015, she was winding up a political role as the BJP’s state media in-charge in Haryana. As she wraps up her tenure at the commission this month, she is leaving behind a similar legacy.
Sharma’s nine-year stint at the commission, including over six years as its chairperson, has been criticised by opposition leaders, civil society, and even former NCW colleagues for her perceived silence on women’s issues in the BJP-governed states and her vocal stance on right-wing theories such as “love jihad”. On scanning through the NCW’s tweets and news articles, Newslaundry found that in 2023 and 2024, eight out of 10 of her visits to investigate crimes against women were incidentally to states governed by the opposition parties. This data is not exhaustive, but some of the incidents in BJP-governed states for which Sharma did not hit the ground include the alleged rape of over 150 women in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur in June and the protest last year by women wrestlers, primarily from Haryana, over alleged sexual harassment by BJP leader Brij Bhushan Singh.
Notably, unlike central agencies, the NCW is a statutory body and does not need the consent of state governments before investigating a crime. It also advises the centre on women-related policy matters, while its chairperson enjoys the perks of a cabinet secretary.
But Sharma’s purported lopsided conduct was unsurprising for many. Before shifting base to Delhi, she lived in Chandigarh and ran her own event management company and an NGO for rural women in Haryana. Her father was closely associated with the RSS and VHP, which may have eventually paved her way to the BJP. A 2015 Times of India report quoted her as saying that she had “worked closely” with Modi between 1996 and 1998, before he became the Gujarat Chief Minister.
By 2021, Sharma had served the maximum allowable two terms at the NCW – from 2015 to 2018 as a member and from 2018 to 2021 as the chairperson. However, this rule was amended days before Sharma’s second tenure would end in August 2021, as per documents accessed by the Reporters Collective.
At a press conference announcing the end of her NCW stint on August 6, Sharma described her time in office as “a roller coaster ride”.
Here are some notable incidents that characterised her tenure.
Prajwal Revanna case
“Has she [Sharma] forgotten her statutory powers? Has she forgotten that she can have no stakes in political parties?” asked two of Sharma’s former NCW colleagues, Padma Seth and Syeda Hameed, in an op-ed in the Indian Express in May about how she “has failed the victims”.
The trigger for this unprecedented move was the NCW’s silence over the mounting sexual abuse allegations against Prajwal Revanna, a leader of the Janata Dal Secular, which is an ally of the BJP.
For days after the allegations made headlines on April 25, the NCW did not issue any statement or order a probe. On May 1, it asked the police commission for a report in the matter – much after the state government had set up an SIT on April 27.
A few days later, the NCW also released a statement claiming that a woman had approached them, saying she was under pressure to file a complaint against Revanna. The statement did not mention the three women who had lodged complainants. It said that no other victims had approached them.
Seth and Hameed accused Sharma of appearing to “succumb to political pressure,” adding that she should not be a “mouthpiece for the powerful”. They said that Sharma had no business being in the chair if she did not understand her role at the commission.
Manipur silence
In June last year, a video of two Kuki women being paraded naked by a mob in Manipur went viral on social media. However, the video surfaced online only over a month after the incident took place. Newslaundry had then reported that 38 days before the video made it to social media, the NCW had ignored a complaint linked to the incident.
The complaint had been sent through an email to several NCW members, including Sharma. It urged the commission to “urgently assess the disproportionate victimisation of Kuki-Zomi indigenous tribal women through brutal and inhumane acts of sexual violence, including rape, kidnapping, public lynching, immolation and murder”.
The complainant did not receive a response.
But soon after Newslaundry’s report, Sharma claimed that she had written three letters to authorities in Manipur and did not hear back.
Maharashtra 2020, ‘love jihad’ cases
In October 2020, Sharma paid a visit to Maharashtra governor BS Koshiyari to speak about issues related to women’s safety, including the “rise in love jihad cases”.
The statement led to a massive backlash on social media. While some called her a “misogynist”, several others referred to her as “bigoted”.
Subsequently, many of her old and controversial tweets resurfaced, including one where she called Modi “deaf and dumb” and another in which claimed that Sonia Gandhi belonged to a mental institute. Sharma soon made her account private, but not before a tweet that claimed her account was hacked.
Hathras ‘rape and murder’ case
Weeks after the Hathras “rape and murder” case came to light, a statement was issued by a host of organisations, saying they were witnessing “the slow death of women’s commissions”.
The signatories of the statements included the Guild For Service, War Widows Association, Women’s Initiative for Peace in South Asia, Muslim Women’s Forum, Indian Council of Management and Future, and Indian Trust for Innovation and Social Change. It also included former NCW chairpersons and members.
The statement further said that the NCW’s action or the lack of it proved a point, and that its response was “measured” and from the comfort of their official houses.
Eventually, the NCW did spring into action, including condemning BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya for sharing a video of the victim. It also condemned the manner in which the victim was cremated.
Spanish woman ‘gangrape’ and misogyny
A spanish woman was allegedly gangraped in Jharkhand in March this year, while she was travelling with her husband. In a video that has garnered 212.2 million views on twitter, she narrated the incident and drew reactions from several from across the globe, including from American journalist David Volodzyko.
The journalist shared his own experience in India, and said that the “level of sexual aggression” in the country was unlike anywhere else. Sharma then did not ask for a probe in the matter but demanded that Volodzyko delete his tweet.
Sharma said it was in poor taste for him to “vilify an entire country” and that his tweet was unacceptable. She said that “data [on crime] speaks otherwise” but did not provide any corresponding data.
This drew widespread criticism across social media platforms, with many pointing to her misogyny, disguised as nationalism. Others questioned why Sharma was more concerned about the perception of the country and not the ground reality.
Newslaundry reached out to Sharma over the allegations of her alleged partisan conduct as the NCW chief. This report will be updated on receiving her response.
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Update at 1:25 pm on August 9: This report has been updated with additional details on Sharma’s tenure.
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