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After Twitter Backlash Over Her Fat-Shaming Tweet, Shobhaa De Now Has New Advice For The Police

Not heard of body positivity, have you?
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After facing backlash on Twitter for a tweet that poked fun at a policeman deployed on the day of BMC polls, columnist Shobhaa De on Wednesday tried a peace-offering of sorts, saying she did not mean any harm.

It was not much of an apology as she went on to advice the Madhya Pradesh police to get a dietician. This after she was pointed out that the photo of the cop that she had tweeted about was not from the Mumbai police, but was from Madhya Pradesh.

On Tuesday, De had tweeted:

The Mumbai police, in a clever retort, had told her off saying better things were expected from responsible citizens like her.

While Shobhaa De has been known for her off-the-cuff remarks about celebrities and commoners alike, the latest reaction to the backlash shows that she has a skewed perception of other people's bodies.

Her pun on obesity clearly rubbed the police the wrong way, but this isn't the first time De was slammed for bodyshaming someone.

De was severely criticised when she had, in her column, suggested that the Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton did not have the body to carry a saree. This was in January 2016, when Middleton was on a tour of India.

De had said, "Khair, let's count our blessings, ji. Kate has skipped wearing a saree. Her waist is perfect for crinoline ball gowns from "Gone with the Wind". But a saree needs curves. A saree demands a derriere. Kate has none. Thank God, some misguided fashion guru has spared her and us so far."

What De says is exactly what women all over the world are fighting against -- the idea that only certain body types are acceptable as the high standard for beauty and the rest need to either lose weight or gain weight to fit in.

Although it's true that a certain level of fitness is expected from the men in security forces, De's careless fat-shaming is not expected to serve any real purpose. And people have called her out for the tweet that was supposed to be an apology:

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.