"Change your mentality before changing our clothes. Because the only thing shocking here is the message comments like this send to society," said the model Navya Naveli Nanda.
"Ripped jeans, Ripped genes," said another, sharing a photo of a woman in torn denim alongside a photograph of the controversial right-wing Hindu paramilitary group the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which has been accused of inciting religious violence and to which Rawat used to belong.
Many pointed out that politicians like Rawat should be using their platform to protect Indian women at a policy level, rather than criticising their clothing choices.
"Rapes happen not because women wear short clothes but because men like Tirath Singh Rawat propagate misogyny and fail to do their duty," said Swati Maliwal, the head of the Delhi Commission for Women.
Others pointed out that men show their knees regularly, with senior party leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra sharing older photographs of PM Modi and one of his Cabinet colleagues in shorts with the caption: "Oh my God!!! Their knees are showing."
India was voted as the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman in a Thomson Reuters poll in 2018 and while reliable data on physical attacks is unavailable, one former Minister for Women said around 70 per cent of its female population are victims.
On Saturday, as anger grew over Rawat's comments, women belonging to the opposition Congress Party held a protest in New Delhi holding placards that read "don't judge women by their clothes".
After initially apologising for his comments, Rawat has since repeated that wearing ripped jeans is "not right" and that covering a hole in your clothing would demonstrate discipline and values.
