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India Retold: ND TIWARI: MUCH MORE THAN A SEX SCANDAL
- Indians are largely indifferent to this aspect of the demeanour of India's politicians since nothing really damaging about them has ever been revealed by mainstream media. But all that may change now, thanks to a Telugu TV channel, ABN Andhra Jyothi.
ND Tiwari's romps with prostitutes - a thrice a day routine, according to some - in the Raj Bhavan has graphically highlighted that the media has failed to perform an important national duty.
- The standard argument is that what they do in their bedrooms is nobody's business. No one can fault this line about privacy. Indians are largely indifferent to this aspect of the demeanour of India's politicians since nothing really damaging about them has ever been revealed by mainstream media. But all that may change now, thanks to a Telugu TV channel, ABN Andhra Jyothi.
ND Tiwari's romps with prostitutes - a thrice a day routine, according to some - in the Raj Bhavan has graphically highlighted that the media has failed to perform an important national duty. - Let us take the case of Tiwari. Firstly, it is impossible that he would have paid for his daily 'exercises' from his own pocket. All expenses would have been 'adjusted' under some head or the other of the tax payer's money. Second, it is a given that as CM and Union Finance Minister, he must have been provided with - even demanded - top-quality call girls by business houses, contractors etc to get undue favours out of him. Third, it is very likely that on more than one occasion in life, he would even have been blackmailed into taking important decisions against his better judgment and the interest of the state. In short, probity was an immediate casualty. And remained so for many decades.
I am not willing to believe that the media is innocently unaware of these and even more far-reaching ramifications of private lives of political leaders. Yet, it chooses to look the other way. Why? Is it because they are all naked in the same hamam? Is it because the media wants to, in the case of politicians alone, go by a value system that some leading media stars personally live by? Why is it that, along this dimension, they do not blindly ape standards set by the US?
Permissive Americans are surprisingly moral when it comes to their leaders. The reason, as we all know, is straightforward. They expect those who lead their nation to possess the strength of character that they believe is required for the job. - Who are we kidding? Is it ever possible to so surgically separate the public from the private? Is history not replete with instances of sex being used as an extremely powerful strategic, political and business weapon, often to settle near-intractable issues coercively? Given how corrupt India's political leaders are - Shekhar Gupta calls them plunderers - are we to swallow the manifestly dishonest line that they have kept their sexual escapades away from their public duties and decision-making? Are we to shut ourselves to the clear and present danger of such behaviour carrying within it the seed of disaster along any number of dimensions?
- It is time for the media to wake up, shed its blinkers and start looking at the private lives of netas from, among other things, a national interest and security perspective.
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I think it started with Nehru, i suppose who agreed for partition on bed with lady mountbattern.
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