Sex, news and videotape

In recent times, the dying days of the year have seen a major news break, one that inevitably affects the mood around this festive time. Last year of course we had the ghastly terrorist attack of November 26. Four years before that was the terrible tsunami which swept through the littoral in the Indian Ocean and devastated Sri Lanka, parts of Tamil Nadu and other coastal countries and killed over 300,000 people. And at the turn of the millennium, India had to surrender known terrorists to the Taliban after an Indian Airlines plane was hijacked. Luckily the loss of life was minimal, but the feeling of national humiliation was palpable.

By that token, there have been no major events as the year comes to an end. There is no dearth of news, but none of the Big Stories of the type outlined above. The only big bang story (pardon the pun) that could have been but fizzled out fast was the bizarre sex drama which resulted in the summary dismissal — for that is what it was, never mind the resignation — of ND Tiwari, the governor of Andhra Pradesh.

Once the video of an old man, alleged to be Tiwari, cavorting with three naked women hit the television channels, it was only a matter of time before he was prevailed upon to quit his post. No party or government can possibly deal with this kind of scandal and sure enough, once he went, protesting his innocence to the last, no one bothered with the story.

Yet, this seedy incident marks a major step forward — or backward — in the media history of this nation because it now paves the way for the final frontier of Indian public life to be breached. Till now, corruption, allegations of malfeasance, misuse of office and all kinds of shenanigans have felled politicians, but their private lives were strictly off limits. It was strictly don’t ask don’t tell and journalists, even though they happily passed around spicy rumours among each other, rarely if ever wrote about them.

The last time a sex scandal came into the public domain was in the 1970s when Jagjivan Ram’s son Suresh Ram was featured in flagrante delicto in the pages of Surya, a magazine owned and run by Maneka Gandhi. The photographs of young Suresh with a Delhi university student caused a major sensation and put paid to Jagjivan Ram’s ambitions to become the prime minister. There was universal agreement between media practitioners — there was no private news television then — that a Rubicon had been crossed but that this would remain an exception. The unspoken law has held fast since.

But it was inevitable that this would change sooner than later. Many journalistic conventions have been upended in the past few years. The proliferation of media outlets has meant that unwritten codes have been challenged, usually unwittingly and traditions given a swift burial. No one now knows or cares for the rule of not naming communities in a communal riot; the pogrom in Gujarat was a watershed in that respect. The names of minors are freely given in sex and other criminal offence cases. Wild allegations are made without the obligatory qualifiers like allegedly.

Stories of sexual escapades of politicians stayed out of the media because they are difficult to show, much less prove. Bollywood actors and celebrities are fair game because they belong to a more “frivolous” world and in any case lack the will or the strength to retaliate. And now even they know the game is rigged. An accused politician can wield real clout. No newspaper management would foolishly want to take him or her on.
Besides, it is usually assumed that the people wouldn’t be particularly interested, except at the most salacious level, about the goings on in the politician’s bedroom.

Two things have altered the landscape: first is the plethora of 24/7 news channels which need to fill their airtime on a round-the-clock basis and at the same time also need to keep the viewers hooked to prevent them from clicking on the remote. The second is more significant. Many of the newer channels are owned, quite openly too, by politicians and their frontmen. That implies a serious vested interest in carrying news which can help the owner and damage his rivals.

The fact that the Tiwari scandal broke out around the time a high-stakes political game is being played in Andhra Pradesh after the death of YS Reddy and the Telangana crisis raises several uncomfortable questions. Tiwari may have had a colourful past and could well have been indulging in these acts, but the fact remains that the video is hazy at best and the man cannot be clearly identified. But which party will take the risk to defend him?

Whether this is the beginning of the trend for more such stories remains to be seen. It is possible that once again the media will go back to its old ways of leaving politicians and their personal lives out of the news list. On the other hand, having tasted blood, other news outlets, especially television channels may follow. Or a CD with a politician in it may find even its way to YouTube. The media must seriously think through the implications of this new development.