The high boots, the Stetson hat, the Clint Eastwood look were missing. Unfazed, Vitthalbhai Hansrajbhai Radadiya, the 54-year-old Congress MP from Porbandar, brandished a double-barrelled shotgun as he strode towards the toll booth attendants who had dared to ask for his identity card in original before they would let him through without paying toll.

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The jury is still out on how much political damage this has caused to Radadiya and his party, especially since the episode was captured on CCTV and played again and again on national television. But one thing is sure. It has made the man a national celebrity, and demonstrated that even without props he is undeniably talented in the spaghetti Western genre.

In these troubled times, however, stories are rarely simple or with neat endings. So it is with Radadiya.

Faced with several cases under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, Radadiya argues that it is not him but the booth attendants who are at fault and who need to change their behaviour. Clearly, neither the media nor the CCTV footage got it right. It is them, not him, who should be on the dock for “rude behaviour”. He has shot off letters to prime minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi demanding investigations into the operation of toll booths across the country.

The Gujarat MP who represents the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi wants all toll booth employees to be “trained” on how to behave with elected representatives.

Radadiya is not the only politician complaining loudly about not being shown due respect. Everyone who is anyone among embattled politicos has a grouse: Not only do toll booth attendants not have the foggiest idea about how to talk to elected representatives without denting their amour-propre, pesky activists also need lessons in how to file RTI (Right to Information) applications which promote transparency and accountability without embarrassing public figures; journalists need to take tips on how to ask questions to those they are grilling. Then, there are the ‘mango people’ who have gate-crashed on to the front page and prime time television. Some of them are aspiring to form a political party of their own. More than anyone else, the leaders of such people need to know the ground rules of “political ethics”, as Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh so crisply put it. This has always meant “never attacking family” of opponents to score a political point even when there is “enough evidence”.

All these point to the need for training on a gargantuan scale. There are myriad groups of people who need lessons on what to do and when and to whom so that India remains peaceful and stable. Training of toll booth attendants would be relatively simple: Make sure all cars with red beacons and other such VIP paraphernalia are allowed to cruise past. Then, make sure CCTV cameras do not work, so there will be no evidence even if there is a fracas.

Journalists, RTI activists and other muckrakers of course have to be put through far more gruelling training sessions where they are made to unlearn everything they think they know about their work.

The training module in political ethics for ‘mango people’, their wannabe leaders and their mascots could have a section on ‘political pets’. Since families are off bounds, politicians’ pets must be an area of relentless focus. There is a disturbing paucity of information here, and RTI activists have clearly not been doing their job. All of us know that Obamas’ pet dog Bo is the First Pet in the United States. Some of us also know that Mitt Romney, who wants Obama’s job, had a dog called Seamus. Seamus is no more. Both dogs have been fair game in the run-up to the Presidential elections in November in the United States. Now consider this: Do we know or do we care to track which political pet is up to what mischief, here in India? Or are they private entities whose deeds cannot be placed under public glare?

This is just one example. There can be many more on the training agenda. While the programme is worked out, one crucial issue needs to be tackled right now. Large venues will be needed for the many training sessions needed for very many people. Given its proven expertise in changing land use regulations and facilitating land deals, the state of Haryana should be approached straightaway to provide at least one large plot for the training workshops.

The author is a Delhi-based writer