Holier than cow hypocrisy

Indiavision.com

This was breaking news with a difference. Caught live on camera were Karnataka’s honourable ministers indulging in a not so honourable deed. While the rest of the Vidhana Soudha was busy debating mundane issues such as drought, three ministers were busy tackling erection issues. So engrossed were these gentlemen in watching naked women on their tiny mobile screen that they were blissfully unaware of the television cameras zooming on them from behind.

Not porn silly! It was a performance review and they were simply trying to rise to the occasion!

Reminds me of the backbencher attitude typically seen in school kids. While the teacher is breaking into a sweat trying to explain how x must equal y, the boys at the back are busy drawing the class hottie’s bra strap in their note book.

But these are adults and not hormonal adolescents. And not just any male adults, but elected representatives, who were given a portfolio so that they could serve the very electorate that voted for them. Whether watching porn is right or wrong is another matter all together. If google search statistics are anything to go by, it’s a national pastime. This is what happens when people grow up watching filmy flowers kiss and parents who insist that no bodily function contributed to their birth. Curiosity didn’t kill the cat; it gave birth to an industry called porn.

The issue here is not some ministers indulging in juvenile behaviour. It is about political hypocrisy of the perennially pious. I understand that private lives of politicians is entirely their business but not if it contradicts their moral hectoring in public. It is the same CC Patil who just a month back was acting as the high priest of the moral brigade, loftily giving advice to women to cover up to escape sexual assault on streets. What a convenient way of absolving men of any responsibility for their libidinous nature! Mind you, this is a minister who handles the women and child welfare portfolio. Somebody tell him please, that there is no connection, never has been and never will be, between rape and what a woman wears. Sir, don’t try to fault our “skimpy” clothes when the trouble lies with the filth you carry in your mind. And how well you illustrated it - drooling over nude images and violating the sanctity of the assembly. S howing utter contempt for decorum and people who brought you to power.

What made it worse was the lack of remorse and the clumsy lies these men cooked up to defend themselves. As if watching rape footage makes them less sleazy! Thick skinned liars and they have the gall to issue diktats on moral behaviour. If Ram Sene can display uncharacteristic zeal in thrashing youngsters indulging in PDA, why can’t they beat up these cads for disrespecting the legislative assembly?

Hum karein to salaa character dheela hai?

What’s ironic is that these gents belong to a party that loves flaunting it’s holier than cow attitude. BJP – that has spent a lifetime as a party-in-waiting, boasts of a geriatric high command that specializes in high octane protests and walk outs and doesn’t waste an opportunity to demand resignations on moral high grounds.

So immersed is the party in its single minded pursuit for power that it is blissfully ignorant of the asses it’s breeding in its own party. And when they get exposed, look how they jump to their defence. Karnataka CM Gowda tried to dismiss it as yet another conspiracy by the Opposition and felt his three idiots had no reason to feel sorry!” According BJP leader Parrikar “They (the three Karnataka ministers) were only watching and not doing it in action". God forbid! If we are subjected to the torture of watching a live telecast, the entire nation will be walking around with a haunted look in their eyes.

BJP is not exactly known for being amenable to reason. They are illiberal and intolerant, prone to violence; and they would not mind manufacturing communal disharmony, which includes riots, when it suits them. All this in the name of protecting Indian culture and heritage. But it comes to dealing with its rogue ministers like Yeddyurappa or Maderna, it lacks courage and conviction. Politics wins, principles can go for a toss.

Ironically such hypocrisy is across the political spectrum and not just the prerogative of the Congress or BJP. Time and again we vent frustration at the intolerance our leaders breed to freedom of expression. Sadly these antiquated views stem from the desire to endear themselves to certain sections of the society rather than a personal conviction. Go ahead and play to the gallery but not at our expense! As citizens of a free country, shouldn’t we be free to decide what we want to read and watch! Why can’t we express what we feel, without the fear of censorship? Why this constant moral policing by double faced politicians who condemn a rave party in public and derive perverse pleasure in watching its clips in private?

Isn’t it time we asked you to just shut up and prove your usefulness to the country?