The Judgment of the Visual

IF A SEX TAPE between consenting adults is made public by a third party, then the aggrieved person should be the one whose privacy was breached. That is, however, not how it plays out if the person in question is a public figure and the predicament of former MP from Mumbai and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kirit Somaiya is testament. A news channel got its hands on video clips of Somaiya in what is termed a ‘compromising position’ and aired some of it. A hard drive with all of it—eight hours long— was handed over by the opposition to Home Minister Devendra Fadnavis. A probe has been ordered and the police are investigating. Politicians across the board in Maharashtra are gleeful because Somaiya’s political brand has been to target opposition members for corruption. Since just being in the tape doesn’t make for a crime, the opposition alleges that he has coerced women into sexual relations. No evidence has been provided of that so far. Somaiya, in a tweet, also asked Fadnavis for a probe and said that he had not sexually abused anyone.

It doesn’t look good for him because in India politicians are expected to be corrupt and callous, but not sexually promiscuous. On the scale of moral taints, it is at the top if you get caught. As the opposition Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray commenting on the video, as per a Times of India report, said, “I never watch such disgusting videos. But yesterday [July 18], the people, especially the mothers and sisters of the state, reacted to it. Their sentiments should be valued by the government.” The less sex politicians have, the greater is the aura, and if like Mahatma Gandhi you have no sex whatsoever, there is nothing like it for a halo. Complicating it for Somaiya is another phenom­enon—the judgment of the visual. If you are caught on camera doing anything, then the mere presence of it amplifies and confirms whatever the sin is supposed to be. Those who see the clip already do so under the assumption that something untoward is going on, otherwise the online universe would not have conspired to bring it before his or her eyes. In that brief moment of the attention economy’s capture, there is no asking the elementary question of the nature of the crime. There have been numerous sting opera­tions where the headlines say one thing and the visual itself another, making the viewer a convert. Plus, there is the stamp of legitimacy that a news chan­nel provides.

Somaiya ought to have known better because he has been in antagonistic politics for a lifetime and the more enemies you make, the more vulnerable you become. But that is a failing of his political acumen and self-preservation skills. His family perhaps has a right to complain about the hurt he has caused, but his sexual life shouldn’t be anyone else’s business. Until an element of coercion is proved, it is hard to see what exactly is the offence that has been committed here except making police­men to go through the entire footage.

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