Sex and the General

Contrast the Petraeus resignation with Indian attitudes to the sexual affairs of public figures

Soon after the resignation of David Petraeus as CIA chief over an extramarital affair, Subramanian Swamy retweeted this by one of his followers: ‘In US CIA director resigns over an affair..In India, person caught on pants down is a spokesperson of national party..’ It is advisable to pick and choose the stuff Swamy puts out—some of it has substance; much of it, especially against the Congress, is wild and malicious; all of it is entertaining.

This one appears to have merit on the surface. If the director of the CIA has to resign, how does Abhishek Manu Singhvi, the subject of that tweet who was caught on camera, stay unaccountable? Or to draw the larger point, how is it that extramarital affairs of Indian politicians have almost no bearing on their public life? ND Tiwari fathered a child and has been humiliated by the courts into accepting it. Even a CD of his cavorting with prostitutes became public. But he still seems to be politically erect. Nehru’s affair, platonic or whatever, with Edwina Mountbatten is not a patch on his reputation. Pramod Mahajan’s other life and the motive for his murder is even now a subject of whispers.

And yet, Swamy and anyone who thinks that an extramarital affair is an automatic disqualification are wrong. It is not even true in the US. In the Petraeus case, precisely because he was director of the CIA, it killed his career—the keeper of a nation’s worst secrets can’t leave himself open to blackmail. And some columnists there expect him to be contrite for a while and resurface as, guess what, a politician.

Extramarital affairs by themselves are not enough to damn a person. On a moral plane, it is not the sex that is wrong, but the deception involved. For a politician, the argument would go like this: if he is capable of cheating his own wife, why would he not cheat the public? In India, we are however half a century away from such a question because most politicians are seen as dishonest at every moral level possible. Cheating the wife is just part of the rounded personality. There is no outrage, only the mirth that he got caught. And no one gets fired for making people snigger.

About The Author

Madhavankutty Pillai

Madhavankutty Pillai has no specialisations whatsoever. He is among the last of the generalists. And also Open chief of bureau, Mumbai  

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