Karnataka's Shame: Debauch Ministers in Dirty Business!

Article first published as Debauch Ministers in Dirty Business! on Technorati.

The ten day session of the Karnataka Assembly was going on debating heatedly on an intriguing local issue. And television cameras covering the session found something unspeakably dirty going on in the same floor.

Karnataka is a southern state of India and the lone domain of the main national opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in entire south India. Recently the then Chief Minister of the state, BS Yeddyurappa, was charged and convicted with a land scam, arrested and put in jail. After much brainstorming the BJP decided to dislodge him, but the next government could be installed only with the tacit support of the tainted ex-chief minister himself who ruled from his jail. The BJP never wanted to lose the only southern state it ruled and the tight number game compelled the party to fall in line with Yeddyurappa.

Two ministers of that government were found to be glued to a porn clip in the cell phone of the third minister on Tuesday in the on-going Karnataka assembly session. While occupying the designated assembly seats of the ruling party the three ministers were gleefully engaged in the dirty business of their own.

A nation wide hue and cry followed with the blurred shots of the mobile clip running in all the news channels. Outraged citizens, scholars and intellectuals, activists including Anna Hazare, leaders of other political parties and the media demanded the immediate sacking and expulsion of the three debauch ministers. Embarrassed and red faced, the BJP could not still manage to come out with clear action to condemn the horrendous act.

The three ministers were only allowed to resign and the state government promptly accepted their resignations. They were barred from the Assembly too, but the session being adjourned sine die immediately it was hardly effective action. And, it seemed to be all that the BJP was capable of doing considering its strategically compelling politics. So, the defiant three ministers announced that they did nothing seriously wrong and resigned only to help the party pass over the problem. One of them allegedly cut off the power supply and disabled the cable feed in his constituency so that his voters could not tune in to the news. Adding insult to injury both the present and the former Chief Ministers commended their party men for their brave action.  

Hardly surprising. The BJP nurtures within its folds several right-wing lumpen elements who exhort the oppressed Indian women to behave.  They hold the women themselves responsible for all the tortures, atrocities and molestations heaped on them throughout the nooks and corners of India. They ask them to cover as much skin as possible so that the male marauders do not invade or attack or rape them. Just fitting that one of the debauch ministers held the portfolio of Women and Child Development.

India’s continuing feudalistic spell and male chauvinistic exploitation go on exposing the political hypocrisy further. No political party has the courage to break out of this. They vouch for social values only to politically counter and charge their rival parties.

If the elected representatives so brazenly violate the same people who elect them then it’s time the Indian democracy gets redefined or recast. The voters and the society must decide.