Swami Nityananda incident

So here we go again, yet another Swami caught on camera having sex and the “God man” from being a revered person has now suddenly become public enemy number one due to his sexual escapades being caught on tape and subsequently being aired on every TV channel.

There are people who are divided on this topic and I shall try to address their opinions on this topic while putting forth my own. This incident has raised a whole gamut of questions which I shall raise and subsequently try to answer them, without probably being able to provide any concrete solutions to them.

1. Why are they given this kind of importance in the first place?
The answer to this is the same as the one I give to my North Indian friends when they ask me why the south Indian actors have such a mass following. It’s because the masses consider these God men to be kin to God. The early South Indian actors such as MGR and NT Rama Rao played mythological figures in movies and so the masses consider these actors to be Gods themselves and to their credit they did do their bit in alleviating the sufferings of the masses. So when they made a transition from movies to politics they were very successful. So now you know why Rajnikanth is so popular in Tamil Nadu.

2. Should they given this kind of importance?
Honestly, I don’t think so. I mean, give any ordinary man a few beers to drink and he’ll preach the same things that our Swamis do, and might actually do a better job than them.

3. Was it wrong or sinful of him to have sex?
Not unless he blackmailed or forced the woman into having sex with him. I haven’t seen the video and I won’t see it either, not because I don’t enjoy sex videos, but the fact that if I really want to watch some pornography I’d rather watch something with better quality and picture and sound clarity.

Our history is replete with stories and incidents of sages, god men having sex with women. The most famous example that comes to my mind is that of Vyasa whose act of copulation with Ambalika and Ambika (known as Niyoga) resulted in the birth of Pandu and Dhritarashtra respectively.

The Raven, whose blog I frequently read, has a different take on this whole issue. He’s appalled by the fact that there is so much mileage being given to this issue while we, the government in particular, have conveniently forgotten about the case where a senior police officer who has received honours from the government, was in fact a deranged psychopath who molested a young and ultimately drove her to commit suicide. Why is it that criminals like the one aforementioned, are allowed to get away scot-free? Why focus so much a Swami and his sexual escapades instead?


But there’s another that stills remains unanswered. Why is it that certain incidents create a greater furore than others which seem to be of grave importance? I guess this can best be explained by Dr. Peter M. Sandman’s equation:-

RISK = HAZARD+OUTRAGE

Mr. Sandman goes on to explain that in this equation hazard and outrage do not have equal weightage.”When hazard is high and outrage is low, people underreact,” he says. “And when hazard is low and outrage is high, they overreact.”

This should explain why a Swami’s sex tape creates more sensation that a state Governor’s (And I guess he would take that as an insult). A Swami is a revered man, whereas a Governor or any politician for that matter is looked upon by an average Indian to have been involved in some sort of wrongdoing. Hence the former create more media sensation.
It’s perfectly alright for a 40 year old Muslim actor to drink alcohol and have numerous girlfriends and have premarital sex, whereas it is sinful for a Muslim woman to wear skirts and play sports. In India, the latter has causes more outrage and hence the over-reaction.

There is where I believe the media has a bigger role to play. Unfortunately, every time there is a new story for the news channels to telecast, the older issues, which sometimes are more important, are put on the backburner. It’s not just the media but all of us that need use our senses and tackle issues which are of greater importance to our society.