Hardik Patel and sex-video vortex: Young turk's private life neither a blot on Patidars nor a stain on Gujarati 'asmita'

We eat, we drink and we have sex. Without these three activities, there would be no life on earth. So, what exactly is wrong with Hardik Patel’s alleged love life except for our own hypocrisy? [caption id=“attachment_4181683” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Patidar community leader Hardik Patel. PTI[/caption] For the survival of life around us, nature wants us to procreate. Unless you believe in the concept of immaculate conception, or take seriously mythological stories of queens getting pregnant after eating fruits that sprung up from the flames of a yajna or by looking into the eyes of gods invited to their chambers by chanting of mantras, it should not be difficult to understand that sex is a necessary karma and dharma expected of us by nature. To add to what Dalit activist Jignesh Mewani has tweeted, sex is not just a fundamental right, it is a fundamental duty most of us and our ancestors have proudly done over the ages. So, it is indeed hilarious that the mere fact of having sex should become not merely a talking point in an election, but also a question of Gujarati asmita. It shows that by crying over coitus, branding it kaamleela, a puerile society is so unaware of the laws of the nature that out of its imbecility it is ready to disown and mourn the very basis of its own raison d’etre. What exactly does a country that reproduces with a vengeance expect a 24-year-old man to do just because he is a public figure? Remain celibate for the benefit of the society? Become a brahmachari for the larger good of the mob? Will it help the Patidars get a reservation, its youth more employment? The only reasons for denouncing sex should be its illegality, implying that it was a result of coercion or physical assault. None of that seems to be true in the case of the incident involving Patel and the unfortunate girl whose name has been dragged into this quagmire. By all accounts, it appears to be consensual, a perfectly normal occurrence between a young girl and a man. Since the girl has not objected to it, how exactly is Patel—a single man ready to mingle like all others of his age—a blot on the Patidars, a stain on Gujarati asmita?

In fact, those who have filmed this private, consensual act and released it for public consumption are the real blot on the society. They have violated the privacy of two individuals, caused irreparable damage to a young girl. It is an act as wanton as public disrobing of a woman. So, instead of laughing at Patel, attacking him, justice would be served better if those guilty of assassinating the character of two individuals are booked for their crime. Unfortunately, this wouldn’t happen, primarily because those laughing at Patel do not recognise it for the menace it is: The presence of the prying eye in your own bedroom. If this can happen today to Patel, all of us are potential victims. But then, what’s the big deal about individual rights and freedoms compared to the privilege of political voyeurism! Unfortunately, this is not politics but nauseating porn. In fact, Patel’s reaction to the entire episode is also disappointing. Instead of resorting to the usual litany of excuses, calling the CD a result of editing and morphing, he should have stood up firm against this criminal violation of privacy. Like Mewani, he should have proudly talked about the right to consensual sex and taken those behind this “expose” to court. But, with his explanations, Patel has fallen into the trap of branding consensual sex as illegal and immoral. There is an apocryphal story about former Pakistan leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that could have a moral for Patel. The story goes that Bhutto’s rivals, especially in the clergy, attacked him for his fondness for scotch. They ran a campaign calling him immoral and a blot on Pakistan. But, Bhutto did not resort to hypocrisy. At an election rally, he stood up erect and proudly claimed: Yes, I drink. But unlike the mullahs I do not drink the blood of Pakistanis. Impressed by his forthrightness, the crowd began chanting: Peeve, peeve Butto, jeeve, jeeve Bhutto. (Bhutto you drink, Bhutto you live). Wish Patel also had the pluck to say that he is just carrying on with the tradition of our ancestors and fulfilling the duty entrusted upon him by nature to propagate life and civilisation. That there is absolutely no shame in having sex and the only people who should die of shame are the perverts filming others do it. His inability to do so unites Patel and his detractors in a conjugal bond of hypocrisy.