Sakshi Maharaj is no Manmohan. Don't shame him for playing doctor

Men like Sakshi Maharaj, Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Unnao (UP), are hero-worshipped by many and, also, hated by a few. With Sakshi, you have no middle ground. So, one has to take sides. I take his side. Stop! Please don't run away. Listen to my reasons. Please.

I have, as you too have, seen the footage of the unbuttoning episode. I have heard his side of the story, as given to the media. I am, I must admit, moved.

I am no one to ask, "What's in a name?" That is altogether an Angrez view of the matter. We, in this country, name our children in hope. By naming them we tattoo our dreams on them. A few live up to their names; many don't. 

"Sakshi" is a loaded name. To sakshi is to witness. To witness is to see, with your own eyes. You name a man Sakshi and damn him for "seeing"? Nevermind, for now, what he saw. (For goodness' sake, have a little common sense. Won't you black out on such an occasion?) Tell me this, should Sakshi have seen or not? Let's settle this one first.  Do you expect - and I don't - a sakshi to take a position on a sensitive issue, without seeing? Blind faith - believing without seeing- may be all right in religious matters.

And that too, only if money is not involved. Blind faith is certainly NOT all right in profane matters. In matters involving intimate injuries, for example. In this case, did Sakshi engineer to have the injury awkwardly located? I admire Sakshi for being brutally true to his name. I will stand up for him on this point, wherever.

Consider this other thing. How can you impute immodest motives, of all people, to a religious zealot? Did he get the girl concerned into a private room? Did he ask everyone present to disappear so that he can satisfy himself, through physical verification, on factual counts? That is what, perhaps, some third rate politicians would've done. Mind you, I say "perhaps". How do I know for sure? Is not human nature inconsistent, and individual choices and strategies unpredictable?

Only a man whose mind is heartrendingly pure can undertake the process Sakshi did, with such a composed, dispassionate air! Put it to his humility, all the same, that he did not make a song and dance about his invulnerability. So he had a whole crowd as sakshis to this evidentiary ritual in broad daylight. It is common knowledge that nothing helps a man to keep his animal instincts under control better than the public as sakshis.

The hallmark of all Sakshi episodes is their stunning absence of secrecy. He speaks and acts in broad daylight, in full public view. Secrecy betokens guilt. It is the choice of those who harbour impure, carnal intentions.

This brings us to the crowning moment of the episode. You watched the footage attentively. You saw the Maharaj, till then sitting and watching intently, leap up to his parliamentary feet at the critical moment. Now, I am no one to pronounce an opinion on why Sakshi did this. It is always a rash and risky thing to speculate on motives.

Only experienced party spokespersons, who are thoroughly inexperienced on the basics of life, can do such things with expert unconcern.

I can only wonder. And I wonder: did the Maharaj lose his alabaster-like composure when the laying bare reached the critical stage? Even if he did, does it go against him? Or, did he realise, stung, at that cutting moment in time, the pre-historic impropriety in progress and wish to order it stopped, out of a Tsunamic fatherly concern for the imperilled dignity of the shell-shocked suppliant?

You and I agree that a man's doings have to be judged by the mettle of his personality. If Manmohan Singh, for example, speaks in an agitated fashion- beating his breast and tearing his hair - (Please don't look surprised, this is entirely conjectural) we would conclude that some earth-shaking matter is at stake.

If Modi does something similar, we'd take it as routine. It is to Sakshi's credit - this is my submission - that he acts and reacts like a booming volcano, a thundering cataract. Which other MP would have offered to shoot policemen, in such a blaze of moral indignation?

Does it surprise you that people with jeans-covered-wounds go to him, and not to Manmohan Singh?

It is another matter that a young woman could perish in embarrassment, if made to unbutton in public. She is not a King Lear to cry out, with sweeping gestures of shattering tragic intensity, "Unbutton me, here!"

Even fictional characters crave a little privacy. But if you have to choose between privacy and survival, what would you?

So the girl had no choice. Sakshi, being sakshi, had no choice. We too, I'm afraid, have no choice but to stand by Sakshi. What, then, is this pother about?