With every millionaire political titan revealed to be a sexual predator in private, there’s a case for considering them guilty until proven innocent
The public depositions and interviews of Donald Trump and Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh are out. Their strategies are eerily similar. Illustration by C Y Gopinath using Midjourney
One was born to a Rajput family in Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh in 1957. The other was born to a German immigrant family in Jamaica Hospital in New York in 1946. Both have been notorious for decades, living on the ragged edge between the lawful and the criminal, flirting always with fame and ignominy. They don’t know each other but their lives could be mirror images, not always in the best way.
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Despite the rumours and scandals, they have remained largely unscathed in the public eye. They command large, influential followings of fans who simply adore them and constitute important voting constituencies. They both hold positions of power in the respective political parties of their countries and are regarded as rich, famous and formidable.
They’re hefty fellows, built like bulls. Both have an interest in wrestling and have stood in the ring, where one of them is a professional wrestler. Neither could be credited with much humour, and consider themselves above the norms and statutes that curb the excesses of ordinary mortals.
Most interestingly, both men currently face charges of inappropriate sexual behaviour with women. The American fellow is being investigated for statutory rape and a pattern of random sexual assaults on women; the Indian one is charged with touching the breasts and other parts of young women wrestlers under the pretext of checking their breathing.
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The Indian is Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, president of the Wrestling Federation of India. His American twin is Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the United States.
When women like Vinesh Phogat, a Haryana wrestler, and E. Jean Carroll, a journalist, point the finger at men like Brij Bhushan and Trump, it makes history and becomes a landmark. The public responses of Brij Bhushan and Trump to these women also open windows into how rich and powerful men think about women and how they defend themselves when accused of predatory excesses.
What did our accused say? The public depositions and interviews of both Trump and Brij Bhushan are out. Their strategies are eerily similar.
1. It’s all lies. Never happened. Brij Bhushan said he would hang himself if even one allegation was proved true. He claims the stories are politically motivated, fabricated by the Congress in a pre-election election year. Donald Trump called the whole rape accusation a “hoax”, and the judge a “political operative” financed by the Democrats in a pre-election year to undermine him.
2. Why did they wait so long to report it? “If there had been such an incident, they could have gone to the sports ministry, to the Sports authority of India (SAI), the police, the media. Why did they stay silent for so long?” Trump asked why Carroll kept quiet all these decades.
3. But I’m rich and famous. Trump whined about “false accusations against a rich guy, or in my case against a famous, rich and political person that’s leading the polls by 40 points”. Brij Bhushan: “On my birthday 2.5 lakh people greeted me. From every corner of the country, I was getting requests for programmes. . . And in my programmes there is no need to get an audience—10-20,000 people just show up.” A rich and famous person, they imply, would never rape a women.
4. Where’s the evidence? Brij Bhushan asked that Vinesh Phogat cite a specific incident with date, time and other details. Trump slammed Carrol, saying, “She has no idea what day, what week, what month, what year, what decade this so-called “event” supposedly took place.” [Carrol called a friend immediately after the rape, and that friend has testified at the trial.]
When asked if he still believed that “when you’re a star, they let you do anything. . . grab them by the pussy”, Trump replied, “It’s historically true. Unfortunately or fortunately.”
A few words first about rape and its coy cousin, ‘sexually inappropriate’ behaviour, which pretty much covers everything else from groping and kissing to sexual assault. Men who thrust themselves on women against their will usually get away scot-free, chiefly because sexual violence goes unreported for reasons ranging from embarrassment, fear of being shamed or reprisals, and often a belief that the police will do nothing, or worse, side with the rapist.
Because sexual predators seldom do their dirty work in public, when a victim of sexual violence speaks up, it typically becomes one person’s word against the other’s. For a woman reeling from an assault, the gathering of DNA evidence like sperm from their bodies could be yet another traumatic invasion of her intimate body.
We are presumed innocent until proven guilty. But cases like Trump, Asaram Bapu, Harvey Weinstein and Brij Bhushan tell us that a sexual predator with money and power is a unique species of savage animal. With every new billionaire titan revealed to be a sexual gorilla in private, a case is being made that when you are wealthy, drunk with power and consider yourself exceptionally above the law and norms, then the law should make an exception for you—and deem you guilty by default until proven innocent.
You can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopi@gmail.com
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper
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