Chennai:
I have watched people proudly coming out of international airports with an invisible "foreign return" tag for a rousing reception by family and friends. A tag they would flaunt their entire lifetime. I can't help thinking of a similar "jail return" tag when I saw a beaming former Telecom Minister A Raja walking out of the Chennai airport for a hero's welcome by more than 2000 party cadre. Such was the pride, joy and celebration Raja and his cadre, who welcomed him, displayed.
No sign of any sense of shame or even a feeling of discomfort over the grave allegations he faces and the public perception that sees him as the mastermind of the biggest scam in the country that allegedly caused a 1.76 lakh crore loss to the exchequer.
And this has become a culture among politicians in Tamil Nadu, rather whole of India. A jail term either as an accused or as a convict is now a must-have listing in their political resume. With conviction rate of politicians so poor, it pays to go to jail; blame it on political vendetta, make it a claim to fame and derive maximum political mileage.
While it's mandatory for party cadre to show solidarity out of party loyalty or often due to monetary considerations, I asked this to myself: as journalists, should we too fall into their trap, projecting an accused as a hero? As a responsible, well-informed community, shouldn't we, at the least, ostracise them in terms of coverage till they clear their names so that not conviction but even accusation would be seen with such shame and remorse?