Beware of your gunman, netaji

Reporter’s Diary

Many people in Karnataka are familiar with the story of C K Jaffer Sharief, who hailed from a poor family in Chitradurga and started life doing odd jobs as an office assistant to the then Congress president (and former Karnataka Chief Minister) S Nijalingappa. As the story goes, one evening in 1969 when Sharief was driving Nijalingappa’s car, he overheard a conversation between his boss and another Congress leader about plans to divide the party. That night, he would brave heavy rains to reach a public telephone and place a trunk call to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. That call led to the Congress split in 1969, and changed Sharief’s life.

Sharief’s betrayal of his master was rewarded with a ticket to contest Lok Sabha polls from Kanakapura in 1971. He then shifted to Bengaluru (North) and was an MP for eight terms. The humble driver of a once powerful politician would rise to become a Union minister himself. He is lauded today as the Railway minister who undertook the ambitious uni-gauge project. There are many instances of politicians’ personal staff joining politics and doing well for themselves. None perhaps attained the heights that Sharief did.

Drivers and gunmen (personal bodyguards) of politicians are generally loyal and many of them are well rewarded for it, but there are also many who have been responsible for the downfall of their masters.

It is common to bribe drivers, gunmen and other personal staff of senior bureaucrats, ministers and even the Chief Minister. Favour-seekers usually want information about a politician’s availability, location, etc. Even simple information like, “Sahebru is free, you can come now” or “Sahebru is alone” or “Sahebru is in a good mood…” can be valuable. Of course, the ‘services’ of drivers, gunmen, etc., are also utilised by politicians to spy on political rivals. A ground rule, often overlooked, therefore, is not to discuss anything confidential in the vehicle. The driver’s eyes may be on the road, but his ears are tuned into the back seat.

However, it is the gunman that a politician has to be more wary of. Gunmen shadow politicians wherever they go, and they are privy to all their indiscretions and transgressions, sometimes being facilitators themselves. Over time, they become close confidants of their bosses, a privilege that can be, and is, misused. Those in the know say many of the sleaze videos that are doing the rounds were recorded by politicians’ gunmen and released to third parties who could be either political rivals or professional blackmailers.

Politicians caught on to this and many pay their gunmen extra money to keep their mouths, and phone cameras, shut. But netaji is not the only one paying them. Netaji’s wife is also paying his gunman handsomely – to keep her abreast of her husband’s whereabouts and activities. Many a secret affair has tumbled out of the closet this way, leading to marital discord, even separation, though politicians’ wives hardly ever find it convenient to divorce their source of riches.

These days, then, most politicians prefer to go out of their state, even fly abroad, for their ‘extra-curricular’ activities. Some have taken to driving themselves around, leaving the driver behind, while on ‘personal work’. Some choose five-star hotels to get away from their bodyguards; there was a CM many years ago (not J H Patel of ‘wine and women’ fame, who was pretty honest about it) who hired a discreetly located house exclusively for his ‘extra-curricular’ activities.

But we must pause to commiserate with today’s politicians. Yesteryear’s netaji had the going relatively easy. Mobile phones with sharp cameras have made life miserable for the newer crop. In the hands of one’s drivers and gunmen, these phone-cameras can be really dangerous.