So what happens when the ‘bedroom act’ creeps outdoors? It gets people talking, ridiculing and in no time, takes the shape of a scandal. In West, sex tape videos, especially those involving celebrities, are getting more and more common owing partially to rapid technological advancements. India, a nation known for its culture and tradition, has been rocked by a plethora of such controversies in recent times. In this article, we focus on seven such sex tape scandals of India that took the nation by storm.
The godman and his unholiness: Swami Nithyananda
In the beginning of 2010, Swami Nithyananda’s sex tape shook the nation. A tape carrying evidence of the Guru’s adulterous activities first appeared on Sun TV. The video which went viral on the internet, showed the spiritual master getting cozy with a woman while watching television.
The woman in the video, Ranjitha, a budding actress, even attempted suicide after the clip got leaked in March 2010. The sex scandal resulted in mass enrage. There were vociferous protests by people outside Nithyananda’s Ashram. However, the Guru’s website was quick in calling the video a scandalous mix of graphics, conspiracy and humor. Nithyananda was, nonetheless, arrested from Himachal Pradesh in April 2010.
The Ashram filed a case against Sun TV Network, alleging the latter of telecasting a morphed video. However, the continuous telecast of the sex video ultimately resulted in the arrest of Hansraj Saxena, the Chief Operation Officer of Sun T.V Network. Swami Nithyananda’s sex tape scandal was a classic example of the holy turning profane.
Pushing the limits: Narayan Dutt Tewari
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At the fist glimpse, he appears like any other old man having a crumpled frame and baggy face. However, there is more than what meets the eye. Narayan Dutt Tewari, the 86 year old Governor of the state of Andhra Pradesh, shocked the nation by appearing in a sex video that showed him in bed with three women. For Tewari, both age and designation as the Governor of an Indian state went against his act.
One of the television channel went to the extent of broadcasting a half an hour special segment on the scandal. As Tewari was also a senior member of the congress party, it helped to make the matter even more worse.
The man in the eye of storm, claimed that although he entertained women at his headquarters, the delegations were mostly official. Congress party jumped to his support by claiming that the video was a fabricated one.
Secrets of a beauty queen: Anara Gupta
Anara Gupta hit the headlines overnight when a pornographic featuring the former Miss Jammu, came to light in the year 2004. The video was telecasted on several TV channels. As pornography is yet to achieve legal status in India, the beauty queen was arrested soon after the tape went viral. Anara was held in the judicial custody for several days.
So, what was Anara’s take on the entire matter? The girl alleged a local cable operator, Narinder Kohli, of raping and introducing her to pornography. Anara further claimed that Kohli had even blackmailed her with a CD of the sex video.
However, the most tantalizing revelation came when Anara described a porn video ring, involving several of India’s top notch political figures.
Where reel life meets the real: Shakti kapoor
For a man who has been portrayed as a villain several times on Indian celluloid, it did not take long to draw public and media to ridicule when a sex video featuring him went all the way. Shakti Kapoor, the man famous for his depiction of negative roles in Bollywood movies, hit the headlines when India TV released a tape showing Kapoor asking for sexual favors from a reporter, posing as a wannabe actress.
The TV station explained this as being the part of their mission to expose the casting couch phenomenon, prevalent in the Indian Film Industry. The channel was later ridiculed for being highly unprofessional. All said and done, it was Kapoor who bore the actual brunt.
The scandal prompted the Film & Television Producers Guild of India to impose a ban on him, that was eventually lifted a week later. Kapoor, however, went on to claim that the video was doctored.
In the headlines again for a wrong reason: Riya Sen-Ashmit Patel
Riya Sen and Ashmit Patel became the most talked about celebrity duo overnight, when a sex video featuring the two got leaked. The video apparently showed the young couple cozying up with each other. In no time, the MMS was suddenly the most circulated one across all the cell phone networks in India. The duo, however, continued to deny their involvement in the video, claiming that it was fabricated.
Politically incorrect: Mahipal Maderna-Bhanwari Devi
This story goes beyond the usual parameters of adultery and sex, to don a bloody and heinous image. No one would have ever taken notice of Bhanwari Devi’s sudden disappearance, had that sex video featuring the nurse with a Rajasthan cabinet minister not come to the fore.
The video showed Mahipal Maderna, a minister in the Ashok Gehlot Government, in a compromising position with Bhanwari Devi, a nurse at a local hospital. Amarchand, Bhanwari’s husband, alleged the minister of killing his wife with whom he had an illicit relationship. Twelve days after the video got exposed Bhanwari went missing from her home.
The accused, Mahipal Maderna, was sacked by the latter following the leakage of the controversial video. Although Bhanwari Devi’s body was never found yet investigators managed to recover pieces of her belongings from a spot near Jodhpur.
A case the nation remembers: Delhi Public School MMS
The Multimedia Messaging Service or MMS became a controversial term overnight, when a pair of students from Delhi Public school decided to use the technology for circulating a sex video featuring the two. The partners in crime, both underage, admitted that the whole act, right from the sexual discourse to the shooting part, was consensus. Raviraj, an IIT student, tried selling the 2.37 minute long video on the internet. Being minors, the two video producers were not prosecuted.
The controversy prompted a series of discussions and debates about the liability and culpability of material on internet. The debates led to the banning of mobile phones in school and college campuses across the nation.
In later years, films like ‘Love, Sex aur Dhokha’ and ‘Dev D’ were found carrying the veneer of DPS scandal in their respective plots.