India Behind The Lens (News Centre)

Why isn't anyone telling us what's wrong with Sonia Gandhi? That's the question an opinion piece in The Hindu is asking after India's most powerful politician returned from a US cancer hospital.

Nirupama Subramaniam writes: "That the Congress should be secretive about Ms Gandhi's health is not surprising. What is surprising, though, is the omertà being observed by the news media, usually described by international writers as feisty and raucous. On this particular issue, reverential is the more fitting description. Barring editorials in the Business Standard and MailToday, no other media organisation has thought it fit to question the secrecy surrounding the health of the government's de facto Number One."

Omerta refers to a 'code of silence', when people in the know conspiratorially refuse to discuss a matter of importance in public.

The Telegraph, UK, quoted sources as saying Sonia had been suffering from cancer for eight months. There is no official word on it yet, and a reclusive Sonia has been busy mediating between Pranab Mukherjee and P Chidambaram on the 2G note controversy.

The law frowns on the unauthorised disclosure of medical details, so why should anyone be curious? Nirupama Subramaniam argues citizens should know, since Sonia's health determines the fortunes of the nation. She writes: "True, politicians are entitled to privacy in matters of health. But this right to privacy cannot hold if it impacts on their work. Ms Gandhi has led the Congress for more than a decade; her party's election victories are credited to her leadership. The argument that Ms Gandhi does not hold high office, is not the head of the government, and therefore her illness is not a matter of public importance, hardly holds. Since 2004, she has been seen universally as the main power centre in the UPA. Clearly, several matters of national importance ride on her health, including her ability to lead the party into the next election, and the issue of succession in the Congress leadership, should this become necessary. These are not private matters."

In the absence of an aggressive tabloid culture, details of politicians' illnesses don't quickly make it to the headlines in India. But many celebrities use their situation to draw attention to a disease, and canvass for research. After a horseriding accident that left him confined to a wheelchair, actor Christopher Reeve campaigned on behalf of people with spinal cord injuries.

NewsX reported Sonia has a benign skin cancer, and no dire illness. Squamous skin cancer, a doctor who came on the show said, is common in the West, and is handled easily. Manmohan Singh, Vajpayee and other leaders have also benefited, says The Hindu, from the omerta of the press.

In India, several politicians have thrived even when they were in physical distress. Jayaprakash Narayan inspired the movement against the Emergency from a hospital bed, while M G Ramachandran and M Karunanidhi, both crippled by severe diseases, have ruled Tamil Nadu well into their late years. Rajinikanth recently came back from Singapore, and his problem remains undisclosed to this day, but his fans remain steadfast.

The question of whether it is ethical to publish details of a newsmaker's illnesses remains, but the illness itself is no big deal in India. Politicians have such tenacity that they can swing things in the world out there even when they lie motionless in hospital beds or sit breathless in wheelchairs.

While the media in India may hush up problems afflicting our leaders, The Telegraph, UK, shows no confusion when it comes to medical stories. Late last week, it published this story with a heading guaranteed to startle those used to the feeble medical coverage in the Indian papers: Shoaib Akhtar's genital warts keep him out of Pakistan's World Twenty20 squad.