(Published in Mint Lounge, September 13 2025)

In September 1925, C.W.E. Cotton, British representative at the court of Travancore, wrote to an acquaintance: “I am greatly excited over the prospect of getting married” later that year. The “excitement” was probably feigned, though, for the 51-year-old’s sudden appetite for holy matrimony had more to do with reasons of the head than the heart. After all, damaging gossip trailed him, especially with regard to his taste for (married) local women. Indeed, there was a naughty Malayalam line going around, asking “methayil cotton undo?”—“is there (Mr) Cotton in (or on) your mattress?” His bosses were scandalised, because no imperial agent could be permitted a reputation for thinking from the groin. So, Cotton was told to settle down. A second factor, besides, was that Travancore was ruled by an orthodox woman who baulked at doing business with a bachelor of Cotton’s type. Why, even after he was wed, she ensured that their meetings were invariably held in the presence of her husband. For all said and done, a man might yet survive scandal; for a female, the whiff of sexual impropriety alone could spell ruin.

Gossip and rumour-mongering have long been among mankind’s favourite pastimes. Even the best of us delight in the former, and one way or the other has been victim to the latter. Gossip, in fact, spares not even gods: in the Ramayana, it is bazaar chatter that triggers Sita’s exile. In the puranas, divine ends are often achieved by the sly, tale-carrying proclivities of Narada. But hearsay and whispers could also be an instrument of statecraft, a way to deliberately cut people down to size, and a weapon weaker folk might deploy against the rich and powerful. The much-celebrated Arthasastra, for instance, endorses sowing rumour and falsehoods about political foes. Even today, we see the principle in play: social media platforms were abuzz recently about the health of an orange-complexioned world leader, the not-so-innocent hint being that he is unfit to rule. In prior eras, in fact, this kind of talk could be hazardous. When the Mughal emperor Shahjahan fell ill and failed to appear in public, gossip fanned out that he was dead. This set off a bloody war of succession, and by the time he showed himself, it was simply too late.

Sexual gossip, though, tends to carry a distinct sting. Queen Victoria loved her husband, and after his death wore black for the rest of her days. And yet in her widowhood she was called “Mrs Brown” in gossip columns, on account of an alleged affair—some say even a morganatic marriage—with a Scottish manservant. Centuries before, in Delhi, Turkish nobles upset with the favour Razia Sultan showed an African slave-turned-courtier used talk of an illicit intimacy to murder the queen. Shahjahan himself was accused of harbouring incestuous feelings for his daughter, Jahanara. And the princess—a builder of mosques and patron of charities—was slandered in the markets as sleeping with a musician; her father apparently detected the affair and made the memorable choice of having the singer boiled to death. But there is more to these tales than titillation. Courtly writings, as the historian Harbans Mukhia observes, presented the highborn as “governed by perfect decorum”, justifying their superiority. Bazaar talk, on the other hand, humanised the same figures, using crudeness to establish that they were flawed like everybody else.

Gossip, in that sense, strips away the pretensions and airs of the elites, which is why sometimes journalism treads this territory. In the late 18th century, the editor and proprietor of the Bengal Gazette, who was waging a war in print against the British governor-general, was taken to the cleaners when he added a line that the man also suffered from erectile dysfunction. Indian akhbars (newspapers) were packed with similar stories: a rather dreaded, but also often indebted, 19th-century military chief called Amir Khan was said to escape bankers by jumping out of toilet windows and hiding in women’s zenanas. This is not to say that the press could not be counter-manipulated: In 1809, the Maratha chief Yashwantrao Holkar was reported to have been possessed by a deity for his “numerous offences”. The only recourse was for him to visit the Jejuri temple in the Deccan, and soon he—with his army—set out. But apparently Holkar’s secret goal was to confer with the toilet-fleeing Amir Khan; it was to avoid raising suspicions in British circles that the akhbars were made to push talk of a god-appeasing pilgrimage.

Gossip clearly then had political uses, though as with Razia Sultan, in unfriendly hands, it could birth unpleasant consequences. If a king were unable to father heirs, it raised questions about his manhood, and by extension, his capacity to rule. In the 17th century, the sultanate of Bijapur—eyed by the Mughals—was attacked, justification conveniently emerging from a whisper campaign that its sultan was illegitimate. In Golconda meanwhile, a powerful minister was rumoured to be having an affair with the queen mother; stung by the gossip, when his boss fired him, the minister betrayed him to the Mughals. In Britain, Queen Elizabeth I’s politically sensible refusal to marry resulted in murmurs about whether she was biologically all there. Eventually this formidable lady agreed to “a semi-public gynaecological examination” to which the French embassy sent witnesses; it was the only way to plug further damage. Her successor, James I, married but also carried on with men, resulting in his being branded “Queen James”—an “unmanly” ruler. Unkind talk in all these instances served also as a vehicle for political assault.

Given human delight at talking behind people’s backs, though, gossip is unlikely to perish, even in our relatively staid times. In fact, no matter what one does, there is no escaping unflattering speculation, even for consciously upright folk. For instance, in 1905 there was in Kerala the case of Kuriyedathu Thatri, a married Brahmin woman found in a compromising situation. When tried, she listed an impressive total of 65 lovers. So unprepared was society for this number–which challenged established ideals of female virtue as well as local Brahmins’ social airs–that some claimed many of these names were planted. This was a time of reformist stirrings among Brahmins, and the conservative Cochin rajah in cahoots with orthodox elders, it was said, got Thatri to name, shame, and ostracise the firebrands. But the more popular version turns the tables. In this account, the increasing volume of men embroiled in the affair so agonised the pious rajah, that in sheer horror he put an end to the trial. The case was closed and Thatri was excommunicated into oblivion. But this only made things worse. As enduring gossip in Kerala has it, the reason the trial was terminated was not the good ruler’s shock and pain—it was simply that the 66th name was probably the rajah’s own.