There is the celebrated case of Maharshi Viswamitra surrendering to the charms of Menaka while recent etymological research into the word `nephew' brought a Western scholar to the startling revelation that many of the so-called nephews of some of the early Popes were in fact their illegitimate offspring. Every visitor to the Forbidden City in Beijing is invariably shown the extra-large cot on which one of the scions of the Ming dynasty spent almost all his waking hours in the company of nubile concubines until he died, not surprisingly, of overindulgence.

But, in Clinton's case, the inquirywas not into his sexual escapades so much as his trustworthiness as President. Often, it is in covering up simple crimes that greater crimes are committed. Clinton's is no exception. The naked lie in his disposition under oath in the Paula Jones case that he had no sexual relations with ``that woman'' -- Monica Lewinsky -- marked the beginning of his troubles. Had he admitted to his relationship then and there and apologised, he would not have ended up in knots. Starr has given details of the enormous sum of money spent on unravelling the truth of his relationship with the pushy intern, whose pursuit of power and glamour was as devious and revolting as her lover's pursuit of pleasure.

It is as clear as day that there was no element of romance in his relationship with Lewinsky despite Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass he had presented her with. She was nothing but an instrument to let him ``feel younger'' and discharge, not his presidential responsibilities, but immeasurable DNA stuff. On the hindsight thatStarr's report provides, Paula Jones' accusation appears quite probable whatever the judges may have ruled in the case.

Even if Clinton stays in office, he will never be able to regain his stature and will prove more a liability than an asset. The Sudanese and the Afghanese who came out on the streets to denounce the American bombing saw it as the diversionary tactic of a desperate leader. Surely someone who could keep Yaseer Arafat waiting in his parlour so that Monica could finish her job can plummet to any depths. There is no wishing away the fact that he can now remain no more than a lameduck president.

Yet all is not lost for the Americans. If Clintons's conduct exposed their decadent culture, it also revealed the inherent strength of their system. However powerful he might have been he could not succeed in preventing a determined Starr from going about his job with ruthless precision. Finally Clinton had to abjectly apologise, not once but several times, for his misdemeanours. If this is not atriumph of democracy, what is?

We Indians have a lesson to draw from this. How does our system compare with its American counterpart? Our leaders have done grave damage to the system but all of them have got away with it. Take the case of Indira Gandhi who throttled democracy, jailed her political rivals even as her son, aided and abetted by overzealous flunkies, sent bulldozers to raze Turkman Gate without a word of apology from her. Not one of her minions who torched to death hundreds of Sikhs in the heart of the Capital in 1984 has been touched, let alone forced to apologise.

We take pride in calling ourselves the largest democracy in the world. Equality is a cardinal principle of democracy. But when Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Laloo Prasad Yadav is caught in the act of looting the treasury and finds the prospects of going to jail irreversible, he has his wife installed as Chief Minister. What's worse, even the judiciary in its halcyon days of activism acquiesced in the decision to send him to anair-conditioned guest house in the name of jailing him. Lesser mortals accused of the same crime languish in the overcrowded Patna Central Jail. Equally startling was the case of former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, who could not appear at the Tiz Hazari courts as an accused in a criminal case because they were overcrowded and were a security risk. Instead, the court was shifted to the air-conditioned environs of Vigyan Bhavan so that he could give his measured answers during the cross-examination.

What happened to our own Starrs like Madhavan of Bofors and U.R. Biswas of fodder fame is illustrative of the travails investigators have to undergo if they are dogged in their pursuit. It is now more than a decade since the Bofors scandal surfaced but there is no clue as yet on the beneficiaries of the kickbacks involved. Even V.P. Singh, who built up his prime ministerial career solely on the strength of the scandal and whom this writer heard promising that, within a fortnight of his coming to power, the nameswould be revealed, came a poor cropper. Nor did his successors of various political hues succeed where the Mandal messiah failed. But, in the name of recovering the middlemen's commission, the Army is being deprived of the precious gun and the nation hundreds of crores of rupees.

Investigations into the securities scam, attributed by then Finance Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to a `systemic failure', have yielded nothing. A few years later, a similar incident happened in Singapore involving the British bank Barings and its self-named `Rogue Trader,' Nick Leeson. The investigations have already borne fruit and the accused is now serving a six-and-a-half-year imprisonment. But our `desi' investment expert, who flaunted his Audis and BMWs and cheated hundreds upon hundreds of investors, big and small, is today a much-sought-after newspaper columnist.

The investigators are still at sea about the extent of corruption involved in the urea scam. Even when proof was obtained in the form of stacks of currency notesfrom the puja room of a former minister, it did not prevent him from contesting an election and winning hands down and playing a major role in forming a government. We call all this democracy even as we sneer at Clinton's predicament.