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| VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS | |
| By:
Vir Sanghvi In Mid-Day July 6, 2003 New Delhi : A few months ago, I ran into a diplomat from a West European country at the wedding of an old friend's daughter. The diplomat had been in India for some time now, knew the country reasonably well and seemed to like it. He was certainly well-informed. He understood Indian politics better than many other diplomats of his background and appeared to read much of the Indian press. Eventually, the conversation turned to this column which, he was kind enough to say, he read regularly. He even remembered which pieces he liked and he said he had been astonished to read my piece on the government campaign against Tarun Tejpal and Tehelka. "The problem with your country," he said, "is that you have no public opinion." That couldn't be right, I retorted. Indians are among the most opinionated people on earth. "What about Tehelka?" he queried. Well, I explained, people cared enormously about the Tehelka revelations. They cared also about Tarun and were nauseated by the persecution he had suffered at the hands of the authorities. This may have been less apparent in Delhi's incestuous media world or on Bombay's cocktail circuit. But everywhere else in India, Tarun was regarded as a hero. He was forever being invited to speak at Rotary and Lions Clubs all over the country. He always received a rapturous response. And for many middle class people, he was a true Indian hero. Journalists, such as myself, only wrote commentaries. But Tarun had dared take on the system even at the risk of losing everything he had. "Oh yes?" said the diplomat. "Then tell me this: why hasn't it made a difference? Why does the government not bother about the way that people feel?" I groped for an answer but had difficulty coming up with an adequate response. "That's the trouble with India," the diplomat concluded. "It doesn't matter what people write. It doesn't matter what people think. Public opinion counts for nothing, here." For days afterwards, I wondered about that. Was the government as indifferent to public opinion as the diplomat thought? Did all of us really count for so little? The diplomat had also said: "In no Western democracy could any government get away with persecuting the press in the way that Tehelka has been victimised. With so much public outrage, the government would have fallen." I still can't decide whether the diplomat was right about the role of public opinion in Indian democracy. Of one thing, however, there is no doubt: he was totally right about Tarun Tejpal and Tehelka. No matter what public posture they take, journalists have always been ambivalent about Tarun and Tehelka. Much of this is - let's come clean - pure resentment and envy. They resent Tarun's emergence as India's best know investigative journalist. They are annoyed by the ease with which the name Tehelka has become a household word. And until it all went badly wrong, they were jealous about what they thought would be Tarun's wealth - this was in the days of the internet bubble when Tehelka was valued by foolish merchant-bankers at some absurd amount. Non-journalists, on the other hand, have never had any doubts about all the things that Tehelka did. Such is the level of middle class frustration in our country that anybody who dares expose politicians, no matter the cost to himself, becomes a figures of legend. And so, nearly everywhere that Tarun goes, ordinary people treat him like a hero. My own position on Tehelka has always been a little complex. Personally, I'm uncomfortable with sting operations and hidden cameras. I'm bemused by journalists who put on fake moustaches and pretend to be somebody else. That kind of journalism, I've always believed, should be left to the News of World or the sleazier British tabloids. My views are, I would imagine, representative of most editors. Despite the popular success of the Tehelka expose, few serious newspapers have moved to adopt Tehelka's methods. On the other hand, I think my own position has probably softened over the years. Last week, I saw a TV expose of how medical colleges fleece money from prospective students. A young NDTV reporter and camera-person had pretended to be students and had captured corrupt school principals demanding lakhs of rupees on camera. Logically, I should have objected to this just as I objected initially to Tehelka. But now, I'm not so sure. If the NDTV team had not used a hidden camera would they ever have been able to prove that medical colleges were ripping students off? That of course, has always been Tarun's defence. "Extraordinary stories demand extraordinary methods," he says. And I guess he's right. If Tehelka had not used hidden cameras would they ever have been able to document the extent of corruption in defence purchases? So, as the months have gone by, I've stopped responding to Tehelka as a journalist. I now view the story from the perspective of a reader. And more and more, I identify with the Rotarians who cheer Tarun on. Some of this, I suspect, has to do with my sense of outrage over the way in which Tehelka has been treated. Few of the army officers and bureaucrats exposed by Tehelka have been brought to book. The Commission set up to investigate the charges ended up investigating Tehelka and then collapsed when the judge quit before his work was through. Except for Bangaru Laxman, who still skulks on the sidelines protesting his innocence, no politician has suffered at all. The Samata Party asked its spokesman, Shambhu Shrivastav to say that the Tehelka tapes had been doctored. Now that Shambhu has left the party he admits that he never saw any evidence of tampering. Meanwhile, the lives of two of Tehelka's investors, Shankar Sharma and his wife, have been destroyed. Tehelka has collapsed under a mountain of debts. Its journalists have been raided, hassled, harassed and arrested. Its offices have been searched. Tarun has been accused of all kinds of motives including, absurdly enough, of acting at the behest of the ISI. In such a situation, which patriotic Indian can fail to be on Tehelka's side? If our democracy is about freedom of speech, about individual liberty, about public accountability and about the right to dissent, then each and everything that has been done to Tehelka is an obscenity and an affront to our nationhood. And yes, the diplomat I ran into was right: even the massed might of Indian middle class public opinion has made no difference. I don't know how the Tehelka story will end. I do know, however, how I don't want it to end: I don't want people to conclude that if you dare to expose corruption, the state can squash you like a bug. Despite all that he has gone through, Tarun seems determined to script his own ending. He wants to keep the Tehelka name alive to show that the authorities could not crush the spirit of dissent. He had decided that the best way to do this would be to start a weekly paper. The usual financiers were willing to provide money but he has now resolved to do something different. In the true spirit of independent journalism, he wants the paper to be financed by a multiplicity of small investors and he hopes to raise working capital by selling advance subscriptions. That way, he says, the paper will be truly free. I know that I'm going to subscribe. And I'm asking my richer friends to put their money where Tarun's mouth is. Because Tarun's not taking too much from any one investor. I think he has a ceiling of a lakh - it is a risk worth taking for anybody who cares about the values this country was founded on. If you want to help, subscribe or invest, then get in touch with Tarun. His e-mail address is tarun@ tehelka.com. This is an initiative that deserves to succeed. |
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