COP THE CRIMINAL

Looting the tribal in Maoist land

IN terms of tackling the Maoists, Chhattisgarh showcased a stark irony in the last week of the year gone by. The state has witnessed the miscarriage of justice; there may be hope yet that civil society hasn’t tiptoed in its response to the life sentence handed down to Dr Binayak Sen. Hideous no less has been the looting and criminal misbehaviour of policemen in the Maoist-dominated region of Bastar. So serious indeed that it has provoked a senior officer to apologise to the tribals and compensate the villagers for the goods stolen, as reported in this newspaper.

Having failed to countenance the Maoists, even with helicopter gunships and the central paramilitary, the state police have descended to criminality. Rice, poultry and other items ~ indeed the source of livelihood of the subalterns in Dantewada district ~ were looted by the police on 24 December. Considering the magnitude of the crime in an impoverished, insurgency-hit region, it will not suffice merely for the district police chief to apologise and dole out Rs 13,000 to the tribals ~ a pittance rather than a compensation. The culprits will have to be identified and action taken. It bears recall that last April, the local police had failed to provide the logistical assistance to the paramilitary, a lapse that led to the killing of 76 CRPF personnel by the Maoists.

The repentant SP only labours the obvious that “looting by policemen is highly deplorable and creates a bad image about the force”. The short point must be that the force has scarcely an image to protect. Its Salwa Judum experiment ~ designed to keep teenagers in the forefront and the police in the rearguard ~ has had disastrous consequences. It has failed to rein in the Maoists, still less afford a measure of protection in the vulnerable areas. To subvert prosecution to the point of perversion of justice is a bizarre act of self-defence. And now looting has reduced the cop to a criminal.

Flawed evidence and conclusions

Madabhushi Sridhar

The sentencing of Dr. Binayak Sen involves unverified charges, and unreasonable and unconstitutional findings.

The constitutional validity of the charges of sedition and conspiracy that were used to implicate rights activists such as Binayak Sen merely for their anti-establishment political thoughts needs to be challenged. The action ridicules the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression.

The sections of the Indian Penal Code that deal with “conspiracy to wage war against the government” (121A) and “sedition” (124A) are draconian in terms of their definition and ambit and carry a disproportionate quantum of punishment. Section 121A was not a part of the original IPC of 1860: it was inserted by an amendment in 1870. After Independence it was amended in 1951, just to replace ‘British India' with ‘state'. In order to punish the nationalist leaders who were fighting against the Government of India and the rulers of princely states also, the British brought in an Ordinance in 1937. It amended the IPC to add to the definition “local government,” expanding the power to grant punishment for conspiracy against any government. Section 124A was used against nationalist leaders to punish anyone who advocated freedom.

In the Meerut Conspiracy case, the accused were charged with conspiracy to wage war for having formed a union on the lines of trade unions in Soviet Russia. They were convicted by a sessions court. The Allahabad High Court held that unless it was a conspiracy to overawe a government by means of criminal force or show of criminal force, such a finding would be wrong.

Section 124A defined as an offence, exciting disaffection against the state; it was replaced with ‘sedition' in 1898. The English law meaning of sedition is basically libel of government, but its ordinary English meaning is “stirring up rebellion against the government” ( Kedarnath v State of Bihar, AIR 1962 SC 955). But in Niharendu Majumdar (AIR 1942 FC 22 (26)), the Federal Court gave a liberal meaning to ‘sedition': “The acts or words complained of must either incite to disorder or must be such as to satisfy reasonable men that is their intention or tendency.” But in Bala Gangadhar Tilak (ILR (1898) 22 Bom 112), the court held that if a person excited or attempted to excite feelings of disaffection great or small, he would be guilty under this section. This meaning was later was confirmed by the Privy Council.

After Independence, it was argued before the Supreme Court that Section 124A was ultra vires of the Constitution insofar as it sought to punish merely bad feelings against a government, and that it was an unreasonable restriction.

The First Amendment to the Constitution in 1951 incorporated ‘public order' in Article 19(2) as a ground on which the state could impose reasonable restrictions by law. Thus, the inclusion of ‘sedition' was held constitutional by the Supreme Court in Kedarnath. But the Constitution-makers did not specifically state that ‘sedition' should be a ground to restrict free speech. Though the additional ground of ‘public order' is held to be valid for restricting freedom of expression, sedition cannot be read into the wide expression ‘public order.'

Hence, punishing Binayak Sen for “conspiring to commit sedition” is unreasonable and unjustified, besides being unconstitutional. Mere adverse criticism of the state is not sedition, unless it is coupled with incitement to violence or disorder. When it is not sedition at all, where does the charge of “conspiracy to sedition” stand? Dr. Sen did not even know what the term sedition meant. He asked, and the judge answered: ‘ Rajdroh'.

When two officers of the Punjab Education Department raised the slogan “Khalistan Zindabad, Raj Karega Khalsa,” they were convicted of ‘sedition'. But the Supreme Court set it aside (1995(3) SCC 214), saying the court should look at whether it had led to a consequence detrimental to the nation's unity and integrity. It pointed out that Section 124A should not be used to violate freedom of expression. Free speech can be reasonably restricted if that would result in violence or public disorder. Such an event linked to the relevant communication needed to be proved before pronouncing a person guilty of sedition. Going by this interpretation by the Supreme Court based on its own judgment in Kedarnath v State of Bihar, even if it is proved that Dr. Sen acted as a courier, he cannot be convicted of sedition because it was not proved that any public disorder resulted.

A crime has to be proved by the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt. Even if a single reasonable doubt is left unanswered, a conviction is not possible. The prosecution has not, then, discharged the burden of proof. Raipur Additional Sessions Judge B.P. Verma was supposed to explain all the reasonable doubts raised by the defence to establish the conviction, but he did not do so.

Charging Dr. Sen of ‘sedition' under Section 124A is uncalled for and he cannot be convicted for that offence even if the court considered that the prosecution had fully discharged the burden of proof. The interpretation of the section by the Supreme Court has to be followed as the law, along with the penal provisions of the IPC.

When the investigating police officers were the only crucial witnesses, their evidence has to be corroborated as they are not independent witnesses. Sentencing the accused solely based on their evidence is unreasonable and unjustified. The judgment should at least appear to be an independent opinion and be supported by a convincing articulation of available evidence. There are at least six bad aspects of evidence, reasonable doubts and unreasonable contradictions involved.

1. The allegation is that Dr. Sen ferried letters from Mr. Narayan Sanyal to leaders outside the jail. It could be reasonably believed that there would have been close supervision affording no opportunity to hand over letters from a Maoist leader to Dr. Sen, a PUCL office-bearer. Yet, the judge considered the letters as key items of evidence to link Dr. Sen to a conspiracy to commit the crime of sedition. When three of the accused were not convicted for the crime of “conspiracy to wage war” under Section 121A based on these alleged letters, how can the same letters form valid evidence to convict him of “conspiracy to commit sedition” under Section 124A read with 120B of the IPC?

2. The reasonable doubt that was raised by the defence that an unsigned, computer-printed letter (labelled article 37) supposedly sent by the Maoists to Dr. Sen was an introduction, has not been clarified. Nobody had signed it: it bears only the signatures of two seizure witnesses. Thus there is a reasonable doubt whether this letter was recovered from Dr. Sen's home or planted later. The letter found no mention in the attested list of documents recovered. A copy of it was not given to Dr. Sen, though copies of all the other seized articles were. Nor is it mentioned in the seizure memo.

3. When doubts over how the letters could have been handed over to Dr. Sen while the police/jail officials would have been closely watching any transactions, persisted, not disproved by any other evidence, either direct or indirect, how can those letters being found with Mr. Pijush Guha be taken as a basis to convict Mr. Guha? The prosecution did not explain how the letters exchanged hands. The judge ignored the testimony of two jailors that it was not possible for Mr. Sanyal to hand over anything to Dr. Sen in jail. The judge relied on the examination-in-chief of members of the jail staff, who stated that Dr. Sen would pass himself off as Mr. Sanyal's relative. Under cross-examination, they admitted that applications to meet Mr. Sanyal were made by Dr. Sen as the PUCL general secretary, on the PUCL letter-head. These applications are part of the court's record.

4. After the police searched Dr. Sen's house and collected the material, they carried it in an unsealed bag. This lapse raises doubts about the possibility of the introduction of letters at a later point. The fact that the bag was not sealed was recorded on video, which was not considered in the court.

5. Judge Verma chose to ignore most of the cross-examination, relying only on the special public prosecutor's examination-in-chief. If the witness contradicted what he stated in chief during cross examination, evidence loses value.

6. The Chhattisgarh police could not prove that Dr. Sen and Mr. Guha ever met. A hotel owner and hotel manager told the court they had never seen Dr. Sen visiting Mr. Guha in their hotels. But this finds no mention in the judgment. Instead, the testimony of one Anil Singh is relied upon: he had apparently passed by when Mr. Guha was arrested, and overheard Mr. Guha telling the police that the letters found on him had been given by Dr. Sen. These letters find no mention in Mr. Guha's arrest panchnama. Mr. Guha, points out the judge, is an accused in a Naxalite case in West Bengal.

( The author is a Professor at the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research University of Law, Hyderabad.)

To succeed, a politician has to keep his ear to the ground. Yet success can be cruelly destructive; it is so deceptively flattering that it eventually insulates him from the very thing that has made him a success: public opinion. For the politician, fed on heady tales of his invincibility and listening only to courtiers and attendants, the moment of discovery can be shattering.

The Niira Radia tapes have come as a similar, awakening moment for journalists. At one level, the tapes are about a nation in deep crisis, with a corporate lobbyist shown as being able effortlessly to penetrate and influence decision-making at multiple levels. If this is a mere teaser-trailer, as reports of 5000 more tapes suggest, what more damning, frightening things are we going to learn?

At another level, l`affaire Radia is a stunning indictment of the media, or at least sections of it. Indeed, for journalists caught on the tape, and tried by members of their own tribe for the lapse, the troubling question is about their credibility. Did they go too far in placing themselves at the disposal of Ms Radia knowing she was a lobbyist for two powerful corporate groups, the Tatas and Mukesh Ambani? Forget the people at large, why did their explanations not carry conviction with the rest of the media? And more critically, did stardom and public adulation cause them to lose their way so badly that they could not judge between right and wrong?

That illusions of grandeur and infallibility can affect journalists in exactly the same way they do politicians and film stars has been evident in the discussions held so far. Barkha Dutt chose to face a firing squad of senior media professionals on her role in the Radia tapes and yet missed the opportunity to show remorse and recover the fund of goodwill that had made her an icon. Her point: She would not apologise for a wrong she had not committed and it was entirely valid to talk to a corporate lobbyist and trade information for information. Ms Dutt threw counter questions at her interrogators, suggesting at times that they did not know the first thing about modern-day journalism.

The verdict was that Ms Dutt did herself no favour by acting so self-important. There were the inevitable comparisons between TV journalists and the politicians they attacked; it seemed that both could be brought down by hubris. Also revealed last week was the yawning gap between rank and file journalism and club class journalism, placed on opposite ends during a discussion on media ethics held at the lawns of the Delhi Press Club. Editor-in-Chief of CNN-IBN Rajdeep Sardesai, who was among the panellists, wrongly assumed that he was lecturing to a captive audience. Pitching in strongly for the dramatis personae on the Radia tapes, he argued that sourcing stories from lobbyists, even if not desirable, had become a requirement of fast moving journalism. It was excessive and unacceptable therefore to treat this as a serious misconduct. And then, Mr. Sardesai made a fatal error: He said he detected professional envy in the orchestrated outrage against Ms Dutt.

This was more than what the assembly of journalists could take. They were being portrayed as dull, and plodding in comparison to the savvy new media. The floodgates opened and for the next hour or so, it was the popular TV editor's turn to listen as reporters tore to shreds the thesis that competitive compulsions had allowed for a variety of liberties in reporting, including tapping corporate lobbyists for information, and even allowing opinions to be formed by this information. Incensed mediapersons related their own experience of being able to break stories without compromising on journalistic sources. A senior print journalist with a stupendous track record in political journalism spoke of resisting alluring baits and finding access to important sources solely on the strength of her hard-earned credibility. Another shouted that not all journalists were in the profession for fame. However, unlike Ms Dutt, the amiable Mr. Sardesai quickly conceded the point, accepting that the lines separating journalism, politics and lobbying had indeed blurred to unfortunate portents for the health and future of journalism. The debate wound up with someone good humouredly remarking that the grassroots media had finally taken their revenge.

With the Radia debate into its third week, it has become more than apparent that a new kind of journalism has completely rewritten the rules of engagement in the profession. For those working with television, the glamour and fame can be overpowering, with the high visibility translating into throbbing, pulsating fan clubs, enormous following on social media networks and celebrity status on the party circuit. For the likes of Ms Radia, the “celeb journo” is a sitting duck, a vulnerable target both for passing on and acquiring information. News gathered this way slowly and inevitably acquires a legitimacy that eventually allows all lines to be crossed. From this to concluding that news cannot be got any other way is a small step. The trappings of power work similarly for politicians and journalists. Cut off from the rude realities of the normal world, both begin to live in a bubble of their own making. But whereas the politician, used to voter mood swings, will quickly learn his lesson when the truth hits home, the journalist, not tutored in this art, will react in anger and shock and go into spasms of denial.

Journalists who enjoy the limelight must also be prepared for the backlash when it comes. It can be argued that the journalistic indiscretions revealed by the Radia tapes are small change compared to the scale of adventurism on the part of politicians. Yet journalists alone, among a host of players caught on the tapes, have been at the receiving end of public anger: Rapid-fire tweets, emotional, angry lashing out on facebook accounts, chain text messages, black humour forwards, the responses have fed on each other. Partly lynch-mobbish, the fury is in larger measure because of a feeling of being let down. The public face of the journalist is of a brave, feisty adversary to the rapacious establishment, not the party animal who will wilt before the charms of the corporate lobbyist.

Television has hugely expanded this mandate with journalism turning almost vigilantist in the studio; here the fearless, morally superior and much loved anchor is judge and jury to the condemned political class. What the tapes have done is to expose this virtuoso performance as a sham. The combative anchor who relentlessly interrogates and shames his guests on the 9 pm bulletin morphs into an altogether different character on the tapes, entirely at ease with dubious elements. From the perspective of the trusting outsider, the cosy compact between the interrogator, the interrogated and the go-between must surely seem like a rude joke pulled off at his expense.

It does not help that most of those caught out on the tapes have a wafer-thin defence. The one claim that they have all made is that they strung Ms Radia along — as if the hard-nosed lobbyist can be so easily taken for a ride. The question is: What gave Ms Radia the confidence that journalists can be commandeered to do her bidding? What explains the easy familiarity between the hacks and their corporate contact? How is she able to wake up lofty names from their slumber? If, for all her pain and perseverance, Ms Radia only got the journalistic heave-ho, then it is a serious comment on the wisdom of the corporate groups that employed her.

Nor does the privacy argument work, given journalism's increasingly ferocious appetite for news of any and every kind. Don't TV eager-beavers chase after their targets, ensnaring them in stings and so on, often without a thought to the damage the telecast might cause to personal reputations? Taped conversations between alleged terrorists are the staple of the medium. Two years ago, TV channels feverishly ran a “sex tape” that allegedly featured a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh functionary. The tape turned out to be a fake but the RSS man lost his job. TV channels on a moral trip on privacy have had no qualms about using salacious gossip involving some of the world's biggest names, provided by WikiLeaks.

A case has also been made out against Outlook and Open magazine for not following the due process involved in doing the stories, including checking back with the taped journalists. Due process? If the tapes establish anything, it is the attempted subversion of the due process. As the lobbyist of a telecom group, Ms Radia manoeuvres to place a favoured candidate in the Telecom Ministry. She tries to influence parliamentary debate. She makes veiled suggestions about fixing judgments, and she co-opts willing journalists. In one of the tapes, she skewers the news head of a leading financial daily for daring to miss a story; the quaking, quivering news head in turn apologises to her as if she were his boss. Columnists reproduce her lines verbatim, so much so, when the first of the columns appear, Ms Radia and a senior colleague chuckle at the poor journalist's vulnerability.

Some of the implicated journalists have since been suspended by their organisations. The media must introspect more seriously, following it up with a clear understanding of the red lines, if lobbyists are not to make a habit of bossing us, if people are not to treat every story and every journalist with suspicion.

It would appear that a beautiful woman has more at stake than others, so her battles for social causes have a deep sacrificial quality to them. Add to this her extraordinary literary fame, and it is natural that Arundhati Roy’s grouses are of national importance. People react to her in different ways depending on their intellect, affluence, psychiatric condition and how their own books are doing. It is often said that she ‘polarises’ the nation through her opinions but that is a myth. Indians do not need Roy to be infuriated with each other.

Her latest trouble follows a speech she had delivered in Delhi which said nothing new—that India should free Kashmir. At the time of writing this column, the Government is contemplating (aloud) arresting her on charges of sedition. She has issued an uncharacteristically tame statement claiming that her actions are a consequence of her love for the nation. Obviously, she does not want to go to jail. Despite her new nervousness, what her admirers say about her is true—that she is the conscience of the nation. What is disputable is whether it is a compliment.

It is futile to denude metaphors to their bare meanings, but in this case it might be useful to try. We know very little about conscience but what we do know is that there is an unattainable moral superiority about it, and that it usually transmits unsolicited advice, which is the opposite of what the mind really wants to do. But at the same time, it is fundamentally a creation of the mind, a creation that is meant to come in conflict with its maker. That is Roy. She is the creation of the very system that she aspires to bring down.

A weak economy and an immature democracy would systematically empower a particular class of people, first by giving them a social headstart through the early landed wealth of their ancestors, then by letting them cash their social gains for even greater affluence and influence. Some of them would then begin to challenge the injustices of the very system that made their righteous ire possible. A reason why Open receives so many story pitches from foreign-returned journalism students who want to do only bleeding-heart stories—the trauma of child labour, the plight of village women and the agony of stray dogs. And Kashmir. It seems every loaded intern wants to do an anti-Indian Government Kashmir story (and on the way, liberate Tibetans).

Roy is more talented, genuine and courageous than most people who would get along with her. But the fact remains that she is, more than anything, an anomaly that completes the system, a system that not only made her but also needs her for its own balance and survival. If this part is somewhat familiar, it is because it is derived from The Matrix trilogy.

There is a scene in The Matrix Reloaded where I usually imagine Arundhati Roy as Neo, the hero of the tale. It is the scene where Neo meets The Architect, the creator of the Matrix, the computer programme that has replaced the real world and its real life. In this scene, Neo wants to know, “Why am I here?” The Architect, who looks like Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the internet, gives a tangential answer, “You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden assiduously avoided, it is not unexpected, and thus not beyond a measure of control, which has led you, inexorably, here.”

That Roy is here as the inevitable consequence of the very system she wants to dismantle, that she is an expected anomaly, becomes more evident in her other battle—against globalisation and a potent version of capitalism. The huge advance for her debut novel that brought the first tremors of critical and commercial interest in her work, the rise of the reading middleclass, the liberal movement, the many forms of media that conveyed her thoughts to millions, the international interest in Indian writers, and her own favourite Mac on which she writes her essays against capitalism, are all consequences of capitalism’s ways. But then capitalism also needs the imagination of soul, self-loathing, the delusion of introspection, so that people are not completely repulsed by their own greed. As The Architect would have said, “Ergo, Arundhati Roy.”

Acid Test
Can The Media Police Itself?

By Ravindra Kumar

TRANSCRIPTS of telephone conversations that a lobbyist and public relations consultant had with members of the extended journalistic fraternity have raised serious questions about professional ethics. These questions will not go away merely because the media, with few exceptions and for reasons that aren’t as unfathomable as they seem, wishes them to go away. They will have to be addressed, because if breaches have indeed taken place, it would be unfair on those of us who don’t cozy up to lobbyists to be dismissed with contempt because a few of us do.

Conversations between the lobbyist ~ Niira Radia, who represents industrialists as powerful as Mukesh Ambani and Ratan Tata ~ and two mediapersons, Vir Sanghvi and Barkha Dutt, are in focus. Prima facie, the first set of conversations suggests that Mr Sanghvi tailored the content of his column that appeared in the Hindustan Times at the behest of Ms Radia, in support of Mr Mukesh Ambani and against a judgment of the High Court that favoured his brother.

Did the conversation take place? No one denies it; Mr Sanghvi though says, “nobody can remember verbatim every conversation that took place 19 months ago”, but “these conversations do not appear to be entirely accurate.” Since he does not tell us what the inaccuracies are, presumably the transcripts are substantially, if not entirely accurate.

Did Ms Radia tell Mr Sanghvi what to write? The transcript certainly seems to suggest this was the case. Indeed, at one point she even tells him what not to write because that would hurt her client. Did Mr Sanghvi write what he was asked to? The web edition of Hindustan Times suggests he did, under the headline “Time for some transparency” and within hours of his conversation with Ms Radia.

On the evidence, it would seem therefore to most observers that a well-known, generally well-regarded journalist wrote a comment at the prompting of a lobbyist acting for a major corporate house. Is Mr Sanghvi guilty of a breach of professional ethics? The Press Council of India’s norms of professional conduct cover all of 111 pages but deal with such a situation only tangentially.

Under the sub-heading “Financial Journalism”, the norms say: “It should be mentioned prominently in the report about any company that the report is based on information given by the company or the financial sponsors of the company”. Mr Sanghvi’s report, published in June 2009, was about Mr Mukesh Ambani’s group but did not disclose ~ prominently or in fine print ~ that it was based on information supplied by the company or its authorised representative.

In his defence, Mr Sanghvi has cited an article he wrote in August 2009 wherein he said: “My friend, Tony Jesudasan, who represents Anil took me out to lunch and made out a case for Anil. I was totally convinced till my friend Niira Radia, who represents Mukesh, gave me the other side which frankly seemed just as convincing to my inexpert ears.”

There are two problems with this defence. First, it appeared two months after the contentious piece and therefore can’t possibly be covered by the disclosure norm prescribed by the Press Council. Second, the article Mr. Sanghvi wrote in June 2009 was remarkably lucid in echoing the Mukesh Ambani line, as enunciated by Ms Radia, and made more remarkable by the fact it was penned by a man with admittedly inexpert ears, one who suggested he was confused because contrasting claims of two business rivals seemed equally convincing.

Certainly, Mr Sanghvi has a case to answer.

The other transcripts that have raised ethical questions relate to Ms Dutt. These, it seems, record a series of conversations where Ms Dutt appears to act as a conduit and facilitator in exchanges between the Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on ministry formation following the 2009 general election.
The transcripts suggest that Ms. Dutt was, or pretended to be, intimately involved in arranging a dialogue between a senior functionary of the Congress and another of the DMK at the behest of a lobbyist and for the benefit of a faction within the DMK represented by Mr M Karunanidhi’s daughter.

From what we have been able to determine, Ms. Dutt’s defence has been confined to one-liners on a social networking site. The most relevant of these is a comment that reads, “Radia was a valid news source for DMK camp. She gave info on Karunanidhi, and sought my analysis on what Cong may do next. Valid journalism.”
This is fair enough, as far as it goes. Journalists do have political sources, and oftentimes string them along. But, old fashioned as we admittedly are, the transcripts reveal a degree of intimate involvement in the lobbyist’s political wheeling-dealing that suggest either Ms Dutt’s complicity or her skill as a consummate actress. Perhaps times have changed, perhaps journalists in the field are required to do these things.
However, there is a simple test to determine if Ms Dutt deserves to be accused of professional misconduct or not. And that is to find out if she did in fact put out stories in May 2009, when the conversations took place, to narrate either the factional squabbles within the DMK, or to reveal the engagement of a corporate lobbyist by a faction within the DMK to improve its chances, or to explain to her viewers the tortuous machinations that formed the process through which specific DMK nominees got the ministerial berths they did.

In short, if the interactions with Ms Radia were entirely professional, as Ms. Dutt and her channel maintain, they must have yielded stories that dwelt on at least some of the specific information that the journalist was privy to. Memory is not a good guide in these matters; it is for Ms Dutt and her channel to scour the archives and produce the defence.

There is another aspect to Ms Dutt’s defence, that quid pro quo must be established before any accusations are made on the basis of the Radia transcripts. This is disingenuous to say the least and if this logic is to apply universally, there really ought to have been no reason for A Raja to resign in the wake of the 2G spectrum scam until someone was able to prove that he had been paid, or otherwise compensated, for the bizarre decisions he took.

Indeed, there are questions that Mr Sanghvi and Ms Dutt must answer. Who, though, will seek those answers is unclear, especially because the transcripts are conveniently sub judice, forming part of proceedings before the Supreme Court. The Press Council does not deal with such matters.

A body of professional peers ought ideally to examine the matter. But the Editors’ Guild of India is a delightfully amorphous entity. We know it exists, but it doesn’t have a website. It has elections from time to time, and even a Code of Ethics, we are told. Some time ago, it set up an Ethics Committee to go into the question of “paid news” in journalism. But we don’t know if it is exercised by the Radia transcripts, or whether it proposes to act on their contents. We do know it sometimes ~ but not always ~ takes attacks on the Press seriously, we don’t know if it is equipped to, or indeed even willing to deal with what surely must be a crisis of monumental proportions for the profession.

The News Broadcasters Association ~ an organization of major television networks ~ had forestalled government efforts some time ago to have a Broadcast code by offering a scheme of self-regulation. The fundamental principles of this scheme are unambiguous, indeed even praiseworthy. However, the scheme concerns itself with what is broadcast, and not with the ethics of individual journalists, except in general terms.

There is a risk, and it must be appreciated. Unless the media shows itself capable of dealing with ethical issues that concern its members, it will render itself irrelevant. Good journalism is not about screaming out aloud who broke which story “first”, or who predicted an election with the greatest accuracy. We are judged not only on the basis of what we reveal, but what we choose to conceal.

The writer is Editor, The Statesman

NARENDRA BISHT

RADIA TAPES

All Lines Are Busy

There was not one pie Niira Radia didn’t have her hand in nor any area—media, corporate or government—she didn’t have a contact in

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ALSO IN THIS STORY

Hear it as they said it: The 2G Tapes

India, the republic, is now on sale. Participating in the auction is a group of powerful individuals, corporate houses, lobbyists, bureaucrats and journalists. Just before the 2G spectrum allocation scam became breaking news, the Income-Tax department was busy tapping the phones of Niira Radia, a lobbyist whose clients, the Tatas and Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd, have interests in several key sectors such as telecom, petroleum and natural gas.

Radia’s conversations show how even cabinet berths can be decided by this select oligarchy. Her interface with discredited (now former) telecom minister A. Raja, DMK mp Kanimozhi and Ranjan Bhattacharya, the foster son-in-law of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, shows how she successfully lobbied for several cabinet berths. The transcripts suggest that journalists Vir Sanghvi and Barkha Dutt also lobbied for Raja with the Congress party. However, both journalists, in separate statements, decried the use of the label “lobbyist” and termed their conversation with Radia as part of their normal journalistic duties. Other journalists such as Prabhu Chawla, G. Ganapathy Subramaniam and M.K. Venu also had elaborate conversations with Radia on issues ranging from telecom to the Ambani brothers’ dispute on gas pricing. At times they proffer advice and trade information.

The more than 104 conversations involving Radia that were tapped by the I-T department expose a systemic rot. These tapes are now annexures in a Supreme Court petition by lawyer Prashant Bhushan seeking Raja’s prosecution.

The reaction of the Congress leadership is surprising since all these tapes were available to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as well as Pranab Mukherjee and P. Chidambaram in their capacity as finance ministers in the two UPA governments. Regardless of the existence of the tapes, the Congress leadership agreed to reinduct Raja with the telecom portfolio into the UPA-II cabinet.

The tapes also paint a dismal picture of how everything—from cabinet berths to natural resources—is now available for the right price. The now controversial 2G allocation was just one of the many manipulations orchestrated by players in high places. There are conversations on civil aviation with 1980-batch IAS officer Sunil Arora, publicist Suhel Seth and many others which have not been included here. The worst fallout, however, is that it has besmirched the hitherto ‘fair’ name of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who agreed to take Raja back in the same ministry that now stands exposed in the biggest scam in independent India, despite knowledge of the tapes.

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Niira Bhajan

“When it came to spectrum, they went to Raja and paid him a bribe and got spectrum allocated.”

“Uddhav’s already taken funding from both groups. I’d suggest, tell Krishna Kumar to talk to Uddhav.”

“Otherwise I will tell them to tell Uddhav to go after them. I don’t think Congress will do much.”

“I believe Maran has given about 600 crores to Dayalu, Stalin’s mother.”

Mere client Tatas bhi bahut beneficiary thhe (in the 2G spectrum allocation).”

“Senthil, Rahul Joshi, maine donon ki le li. You can’t run stories against my clients and get away with it.”

“I have a note, no, a whole dossier, on Praful Patel on the last five years jisme ye poora aspect hai.”

“Inka pichhle paanch saal mein yahi attempt to tha, inko destroy karo, donon careers ko.”

“Narendra Modi, Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar, Venkaiah Naidu, ye sab coterie hain na of Advani.”

“Naresh wants to kill it (Air India), Vijay wants to kill it and Praful is not really interested.”

“Raja has promised me that he will not do anything in a hurry. I made Kani speak to him as well. ”

“The solicitor general, Gopal Subramaniam, I am gonna go and brief him. He hates them.”

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Key excerpts of the conversations, finally in the public domain, are available from the links at the bottom of this story.

Hear it as they said it: The 2G Tapes

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