Journalists and the economics of truth

By Swapan Dasgupta

The collapse of the Saradha Group, said to be a ‘Ponzi’ scheme, has created political ripples in West Bengal. Accusations have been levelled against MPs and other functionaries of the Trinamool Congress for both patronising and providing political cover to a flamboyant entrepreneur who ended up either short-changing or cheating many thousands of people of modest means their limited life savings. The West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, unaccustomed to handling charges of financial impropriety, has reacted in the only way she knows: by levelling shrill and sometimes outlandish charges against her political opponents, particularly the CPI(M) and Congress. She has also raised hackles by suggesting that “what is lost is lost.”

That the Chief Minister and the TMC would bear the brunt of the outrage over the Saradha collapse was only to be expected. The so-called “suicide note” that Saradha’s founder chairman Sudipta Sen sent to the CBI before his arrest in a Kashmir resort make it quite clear that he indulged some people close to the TMC because it provided him a measure of protection. He also said that that he paid a whopping Rs 40 crores to two Marwari businessmen and the office-bearer of a prominent football club for the sole purpose of “managing the SEBI” officers in Mumbai. These businessmen claimed proximity to a Congress politician who has risen to a very high Constitutional post. In addition, he paid consultancy fees of approximately Rs one crore and took care of the hotel bills of the wife of a senior Cabinet minister because he was told that “if this…family slightly stand by me then I will be (sic) great clout in India.”

Since a man who is charged with grave offences may well level grave charges against prominent individuals to deflect attention and, indeed, politicise a straight-forward financial scam, it may well be improper to repeat the names of prominent people whose palms Sen claims to have generously greased. In any event, most of these names are now in the public domain and their identities are no longer a well-guarded secret or a subject of speculation. However, since the moral credentials of a man who presents himself as a sincere entrepreneur who was ignorant of SEBI guidelines on accepting deposits from the public and who in turn was both blackmailed and duped by others more unscrupulous than him, hasn’t yet been fully established, it is best to view the contents of his “suicide note” with a large measure of caution.

Yet, while the political aspects of Sen’s defence of his misconduct have got full play in the media, there is another facet of his protestations of innocence that have been glossed over. In the concluding part of his 18-page dying declaration, Sen wrote: “My over all business fall down is due to the media entry, extortion from the above named persons and blackmailed by my own staffs and executives.”

Since the CBI, it has now emerged in the course of the Coalgate controversy that threatens to destroy the Mammohan Singh Government, is accustomed to consulting the executive to check the grammar of its depositions, it may not be too hard for them to have Sen’s “last statement” translated into English.

In a nutshell, Sen’s accusation is startling. Once people got wind of the fact that what the Saradha bosses and their agents were doing all over eastern India, they started viewing him as the proverbial milch cow. Leading this pack of predators were not politicians, but people who ostensibly claimed to be from the media. Thus, in order to save himself from attacks in the media, Sen decided to invest in the very people who were either conducting so-called investigative journalism or threatening to expose him. He bought Channel 10, a Bengali news channel, for some Rs 30 crore and engaged his erstwhile tormentors to provide him content for Rs 60 lakhs each month. The erstwhile tormentors gave him “assurance that (on) execution of this agreement they will protect my business from the government i.e. State Government and also Central Government and I will be able to get a smooth passage…” Blessed with this assurance, Sen sunk in Rs 50 crore into the channel and started three dailies.

Ironically, Sen’s entry into the media resulted in all the media hyenas rushing to his door with the same threats and blandishments. The estranged wife of a former Congress minister at the Centre used her political clout to pay Rs 25 crore to establish a channel for the North-east. Another Rs 28 crore was paid to the former minister himself for 50 per cent share of another channel beamed at the North-east. A Congress MLA from Assam sold him a printing press and a newspaper for Rs 6 crore. And one enterprising freelancer extracted Rs 50 lakh and more from Saradha to set up an English channel.

What emerges from these revelations is a very disturbing phenomenon: instead of being a watchdog against evil and wrong-doing, as it claims to be, a large section of the media has become a part of the problem itself. Just as Bollywood became criminalised from the proceeds of the Mumbai underworld, a large part of the media has become a cover for criminal enterprise. From chit fund scamsters to real estate sharks, the media has become a tool for buying influence. To me, that is the most disturbing lesson from the Saradha scandal. 

Deccan Chronicle/ Asian Age, May 3, 2013

Arnab wins Bharat as 'nation wants to know'

By Swapan Dasgupta

It may sound flippant but if I was to name the Indian of the Year for 2012, my choice would be Arnab Goswami of Times Now. The reason has nothing to do with the fact I am an occasional participant on his Newshour debates. Nor is it connected with his hectoring style which I find enthralling at times and quite exasperating on other occasions. Arnab’s foremost contribution to the public discourse (at least the English language discourse which still sets the tone for others) is his unending search for what “the nation” wants to know.

The definition of his imagined community is important. Hitherto, the media was reasonably modest in its inquisitiveness. Its rationale for demanding answers was invariably couched in terms of either ‘viewer interest’ or, at best, ‘the public interest’. In projection the ‘nation’ as the inquisitor—and I notice that even in rival channels ‘nation’ is fast becoming a substitute to the more passive use of the ‘country’—Arnab has succeeded in doing something quite remarkable: he has successfully made ‘nationalism’ the core attribute for assessing public life.  

This is a remarkable feat. For long, the English language media was in real danger of being overwhelmed by a spurious liberalism, borrowed from the ethos of the New York Times, Guardian and BBC, and complemented by the insidious political correctness of the American campus. Those who subscribed to this ‘idea of India’ became members of a privileged club; those who persisted with alternative approaches were relegated to the fringes and barely tolerated. The defining feature of this ultra-liberalism was its profound intellectual arrogance and its characterisation of other perspectives as base ‘prejudice’.

In positing the ‘nation’ as the ultimate arbiter of the larger ‘national good’ and doing so with passion, verve and eloquence, Arnab managed to create a constituency of people who refused to be patronised by the superior assumptions of a handful of the ‘enlightened’. On issues relating to Pakistan, he refused to be cowed down by the mushy sentimentalism of the Aman ki asha pseuds and on China he ruthlessly questioned the ‘nuanced’ sophistry of the professional prevaricators in South Block. On corruption, he was single-minded in his determination to cut through the obfuscation and piffle. And on mundane political fights, he was both sceptical and irreverent.

It is not that on every issue he got the tone right. He didn’t. To me what was important was the yardstick of national interest he set for judging issues. In an environment where others were highlighting the values of cosmopolitanism, internationalism, liberalisation and oozing concern for the human rights of every extremist who sought the vivisection of India, Arnab re-popularised the validity of proud nationalism.

For helping India recover this eroding inheritance, ‘the nation’ must be thankful to him. He has been the best corrective to the babalog media.

There was an additional feature to Arnab’s discourses each week night that I find both amusing and encouraging: his polite insolence. India may well have a long tradition of being argumentative but in recent times this free spirit has suffered on account of an educational system that discouraged scepticism and promoted the inculcation of every form of received wisdom.

In the mid-1970s, just prior to the Emergency, there used to be huge hoarding on the inner circle of Connaught Place which proclaimed “The leader is right, the future is bright”. It had been put there by one of those disagreeable publications that existed on the patronage of the first families of India, Iran, Libya and, of course, the great ‘progressive’ bloc around the Soviet Union. The message was crass but it was an accurate description of what the rulers expected from the ruled: unquestioning docility.

That is the way Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, for example, sees the world. Why, he asked a TV channel, were the protesters still persisting with their gatherings on India Gate? After all, some of them had a midnight meeting with Sonia Gandhi.

Actually, he wasn’t being disingenuous. To a very large section of India’s establishment, politics is all about, first, bringing an issue or a grievance (preferably through an intermediary) to the proverbial attention of those entrusted with the responsibility of governance and plead for a solution. Then there is the process of waiting patiently and often indefinitely for the system to creak into action. The voting classes are not expected to be either insistent with their demands or insolent in their engagements with professional politicians. In particular, netas don’t believe in being buttonholed by a TV anchor and informed that the “nation demands to know”. 

At best, politicians don’t mind the occasional convivial chats with ‘reasonable’ people—just recall the you-gush-and-I-gush interviews that the Delhi Chief Minister gave to two channels last week after Sonia’s darshan left the nation underwhelmed. Arnab, unfortunately, is ‘reasonable’ only off camera. On air he becomes a voice of indignation, anger and even insolence. These are qualities which the little man doesn’t possess in abundance. He wants to kick the errant netas. Since he can’t, he is happy for Arnab do it for him.

Arnab didn’t create the hatred for the political order. He just helped the little man feel that a larger community of Indians shared his frustrations and his unwillingness to settle for the second-best. Full marks to him for helping India lower the bar of forbearance. 

Sunday Pioneer, December 30, 2012

Media, turn the mirror inwards

By Swapan Dasgupta

In normal times, in an environment not so replete with competitive denunciations of the ‘corrupt’, it is entirely possible that the sting organised by officials of Jindal Power & Steel Limited (JSPL) on some editors of Zee TV would have got greater attention. Yet, despite the perfunctory coverage, it is reassuring that the News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) chairman Justice (retired) J.S. Verma has suo moto taken up the matter for investigation.

The case has a familiar ring to it. The channel had apparently done a report which showed JSPL in an unfavourable light. Instead of broadcasting it, it is alleged that two editors of the channel contacted JSPL and made it an interesting offer: the channel would junk the damaging report if the company agreed to provide some Rs 100 crore of advertisements. If the charge is true and substantiated by the sting, it would seem a clear case of you scratch my back and I’ll ride your Jaguar.

What may surprise the media’s consumers is the relative indifference with which this sensational counter-sting has been received in the media. This isn’t because journalists, like the politicians they love to hate, are inherently venal. Nor is it due to the media emulating the cosy indulgence of mutual wrong- doing  that Arvind Kejriwal believes is rampant in the political class, across party lines. The media didn’t react to the JSPL sting with the same measure of breathless excitement that greets every political corruption scandal because it is aware that this is just the tip of the iceberg. A thorough exploration of the media will unearth not merely sharp business practices but even horrifying criminality.

It used to be said in the 1960s that an enterprising editor of a weekly tabloid in Mumbai had a simple revenue stream to supplement his income from advertising: ‘Rs 5,000 to print and Rs 10, 000 to not print.’ It was a very successful business model and many local politicians, foreign dictators and pompous monarchs were grateful to him for bolstering their ‘progressive’ credentials, for a reasonable consideration of course.

I guess that what may be loosely called the Blitz model has evolved over time and inflation to nurture a media that is a heady cocktail of crusading zeal and collusive criminality. Sometimes both go hand in hand.

Since the Press Council of India chairman Justice (retired) M. Katju is desperate to make a mark, he would do well to suo moto establish a working group to inquire into journalistic ethics. He could travel to a small state in western India where there persistent rumours that those who claim to be high-minded crusaders arm-twisted a Chief Minister into bankrolling an event as the quid pro quo for not publishing an investigation into some dirty practices.

The emphasis these days is on non-publishing. One editor, for example, specialised in the art of actually commissioning stories, treating it in the proper journalistic way and even creating a dummy page. This dummy page would be sent to the victim along with a verbal ‘demand notice’. Most of them paid up. This may be a reason why this gentleman’s unpublished works are thought to be more significant than the few scribbles that reached the readers and for which he received lots of awards.

In Britain, the public confidence in the media has been shaken by revelations indicating the extreme unethical and illegal ends to which journalists travel to get a story. In India, the problem is markedly different. Here, an equal amount of energy is expended in ensuring that there are rewards for non-publication.

Of course I am wilfully being vague because unlike the JSPL I do not have either documents or recordings to substantiate every anecdote. I am relying almost exclusively on my status as a media insider and the oral evidence of those who have been victims of media criminality.

There is little sympathy for the occasional discomfiture suffered by politicians, particularly in the election season. Over the years, however, I have come to sympathise with the predicament of aspiring MLAs and MPs when they complain that a significant proportion of their expenses above the statutory ceiling—in other words, their non-accounted, cash expenses—is used to pay the media. The reason is simple. Increasingly, political parties and candidates are presented with a fait accompli: there is a price that has to be paid for receiving coverage, particularly non-hostile or sympathetic coverage. It takes a lot of courage and enormous political resilience for a candidate to tell these blackmailers to go to hell. Most pay up and leave the rest to voters.

Over the years, critics of the media have focussed their attention on the political and other biases of the media. A free press is by definition partisan, and pure objectivity is an impossible dream. Indeed, most readers and viewers discount the subjective preference and the partisan editorial stands of media organisations. However, in trying to dissect which publication or channel is pro-Congress, anti-BJP and pro-business, attention has been diverted from the media’s rotten underbelly.

Most journalists are decent individuals, trying to be professional even as they have preferences. A small minority of them are however using journalism as a protective shield for their criminality. Like the rotten apples in the political basket, they too need to be named and shamed. The NBSA inquiry is a small step in the right direction. Let’s hope it isn’t derailed. 

Sunday Pioneer, October 21, 2012

Media and the message

By Swapan Dasgupta

I was a student and not living in India during the horrible days of the Emergency. As such, I can’t speak with any measure of authority of the experiences of the experiences of those brave souls who had to encounter the red pen of pig-headed censors. However, the 17 months of press censorship between 1975 and 1977 did have a salutary effect on the Indian media: it made the Fourth Estate fiercely possessive about their democratic rights, enshrined in the Constitution. The attempt by the Rajiv Gandhi Government to enact an insidious law on defamation, for example, was spiritedly opposed by nearly everyone in the media.   

Maybe I am exaggerating in suggesting that everyone in the media opposed every attempt by the Government to impose restrictions on the media. During the Emergency, some powerful media owners went out of their way to oblige the authoritarian regime. They were backed by journalists who saw intrusive official control as a career opportunity. In his recently-published autobiography Beyond the Lines, Kuldip Nayar has supplied sketchy details of the back-stabbing that marked journalistic life in those troubled years. A no-holds-barred account of the media during the Emergency could destroy the reputations of many we have come to view as stalwarts.

Not that it always took an Emergency to put in place an informal but equally insidious system of controls. In the final year of Rajiv Gandhi, the Government tried its utmost to lean heavily on newspapers and journalists who were critical of the regime and who tried to chase up the Bofors story doggedly. Again, during the years of the Ayodhya agitation, a draconian Left-liberal intellectual establishment threw its weight behind a campaign to ensure that the leading newspapers displayed a ‘secular’ bias. I recall a letter to the editor of Times of India signed by a clutch of prominent academics of Delhi suggesting that my articles had no place in the newspaper. In a similar vein, another editor known for his pronounced Left leanings wrote that the writings of Girilal Jain (a former editor of Times of India) should not be published. The main reason why these outrageous demands were disregarded was not that the editorial classes were committed to pluralism—a small handful were—but because the so-called contrarian views were also echoed in the middle classes.

It is also fair to point out that the publications in the Indian languages didn’t always share the political preferences of their English-language counterparts. The vernacular media invariably had their ears closer to the ground.

In the days when the free media meant free press—TV was then a Doordarshan monopoly and internet hadn’t been invented—it was relatively easy for a nervous Government to get its way, even without imposing censorship. Today, the media has grown exponentially and the electronic media has overtaken the print media in many markets. Regulation, under the circumstances, has become more problematic, although the Government’s attempts to exercise control have been unrelenting. Rather than confront the issue with a sledge hammer, intelligent politicians have tried to tame the media with a carrot and stick approach. Obliging media is often preferred with generous government and public sector advertisements; and public sector banks have been known to shower the friendly media with special accommodation, especially in times of economic downturn.

In recent months, the Government has turned its focus on a troublesome social media. Following Anna Hazare’s successful mobilisation in Delhi last year and the exodus of North-eastern people from Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad last month, a section of the political class and officialdom has veered to the view that the destabilising potential of the social media is enormous. Alarmed by reports of the social media’s role in the Tahrir Square mobilisation in Egypt and the London riots of 2010, a shaky political establishment now sees danger in the free flow of information and views on Twitter and Facebook.

The Government’s wariness of anything they can’t comprehend or control is understandable. Less wholesome is the endorsement of regulation and control by a section of the established media.

To the extent that irreverent individuals are inclined to shower TV anchors and award-winning editors with mockery and disrespect and question their biases and motives, it is possible to understand the anger of a media that believes it has a monopoly over correctness. That some of the irreverence is raw, unstructured and built on dubious foundations is also true. But just as bazar talk cannot be regulated or sanitised, it is difficult to sanitise the raw emotions of those on Twitter and Facebook. However, just as they are not accountable to anyone, their rantings are inconsequential until they hit the right nerve.

What the state fears is that unfiltered news may percolate outwards and influence wider judgments. What the established media is afraid of is that their spin of events is too readily being called into question, and in real time. As the Indian media has grown, it has also become less professional and vain. It is this arrogance of believing that it has the monopoly of the public discourse that is propelling many notables into emulating China and endorsing curbs over the free spirit. What they seem to be forgetting that angry messages of anonymous Indians are having an impact because they seem more authentic than the sophistry of the compromised. Democratic rights, after all, can’t be selectively applied.

Deccan Chronicle/ Asian Age, September 7, 2012

Media creates its own realities

By Swapan Dasgupta

Perceptions are always difficult to shake off, even when confronted with a new set of realities.

The UPA Government’s ‘policy paralysis’ is on the whole both real and perceived. However, even if the regime suddenly acquired fresh energy and began acting purposefully, it would be some time before the perception of drift was wiped out from the public imagination. This is particularly so where media shapes the tone and tenor of the chattering class discourse.
Mercifully for Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, it is not merely the Government that is at the receiving end of what market analysts call ‘sentiment’. For the past three years, even as the reputation of the UPA has taken a battering, the BJP has also been pilloried for failing to set its own house in order. The transformation of the ‘party with a difference’ into a ‘party with differences’ may be a caricature, but it has also become conventional wisdom.
Given the fact that the media thrives on stereotypes, caricatures and uninformed superficialities, it was not very surprising that the bite brigade that descended on Mumbai last week for the BJP National Executive was looking for reaffirmations of set conclusions. Factional feuds make for interesting TV and lazy copy, and the BJP, it had already been decided, was in a permanent state of civil war. Consequently, when the Narendra Modi-Nitin Gadkari spat over Sanjay Joshi was settled amid a show of bonhomie on Day One, the search went on for something that would bolster a ready-made script centred on a formula. Policy issues and strategies, after all, need a measure of understanding and are difficult for excitable reporters to communicate coherently. And so it was that Day Two saw an overdose of ‘sexed up’ stories on the ‘unhappiness’ of LK Advani and Sushma Swaraj’s ‘boycott’ of the public meeting where Modi had the star billing. The net conclusion: the BJP was still at war with itself.
That everyone in the BJP is not on the same page is a truism. No political party in India, not even the CPI(M), possesses an army where every member of the officer corps think alike. This is democratic normalcy, and it is only in India that the media projects the ideal of politics crafted on the North Korean model.
These may be the reasons why the media missed the dual significance of the BJP’s Mumbai session. It failed to detect the emergence of two very distinct currents that, in turn, are tantamount to a major course correction.
First, the BJP has implicitly recognised that an all-powerful, over-bearing party centre is not viable. It has belatedly dawned on the BJP leadership that the party cannot progress unless it acknowledges and institutionalises the role of strong state parties with strong leaders. The return of Modi to the National Executive meetings after a long gap, the behind-the-scenes parleys that led to BS Yeddyurappa making a symbolic appearance on Day Two and the acknowledgment of Vasundhara Raje’s leadership in the Rajasthan were momentous developments.
If the trend towards a more federal BJP is allowed to proceed, it is certain to address the problem of factionalism too. What had clearly been apparent since 2004 has been the existence of groups and coteries in the States that draw sustenance from individuals in the national leadership. These factions have invariably been at loggerheads with the State leadership. A greater involvement of State leaders in decision-making at the national level has the potential of choking the lifeline of those who waged local battles with ammunition from Delhi. Had the BJP embraced federalism earlier, the problems associated with Karnataka, Rajasthan and Bihar may not have assumed alarming proportions.
Secondly, and as a corollary to the growing importance of State leaders, is the clear emergence of Narendra Modi as the proverbial first among equals. The exceptional status of the Gujarat Chief Minister — the third person to secure that exalted position after Atal Behari Vajpayee and LK Advani — didn’t stem from any formal resolution or even from any informal conclave of the worthies. It was by acclaim and as a consequence of pressure from the grassroots. From the enthusiastic response of the party’s political workers at the public meeting in Mumbai, it was clear that only Modi has the ability to both inspire and enthuse the faithful.
In a possible journey to the top of the political ladder, he has cleared the first big hurdle. He has, for all practical purposes, secured the endorsement of all the major stakeholders of the BJP.
Yet, it is still too early to say whether Mumbai was the prelude to Modi being anointed the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for 2014. Any formal decision has to await the outcome of the Gujarat Assembly elections in December, consultations with allies and the overall flow of politics. Recall that Vajpayee was chosen the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate barely eight months before the 1996 polls. For the moment, and for good or bad, the BJP has honed in on a leader and a structure of politics—significant steps that matter more than the discordant notes the media was hell bent on discovering.
I wonder how today’s media would have covered the Calcutta session of the Congress in 1920? Would it have focussed on Gandhi’s emergence as the new symbol of nationalism? Or would it have honed in on the ‘sulk’ of the Tilak-ites and followers of CR Das?

Sunday Pioneer, May 27, 2012

Taming the Monster: Do Indian media need a regulator?

By Swapan Dasgupta

The closure of the popular Sunday tabloid News of the World, the arrest of top executives of the Rupert Murdoch-run News International on phone hacking charges and the proceedings of the Leveson inquiry have focussed attention on the skewed internal workings of an otherwise vibrant British media. This has resulted in a bizarre turning of the tables. A readership accustomed to viewing the media as a white knight in shining armour puncturing the pretensions of the powerful and the pompous has suddenly been exposed to unethical practices, blatant illegalities and the cosy relationship that exists between the Fourth Estate and politicians.

The results have not been edifying. In the past, the media conducted itself with the militant cussedness of trade unions. Every right was fiercely guarded and transformed into a privilege; every hint of regulation was instantly transformed into a larger battle for democracy; and the occasional on accountability was painted as an insidious assault on the people’s inalienable right to know.

The boot is now on the other foot. Instead of being assiduously wooed and flattered by the powerful, the Leveson inquiry has witnessed powerful media barons such as Rupert Murdoch and his son James being subjected to merciless interrogation. Indeed, as the inquiry meanders from the internal workings of the newsrooms to politics, the likes of British Prime Minister David Cameron are having a torrid time explaining their convivial relations with the Murdoch empire. Hostile public opinion is veering to the opinion that existing laws and quasi-official bodies such as the Press Complaints Commission aren’t enough: what the media needs is a public spirited, independent regulator.

It is difficult to gauge whether or not the Chairman of the Press Council Markandeya Katju was influenced by developments in London when he rushed into battle against India’s ‘unionised’ media. A high-spirited individualist with very definite (and occasionally bizarre) views on all subjects ranging from Salman Rushdie’s writings to cricket’s role as a promoter of false consciousness, the retired Supreme Court judge has proffered a simple argument: if all professions are regulated, why should the media be any different? Waging a turf battle against the electronic media-appointed watchdog body headed by former Chief Justice J.S. Verma, Katju has strongly argued that the Press Council be transformed into a Media Council and assume the role of a regulator.

Predictably, Katju’s suggestion has drawn flak. In part this is due to his diagnosis of the media’s ailments. In an article in The Hindu, Katju spelt out his dissatisfaction: “The way much of the media has been behaving is often irresponsible, reckless and callous. Yellow journalism, cheap sensationalism, highlighting frivolous issues (like lives of film stars and cricketers) and supersitions and damaging people and reputations, while neglecting or underplaying serious socio-economic issues like massive poverty, unemployment, malnourishment, farmers’ suicides, health care, education, dowry deaths, female foeticide, etc, are hallmarks of much of the media today. Astrology, cricket (the opium of the Indian masses), babas befooling the public, etc, are a common sight on television channels.”

Katju, it would seem, had very definite ideas about editorial content and the hierarchy of news. In his perception, the media must play the role of a social reformer and not fritter away its energies in frivolity and tittle-tattle, never mind the fact that not all its consumers are preoccupied with virtuousness. It is precisely because of his highbrow certitudes and disdain for popular journalism that his insistence on a media regulator has been viewed with a measure of amusement by the Fourth Estate.

If an all-powerful regulator in the mould of Katju, it has been argued, assumed responsibility for the whole media, it would be tantamount to murdering diversity and ruining a vibrant and growing industry. In spelling out his philosophical preferences robustly, Katju unwittingly helped focus attention on the dangers posed by an activist regulator who would replicate the ideals of the so-called New Information Order, once favoured by the fellow travellers of the Soviet Union. What added to the scepticism was Katju’s proposal coinciding with the still-born Private Member’s Bill proposing media regulation that Congress MP Meenakshi Natarajan contemplated introducing to the Lok Sabha earlier this month.

That the angularities of Katju were responsible in distorting a much-needed debate on the internal workings of the media should not, however, blind the Fourth Estate to its own vulnerability. The decision of a court fining a popular TV news channel a whopping sum of Rs 100 crore for confusing the identity of a former Supreme Court judge may be questioned on the plea that the punishment was disproportionate. But it was a reminder of the fact many of the upholders of India’s institutions are exasperated by what they see is an increasingly roguish media.

Much of exasperation is born out of aesthetic repugnance. A complacent elite used to stodginess and predictability in the packaging of current affairs has been unsettled by the dramatic induction of a colloquial idiom. The media has won new consumers with its relentless demolition of social entry barriers. Yet, this social churning and innovative communication methods have, in turn, generated a backlash. Judges and litigants are rightly fearful that a shrill kangaroo court atmosphere is making judicial trials difficult to hold in a right environment. The Arushi Talwar murder case in NOIDA is an obvious example. Politicians are angry that the media is playing the role of an anarchic agenda-setter, confirming Stanley Baldwin’s prognosis of exercising power without responsibility. And celebrities, who otherwise love free publicity, have been dismayed by intrusive journalism and, above all, a wild social media that veers from recklessness to licentiousness.

Many of these hiccups are the consequence of social churning and technological innovations. The reactions to them have also been predictably knee-jerk. Neither social attitudes no technology can be regulated and controlled without the state assuming draconian powers that invariably end up being misused. India is a naturally fractious society that, however, believes, rather naively, that the state has the responsibility of imposing order without undermining civil liberties. The media has become the target of those impulses.

The media remains on a strong wicket as long as it doesn’t lose sight of common decencies and the notion of fair play. As long as its motives are honourable, it can get away with minor transgressions. However, if its own house isn’t clean, the backlash being witnessed in Britain is unavoidable.

The Indian media hasn’t quite bothered to dispense with the rotten apples in its own basket. Unless it tackles issues such as paid news, wilful deception, insider trading in the markets, extortion and blackmail—and all these are rampant outside the metros—it cannot expect to continue with the privileges that a democratic society has accorded it. In the face of the regulatory threat, the media must engage in a major bout of self-correction. Journalists have become accustomed to being regarded as exceptional citizens because they wield the power to damage others. Of late this power has often been wielded without discrimination and for reasons that verge on outright criminality.

There is, of course, the law which, thanks to the sheer inefficiency of the judicial system, isn’t really a check. There are also other punitive measures that the authorities shy away from using for fear of being charged with being anti-democratic. Yet, a situation is now arising whereby powerful sections of society are urging the creation of special purpose vehicles to tame what they see is a monster. Taking defensive action involves the media undertaking self-purification. 

The Telegraph, May 11, 2012

The media is already governed by law

By Swapan Dasgupta

If Justice Markandey Katju's conviction that “90 per cent Indians are fools” is accepted as the yardstick to assess the quality of public life, no immediate connection will be made between his robust intervention in The Hindu (“Media cannot reject regulation,” May 2, 2012) and the still-born Print and Electronic Media Standards and Regulation Bill which Congress MP Meenakshi Natarajan proffered to the Lok Sabha. Although the Chairman of the Press Council claimed he “has not read the Private Member's Bill,” only the minusculity of non-fools will deny that both he and Ms Natarajan proceed from the same set of assumptions.

In her rationalisation of legislation to impose a government-appointed regulatory authority on the media, Ms Natarajan noted: “The rights conferred by the Constitution are sacrosanct and should be respected. However, news value has been dwindling every passing day...While the freedom of speech and expression has to be respected, there appears no other option but to regulate the print and electronic media and impose on it certain crucial reasonable restrictions, which are needed for the purpose of protecting national interest…”

On his part, stressing that Article 19(1) (a) of the Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech and expression is circumscribed by Article 19(2) which stipulates ‘reasonable restrictions” for the sake of the larger good, Justice Katju wrote: “The media has become very powerful in India and can strongly impact people's lives. Hence it must be regulated in the public interest.” This is particularly so because the “way much of the media is behaving is often irresponsible, reckless and callous.” In effect he echoed Ms Natarajan's desire to “ensure good quality reporting, which does not only feed news according to TV rating points but also, in accordance with issues of prime national importance.” Of course, great minds don't always think alike. Justice Katju and Ms Natarajan differ on the composition of the regulatory body. The Congress MP preferred a statutory body nominated by the Central government. Justice Katju felt that an “independent statutory body” such as the Press Council can fulfil the functions after its scope is enlarged to cover the rapidly-growing electronic media. Self-regulation, as practised by the electronic media, he thought, was hogwash.

Whether it was Justice Katju's spirited campaign for regulating the entire media, including the social media, which was a factor behind Ms Natarajan's parliamentary initiative, is a matter of conjecture. What is certain is that there is hardly another instance of a Press Council head pressing so forcefully to enlarge the space for Article 19(2). “How many licences of TV channels,” he asked the self-regulation bodies, “have you suspended or cancelled till now?”— as if bans and closures were the ultimate litmus test.

Justice Katju has certainly conveyed the unmistakable impression of having been conferred the onerous responsibility of taming a greedy, irresponsible and reckless entity. There is a visible convergence between his desire to tame the media beast and the political class' exasperation with an intrusive rogue out to unsettle the “national interest.”

At the heart of Justice Katju's crusade is a plea for enlightened regulation (which he carefully distinguishes from control) of the media space. Since most professions are regulated and accountable, why should the media be the exception?

The assumption is erroneous. The media may not be blessed with a regulatory authority such as the ones governing, say, the telecom industry, the power sector and the stock exchanges. However, it is not above the law. Justice Katju must know that the media is not exempt from the statutes governing defamation, obscenity, incitement and official secrecy. Where necessary, the state also has the authority to ban publications and black out TV broadcasts. The police possess powers to prosecute journalists and media houses it holds to be engaged in blackmail and extortion. There is a full-fledged statutory regime that governs the media, including a Working Journalists Act. The Fourth Estate is not above regulation.

If the media is already governed by law, what is the scope of the proposed regulatory authority?

For Ms Natarajan, the answers are unambiguous: to determine the hierarchy of news, to mould the style and tone of reporting and to specify no-go areas. In short, exercise political control over editorial content.

On his part, Justice Katju seems to be driven by two different sets of desires. First, he abhors the fact that the media is also commercially driven. According to him, this explains their desire to pander to the lowest common denominator. In regulating the profit motive, will the regulator therefore determine the rates or the quantum of advertising, as the TRAI has needlessly suggested? Will it regulate the cover price and distribution costs of publications? Will it assault the economic freedom of the media?

Second, what are the ramifications of Justice Katju's passionate desire to be at the forefront of a crusade to instil a scientific temper? The Press Council chairman has already publicised his abhorrence of all editorial content that promotes frivolity, superstition, glamour and sport. He wants the media to be in the forefront of the battle against poverty and for social reform.

It is a noble idea and may even be worthy of emulation by an ideologically-driven niche publication or even a public broadcasting channel. But when one man's passion is translated into a desire to impose a replica of the Soviet Union-inspired New World Information Order, it is necessary to sound the alarm bells. The Press Council cannot control tastes.

Justice Katju is a man of astonishing certitudes. Yet, for all his purposeful interventions he has overlooked one crucial facet of the media environment: the availability of choice. No one is obliged to patronise a publication or be riveted to a screaming match on a news channel. One click of the remote control is enough to opt out.

Many do but many love and are entertained by India's rumbustious democracy. Is it because they are fools? In that case, as Brecht once suggested, wouldn't it be simpler to abolish the people and elect a new one?

The Hindu, May 4, 2012

Rahul now ready for the big fight

By Swapan Dasgupta

Elections are one occasion Indian politicians work hard, very hard. This month’s Uttar Pradesh Assembly election has witnessed the Gandhi-Vadra family doing their utmost to come to the aid of the party. Sonia Gandhi, the matriarch, has played a largely symbolic role in this election perhaps owing to her indifferent health and her known aversion to dust. But her absence has been duly compensated by the punishing schedule kept by Rahul Gandhi.

Rahul has done everything possible to transform the Assembly election into a referendum on his leadership and his ability to inherit the family mantle. From the time he accompanied former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on the poverty tourism circuit two years ago, Rahul has been thinking and planning for the Assembly election. The journey from Bhatta-Parsaul, via the Bundelkhand package and the sops to weavers in eastern UP, Rahul has left no stone unturned in his bid to make a mark on India’s largest state. He has shed his hesitation with public speaking and become adept at delivering carefully scripted one-liners that have grabbed media space and made him the centre of attention. Some of the interventions may have been as puerile as his father’s ‘naani yaad’ outburst, prompting Arun Jaitley to remind him that these were not student union elections. But overall, Rahul has succeeded in making himself the foremost talking point, particularly of a media that likes to be on the right side of the first family.

The photogenic Priyanka too has done her bit holding the fort in the family estates in Amethi-Rae Barely-Sultanpur belt. With her easy style and cultivated over-familiarity with the voters, she made it clear right at the outset that this was going to be a family effort and something more than just another political campaign. For all her earlier insistence on personal privacy, she did not shy away from bringing her two children into the arena, making sure that the cameras and TV anchors got an additional talking point.

The media dutifully obliged. A description of Priyanka’s children at a rally addressed by Rahul in Amethi vividly conveyed the flavour of the family campaign:  “…11-year-old Rihaan and 9-year-old Miraya were seen hanging around the stage waiting for their uncle to arrive. During the 90-minute wait, the kids, accompanied by a nanny and Priyanka’s aide Preeti Sahay, ate chocolate, played hopscotch and collected pebbles from the ground, in full view of the press and the public.” And there was the by now famous photograph of daughter Priyanka affectionately tweaking mother Sonia’s cheek. In terms of sheer choreography, the Gandhis left other politicians gasping for breath.

Not to be left behind, Robert Vadra also joined the tamasha doing what he is best known for—riding a motorcycle. The man who once boasted that he could get elected from anywhere in India gave two interviews to the English-language media stating his situation. He proclaimed that he was there as a proverbial gatekeeper preventing despicable middlemen from getting access to the family. This prompted uncharitable comments about whether or not that implied he was constantly encountering the loathsome middlemen.

Attempting to transform the UP election into a family soap opera may well have invited criticism from the usual suspects. But there was a certain method behind the decision to keep the focus on the family. Almost all reporters who stopped at the chai shops for their quota of earthy wisdom from the rural folk were near-unanimous on count: the Gandhis had made themselves the talking point but this interest was not accompanied by any surge for the Congress. In most constituencies, the Congress lacked any rudimentary organisation to translate the obsession with the first family into votes—except in western UP where the alliance with Ajit Singh is likely come in handy. The Congress candidate, it was widely reported in the footnotes, was not in the race for first place. “We will help Rahul become Prime Minister” many tea shop loiterers announced, thereby indicating that a vote for the Congress was a post-dated cheque.

This mismatch between the buzz and ground realities appear to have hit the Congress midway into the campaign. There is now talk of the Congress going into a bout of expectation management to ensure that indifferent results don’t have an effect on either the party or the family. In case the Congress performance on counting day turns out to be lacklustre, India can expect a repetition of what Salman Khurshid had to say after the Congress’ disastrous showing in 2007: that the Congress organisation proved unworthy of Rahul!

Actually, Rahul seems guilty of a major strategic miscalculation which happens when politics is treated like a marketing exercise. He failed to read history. In 1987, Rajiv Gandhi led from the front against the Left Front in the West Bengal Assembly election. He addressed large meetings, aroused the enthusiasm of the Congress campaigners and told Jyoti Basu to retire. But what he forgot was that it was an Assembly election and that people were electing a mere MLA and state government, not a MP who would help choose the Prime Minister.

A repetition of the 1987 Bengal poll should, however, not dishearten Rahul. This campaign has shown that he has a political potential that can only be tested in a parliamentary election. The opposition would be unwise to write off Rahul if he falters in UP next month.


Deccan Chronicle/ Asian Age, February 24, 2012 

REIGN OF TERROR - Mamata Banerjee as Bengal’s new ogre

By Swapan Dasgupta

Ever since the time a CPI membership or connection was the best passport for entry into journalism, the Indian media has been excessively charitable to the Left. A loosely Left-liberal set of assumptions including anti-Americanism, a distaste for the private sector and a loathing of ritualised religion were hallmarks of the English-language media—at least until aggressive TV news channels with sharply divergent value systems re-established balance.

The most important consequence of this slanted politics was that the Communist parties (and their fellow-travellers) were able to punch much above their weight. In its 34 years of government, the Left Front in West Bengal benefitted considerably from the goodwill and generosity showered on it by a national media enamoured of its progressive credentials. Copious tears, for example, were shed when the CPI(M) Politburo turned down the United Front’s invitation to Jyoti Basu to become Prime Minister of India in 1998. However, very few column inches were devoted to examining the realities behind Basu’s reputation as a capable administrator. For an influential section of the editorial classes that had once fought battles on behalf of Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter, the Communist parties were the holy cows and West Bengal their sacred pasture.

Mamata Banerjee by contrast was always an object of intense suspicion. Ever since she emerged to occupy the main anti-Left space in West Bengal she was portrayed as a maverick, an incorrigible populist and an utterly irresponsible individual. This reckless image persisted through the 2009 general election when it was lamented that Prakash Karat had facilitated his own party’s downfall by his decision to withdraw support to the Manmohan Singh Government over the Indo-US nuclear agreement. Indeed, a section of the fourth estate clung on to the belief that her Lok Sabha success was a fluke and that she would be stopped at the gates of Writers’ Buildings by a determined Left. Even as late as a month before the May 2011 Assembly poll, the media watering holes in Delhi were full of tales of how there was a ‘late swing’ to the Left resulting from a popular realisation that Mamata would be too costly a burden for West Bengal. The results told another story.

The Congress which had entered into a grudging ‘mahajot’ with the Trinamool Congress after the Left withdrew support to the UPA Government was both a producer and a willing consumer of the negative perceptions of West Bengal’s most famous Didi. Sonia Gandhi and the Prime Minister were no doubt grateful to Mamata for teaching Karat a lesson he wouldn’t forget in a hurry, but this was coupled with concern over the consequences of the gentlemanly Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee being replaced by an unguided missile. In 2011, the Congress wanted the Left Front to lose but it hoped that the TMC would fall short of an outright majority and enable it to play a balancing role—a euphemism for insisting Mamata dance to its tune for the next five years.  

These calculations were upset by last summer’s resounding and categorical endorsement of Mamata by the West Bengal electorate. Mamata was now her own boss with very clear ideas of how she would manage relations with her national ally.

At the local level she moved fast. First, she gave inconsequential portfolios to the Congress ministers she inducted into her ministry. Second, she sought to undercut the remaining Congress bases in North Bengal.

The Congress High Command didn’t respond to these provocations too adversely. Traditionally, the Congress has always viewed its local units as subordinate to the national party. As long as Mamata played ball in the Centre, the Congress was willing to turn a blind eye to her local transgressions.

Unfortunately for the Congress, Mamata had her own ideas. Angry at being fobbed off with mere lollipops instead of the grand Bengal package she had banked on, she did what most non-Congress chief ministers from Jayalalithaa and Narendra Modi to Nitish Kumar have done: elevate the battle to a principled tussle over federal relations. It is federalism that has governed Mamata’s prickliness over matters as diverse as the Teesta Waters Treaty with Bangladesh, the Communal Violence Bill, the Lokpal Bill and the Food Security Bill. In addition, she used her representation in the Cabinet to raise awkward questions on fuel price hikes and the decontrol of retail trade. More to the point, she used her numbers in Parliament to join hands with the Opposition and embarrass the Government.

The CPI(M) had a position similar to Mamata’s in the four years it provided ‘outside support’ to the UPA between 2004 and 2008. It used its strategic clout far more discerningly and in characteristic Communist style: to support the ‘progressive’ initiatives by Sonia Gandhi and oppose the ‘neo-liberal’ policy moves of the Prime Minister. In addition, it used it good offices to secure the appointments of ‘progressives’ in positions of influence and authority, particularly in the realms of higher education. The CPI(M) more or less replicated the approach of the CPI between 1969 and 1977 when it upheld the ‘progressive’ regime of Indira Gandhi, particularly in her fight against the ‘reactionary’ Syndicate.

Mamata, on her part, has not been so calibrated in her approach as the Comrades. She has been principled insofar as she has focussed on the big questions and not bothered at all with trivial issues of appointments to governorships and quangos—something the Congress is innately more comfortable with. The result is that Mamata does not have backers among either those who look to 10 Janpath or those with one eye to the wisdom emanating from Race Course Road. After she embarrassed the government in the Rajya Sabha over the Lokpal Bill, the exasperation of the Congress with her scaled new heights—to the point where senior ministers are now singing praises of the sweet reasonableness of the Left. As of today, Mamata is regarded as the joker in the UPA pack and the Congress is itching to be rid of her.

For the Congress, the way out of West Bengal lies in Uttar Pradesh. For the past month, relevant circles in Lutyens’ Delhi have been abuzz with talk of ‘secret’ negotiations between the Congress and Samajwadi Party. According to those who make it their business to fish in troubled waters, the ‘deal’ involves a post-poll coalition between the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Congress in UP and the SP joining the UPA at the Centre in return for Cabinet berths. The Congress, it would seem, has made up its mind to swap the TMC with the SP. This may explain why Mamata has sharpened the intensity of her attacks on the Congress.

There is still one imponderable. The Congress needs both the TMC and either the SP or the Bahujan Samaj Party to get its candidate into Rashtrapati Bhavan later in the year. It would be in difficulty if a discarded Mamata decides to back a united opposition candidate. The possible way out, which is being explored courtesy a Politburo member of the CPI(M) is for the Left to bail the Congress out in return for an agreement on the candidature of the present Vice President.

The Left has been playing a quiet role in accentuating the differences between the Congress and Mamata. Having been severely battered in the Assembly election, its only hope of a recovery lies in Mamata self-destructing and a split in the anti-Left votes in West Bengal.

No wonder the stage is being set to portray Mamata as Bengal’s new ogre.


The Telegraph, January 20, 2012