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TITLE: Beyond Videotape |
AUTHOR: Reshmi R Dasgupta |
PUB: Economic Times |
DATE: March 18, 2001 |
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TEHELKA lived up to the mission statement implicit in its name this week by its sensational four and a half hour expose on the politico-defence establishment culled from over 100 hours of secret video filming using spy cameras. Using the name of a fictitious company West End International, two reporters of tehelka.com posed as arms dealers seeking to cut in on a defence ministry tender for nightvision binoculars. As they greased palms on their way to 'securing' the contract, they unearthed the seamy nexus between the political class and the defence forces. Their contacts ranged from downright middlemen, claiming proximity to the two crucial political parties - the BJP and Samata - to defence officials both serving and retired. While the defence officials made available to West End documents making their mid-term entry into the binoculars acquisition deal easier, the middlemen promised political pressure to ensure that they would get the contract. The fall-out was as sensational as the tapes. Two images of the tapes were seared into public memory. The first was of BJP president Bangaru Laxman accepting Rs 1 lakh in cash 'for the New Year party' from West End and putting it in his desk drawer. The other was of Samata chief Jaya Jaitly accepting Rs 2 lakh, ostensibly for the party's national council meeting in lieu of putting in a word with the defence ministry 'in the national interest' that West End get a fair hearing. The other tapes of Army officers greedily accepting both liquor and money in return for information saddened most viewers who had hitherto believed the armed forces to be the last incorruptible bastion left in India. The opposition, however, decided to go whole hog on the third corner of the revelations - the expostulations of the two middlemen. R K Gupta, a self proclaimed 'trustee' of the RSS was caught on tape mentioning names like PM's principal secretary Brajesh Mishra and others as his conduits in several alleged deals. The other, RK Jain, treasurer of the Samata Party. bandied names of several ministers to bolster his claims of being in on big defence deals ranging from the Sukhoi jets for the IAF to the Barak system for the Indian Navy. And the opposition, much like tehelka.com , without verifying the claims of the two middlemen, called for the heads of the 'guilty'. Bangaru Laxman's resignation was a foregone conclusion though he did try to hide behind the feeble fig leaf that he thought the men offering the money were 'businessmen'. Jaitly was more truculent and decided to brazen it out saying she had done nothing wrong. That was too much to swallow, though: Jaitly sitting in the defence minister's house meeting arms dealers in the company of a retired defence official, talking about putting in a word and then accepting Rs 2 lakh - even if it was for the party - could hardly be condoned. So on the second day, she grudgingly resigned. Her intransigence, however, proved very expensive, for the government as well her party. The opposition took it as proof of George Fernandes' tacit support of her actions and called ven louder for his head. Then the NDA's stormy petrel Mamata Bannerjee joined issue and demanded his resignation, refusing to attend an NDA meeting convened to discuss how to deal with the crisis. Finally Fernandes also had to quit - even though there was no direct evidence in the tapes of his complicity or even knowledge of wrongdoing - but it was too late. Bannerjee took her 9-member Trinamool Congress out of the NDA in pursuance of her anti-corruption plank, with a weather-eye out on the coming assembly elections in West Bengal. This heartened the Congress too, which offered Bannerjee its support promptly. While the Trinamool's exit does not affect the government's majority, there is no doubt that the BJP's moral high ground vis a vis the Congress has disappeared. It'll be a nearly level playing field on that count in the next polls. Far more damaging is the unrelenting glare of public scrutiny on the workings of the PMO, whose key members have been cited in the tapes as lynchpins of dubious deals by Jain and Gupta. Prime Minister Vajpayee addressed the nation on Day 3 of the crisis and spoke of a judicial commission to go into the 'findings' of the tapes, but such reports rarely come out fast enough to satisfy the public. Also while Tehelka may not have exhibited the highest standards of journalistic excellence - good reporters always seek proof that goes beyond merely citing words to that effect - they certainly did the nation a service by showing exactly how vulnerable the ruling class of India is to blandishments. It is for the nation now to draw its own lessons from the Tehelka Tapes. END |