Author: Arvind Lavakare
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: November 22, 2004
URL: http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/nov/22arvind.htm
The UPA government's goal is not
restricted to achieving its common minimum programme. Part of its mission
statement is the extermination of the BJP Parivar.
That is clear from the way Delhi
has functioned in just a few months of its tenure. Detoxification of the
NCERT text books, denial of a UN award to an NCERT official, removal of
state governors on the grounds of different ideologies, keeping out the
Opposition from an official function over some cause of the minorities,
probe into allotment of plots of land to RSS units, ignoring the Opposition's
file of suggestions on the annual Budget, and removal of the Savarkar plaque
from the freedom memorial to revolutionaries at the Andamans -- these are
clear indicators that the Manmohan Singh-led government of Sonia Gandhi
is out to demoralise and then demolish the BJP before the next Lok Sabha
polls dawn upon us.
For sheer single-mindedness of purpose,
this approach of the UPA government is commendable in its display of the
killer instinct.
The danger is that in its pursuit
of finishing off the BJP once and for all, the UPA government may well
be losing sight of safeguarding the national interest.
The decision to wind up the Phukan
Commission on the Tehelka tapes is one such foreboding step.
The two-step manner in which this
was done was a give-away of the UPA's motives. First, it told the Commission
that the ethics of Tehelka's sting operation was no longer within the Commission's
terms of reference. Just a couple of days later, the Commission itself
was done in and investigations into the alleged bribes 'caught' by Tehelka
handed over to the CBI.
The initial move to exclude the
methods and morals of Tehelka from the Commission's purview was a blatant
move to shield Tehelka whose use of hidden cameras to trap its victims
had raised eyebrows among the few who still hold morality in public life
as a desirable human quality. The quick subsequent move to wind up the
Commission itself seemed a strategy to divert attention from the blatant
attempt to throw a protective shield on Tehelka.
My personal experience in this regard
is worth narration.
I had filed an affidavit in May
2001 with the (earlier) Venkataswami Commission on that term of its reference
dealing with Tehelka's making and release of videotapes under its Operation
West End. The essence of my affidavit was that such unauthorised, uncontrolled
sting operations had potential dangers for national security and that one
ought not to be legally permitted to commit a crime in order to expose
a crime as was entailed in Tehelka's offences of impersonation and cheating
by impersonation listed as criminal acts in the Indian Penal Code. (Two
articles of mine on this line of thinking were posted on rediff.com on
March 24, 2001 and April 4, 2001).
Barely a month after receipt of
my affidavit was acknowledged by the Commission, I was visited at home
by a senior officer of the Delhi police, which apparently, had been appointed
as a nodal agency to assist the Commission in policing matters.
By his line of questioning and making
notes of my replies, it was clear that the police officer's duty was to
assess my credentials -- whether I was a 'plant,' a ghost, of an interested
party.
Apparently satisfied, and then visibly
relaxed and unguarded over a cup of tea, he said judging by a claimed private
screening of the Tehelka tapes to Congresswallahs in Delhi, the impression
created was that the Congress possibly had links of some kind with Tehelka.
Months later that impression surfaced
again. Having been summoned as a witness by Jaya Jaitly on the basis of
my affidavit -- which had been declared by the Commission as a public document
available on application -- I had completed a nearly two-hour deposition
in the Vigyan Bhavan complex on January 9, 2002 and was waiting to be driven
back to Ms Jaitly's workplace in the then defence minister's home.
Even as I was exchanging pleasantries
with Tehelka's counsel -- who was somewhat apologetic for his aggressive
cross-examination despite his being a fan of my rediff writings, just as
the Commission's very suave counsel said he was of my cricket writings
-- a man came in quick strides, shoved something in Ms Jaitly's hands and
literally ran away. It turned out to be a small piece of paper on which
had been written the words: '[name deleted -- editor] is behind all this.'
Whether all that bit of Congress
links with Tehelka is just so much rumour, the fact is that the winding
up of the Phukan Commission lets Tehelka and its likes free to indulge
in more of its journalism without being accountable for the methods used.
Writing on the edit page of The
Asian Age, Mumbai, August 27, 2001, Dr N Bhaskara Rao, chairman of Centre
for Media Studies, New Delhi, had stated, 'In India we do not have specific
laws to regulate the use of covert technologies by journalists.'
The Phukan Commission may well have,
on the basis of evidence before it, strongly recommended such regulatory
laws -- as, for instance, are prevalent in the US where even the FBI has
to present its case for a sting operation before the US attorney general
for his prior approval.
That such regulations on sting operations
are in vogue in the US -- the freest of free countries where, unlike in
India, freedom of the press is guaranteed by a constitutional measure known
as the First Amendment -- is an indicator of dangers inherent in an unbridled
sting operation. These dangers range from intrusion into a citizen's privacy,
commission of crime otherwise punishable by law, and a threat to national
security.
Threat to national security cannot
be perceived by the run of the ordinary citizens who gloat in what Tehelka
did three years ago nor it can be perceived by naïve intellectuals
of the kind who hailed Tehelka for attaining a new high in investigative
journalism. Rather, it is the seniors in intelligence departments who are
able to sniff a danger to national security from a variety of sources.
Below are excerpts from a former
chief of the Intelligence Bureau's article published soon after the Tehelka
bombshell in The Asian Age, Mumbai, of March 26, 2001.
q Between 'snaring' or 'tempting'
people into accepting 'gifts' or 'bribes', where a cause of action does
not exist, and exposing corruption regarding specific deals, a vast gulf
exists. Not to recognise the significance of this difference would be a
grievous mistake.
q No one has shown any concern about
the ethics of the operation and whether stilted 'exposure' of this kind
can improve the system or will damage it further. The motivation of those
responsible for the 'sting' has been accepted without question and a gullible
public has not explored whether a hidden game plan exists in all this.
q Most see it as the stuff of investigative
journalism. Hardly any see it as a potential time bomb.
q Sting journalism is an offence
in countries like the United States but here it is being hailed as an opportunity
for virtue to triumph over the forces of evil. Therein lurks the danger.
q It is a serious matter when non-representative
organisations conjure up non-existent deals exploiting the purported venality
of individuals and hold them up to public ridicule or worse. The intended
or unintended consequence of such 'cowboy' or 'frontier' justice can be
highly deleterious.
The man who publicly bared the above
apprehensions of what Tehelka had done was M K Narayanan who was brought
out of retirement and handpicked as internal security advisor of the UPA
government.
It is clear that when the Sonia-led
sarkar in New Delhi took its two decisions on the Phukan Commission, it
either did not consult its internal security advisor or bypassed his known
reservations on the subject. That's what happens when an arrogant political
set-up goes for its adversary's jugular with a killer instinct that packs
the overkill punch. Therein lies the Indian nation's clear and present
danger.
