Exposing the expose

Madhu Trehan, who launched India’s first video news magazine in English much before 24x7 television news channels became ubiquitous in this country, has now produced a well-researched book on a recent media initiative that shook the government of the time and made each one of us recognize the strengths as well as weaknesses in our democratic processes, systems and institutions. Such books are rare. The subject of her book is rarer still — a “sting” operation conducted by a website, Tehelka.

On March 13, 2001, the nation watched in dismay as leaders of the ruling coalition at the Centre accepted cash or talked about receiving money for their political parties from those who claimed to be agents of a company dealing in arms. The Tehelka tapes showed much more — Army officers and their assistants sharing secret documents with agents in return for a few thousand rupees and the pleasant company of women.

What happened in the wake of the Tehelka exposé was even more startling. While a few of the politicians caught on camera had to quit their jobs under pressure and Army officers found guilty after a quick inquiry were dismissed, the government machinery swung into action to find out if there was some conspiracy behind the “sting” operation. A commission of inquiry began probing this angle bringing all kinds of pressure on the journalists who had planned the exposé. In an apparently unrelated development, the investors in Tehelka were harassed and accused of having committed a series of economic offences, for which one of them was even sent to jail.

As Trehan argues in her book, the Tehelka tapes and the subsequent developments highlight how rotten India’s governance system has become. Corruption in high places including among ruling party politicians is now pretty rampant. But once such corruption is exposed, the government hits back and often succeeds in its attempt to silence the messenger.

Public memory is short and the Indian media rarely digs deep into such issues. Nobody cares to examine if the government had indeed misused its powers and if it launched a witch hunt to pressure inconvenient journalists to desist from exposing corruption, or whether the methods used by the media to expose corruption were correct. The media moves on to cover another big event or the next scandal. As a result, nobody really knows whether there was indeed any conspiracy behind the Tehelka exposé and whether the government’s action against Tehelka’s investors was justified.

Trehan makes a sincere attempt in her book to fill this critical gap in our understanding of the developments around the Tehelka “sting” operation. She relies on over 40 long interviews with people connected with Tehelka and the exposé. In the process, we get to know a few journalists (or were they really journalists?), who did the actual work in conducting the “sting” operation. We realise how some editors are not fully aware of the code of conduct that is specified by the Press Council of India, how the government’s legal department manages the courts in denying bail to an accused or why some of those featuring on the Tehelka tapes gave conflicting versions of what they said in the wake of the exposé. There are hints of senior Tehelka journalists falling apart over who may have got the bigger credit for the exposé. Equally interesting are explanations of why some initial investors in Tehelka got out of the project.

It is a loosely structured book and certainly could do with better editing. But the structure chosen has one advantage. Once you read the first chapter, which outlines the focus of the book, you can choose any one of the remaining 27 chapters to get an exclusive peek into the many aspects of the Tehelka developments without losing the main thread of the argument. The interviews have been used effectively without disrupting the flow of the chapters in any way.

Yet, the book does not come out with any concrete conclusions of what really happened. Tarun Tejpal, the website’s editor, says he let his representative meet the Hindujas in London, but he himself decided not to enter the building where the meeting took place. Did the Tehelka promoters have some other agenda behind their plan to conduct the “sting” operation? There are no clear answers.

Trehan calls it the Rashômon effect—the truth has many versions. An event is understood or reported in different ways by different people. Trehan’s ability to present these different versions objectively and resist the temptation to reach quick conclusions is laudable. It enhances the book’s acceptability as a document that researchers examining the Tehelka developments will find useful.

PRISM ME A LIE TELL ME A TRUTH
TEHELKA AS METAPHOR

Madhu Trehan
Roli Books
616 pages; Rs 595