Corruption there is, but is there a conspiracy too?

- Dr. Ramesh N. Rao

The Tehelka sting operation, now being played out in all its grainy, patchy, and spliced glory on Zee TV, seems to have brought to the fore, once again, that Indians are a corrupt lot, and that the present BJP-led government is no different than the previous Congress governments hungry for cash and eager to make deals. In the past 30 years or so, corruption has become rampant in the country, and despite what the Communists and their apologists claim about clean governance in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, it would be naïve of us to accept their claims at face value. After all, just recently it was reported that the West Bengal government had gifted Jyoti Basu a retirement package that works out to over Rs 50 lakh per year! (“Govt gifts Basu a fortune”, Subrata Nagchoudhury, The Indian Express, March 22, 2001) Some clean governance!

What about the Tehelka expose, though? Is it really good journalism, and did it merely seek to expose the corrupt? Or was it a sting operation aimed at toppling the BJP-led NDA government? Poor Bangaru Laxman has resigned, and he may be the biggest loser. It may indeed be difficult to rehabilitate his political career, and the first Dalit president of the Bharatiya Janata Party may have to retire to some quiet corner of Andhra Pradesh, to spend his days ignored by those who once sought his favour, and forgotten by the fickle Indian public. But let us take a closer look at what the tapes have recorded, and point out, as Arvind Lavakare has done, the third-rate, doubtful, and even criminally prosecutable entrapment scam that the Tehelka journalists, one of whom has a Congress past, have foisted on the nation. Lavakare says that the Tehelka tapes do not really prove any wrongdoing by Laxman. But his being caught on tape with currency notes in his hand (For heaven’s sake, it was Rs. 200,000, about $4400!) “cast an incalculable damage on the man's reputation”. It seems that now even within the BJP there is little sympathy for poor Mr. Laxman. A report says that at the party’s national executive meeting on March 24, two speakers spoke harshly against Laxman, and that no one sought to defend him. The party passed a resolution, which stressed four points:

Independent inquiry into the defence expose. Law must take its own course in matters related to Tehelka. Strict accountability and introspection needed within party. Party funding must be streamlined.

However, Lavakare draws attention to the following excerpt from the Tehelka trascript: “Tehelka: Rupees or dollars? Laxman: Dollars. You can give in dollars”, and says that this particular remark of Laxman’s got an eight-column headline in The Asian Age, the newspaper edited by M. J. Akbar, and which publishes an almost daily litany from the likes of Seema Mustafa about the “dangerous” BJP-led government and the “foul” deeds of the Sangh Parivar. What The Asian Age did was put an exclamation mark (!) after “Dollars” and so made it seem that Laxman was chortling with joy on being told that he could have dollars, whereas he may have simply been responding with an interrogative when the Tehelka reporter offered dollars. That is not the only problem with the tapes as a fine editorial in the Afternoon Despatch & Courier points out. Why did Tehelka not tell the public how it managed to entrap Laxman with rupees if indeed he demanded dollars? They knew, most probably, that having their hidden cameras tape the twenty packets of hundred rupee notes in Laxman’s hands would provide more punch than just handing Laxman forty-four hundred dollar bills!

Lavakare, unravels the mystery for us. He says that The Asian Age exclamatory mark laden headline was sensationalism masquerading as good journalism. He says that what Laxman in all probability said was “Dollars??” in some kind of surprise or shock. Poor man, most probably doesn’t even speak English fluently! This South Indian, Telugu speaking Dalit was being trapped by a savvy, ex-Congress, Kerala Christian with possibly an incomprehensible Malayali accent and a big axe to grind! Finally, as Lavakare asks, “why has Tehelka not cared to tell us whether they had or hadn't received the official BJP stamped receipt for what they gave to Laxman?”

There is more to the Tehelka “expose” than meets the eye, and despite Arun Shourie arguing in favour of journalists using novel and non-traditional means for gathering information when the ordinary channels may not enable them to get at underhand dealings, one has to question not the “means” adopted by Tehelka but the ends they sought. Shourie said that the methods used by Tehelka reporters were acceptable because journalists sometimes resort to “unorthodox tactics” to uncover what’s hidden from the public eye. To Shourie, the end (exposing corruption), justified the means (in this case hidden cameras).

But was exposing corruption the real aim of Tehelka, and what are the credentials of Mathew Samuel who was, by all accounts, including his collaborator Bahal, the brains behind the operation? Bangaru Laxman says that Mathew is connected to the Congress leader Vyalar Ravi’s office, and that Mathew once lived in Vincent George’s (Sonia Gandhi’s personal secretary) flat (“Mathew Samuel lived in Vincent George’s flat: Laxman”, Onkar Singh & Sheela Bhatt, Rediff, March 24, 2001). This is the same Vincent George who is now being investigated by the CBI for amassing wealth beyond his means (“Vincent George: the ambitious stenographer who made it big”, Nora Chopra, Tehelka.Com, March 23, 2001), and who was the powerful personal secretary for Rajiv Gandhi and is now serving Sonia Gandhi in the same capacity.

Samuel Matthew or Mathew Samuel, who now says he is writing a book on the whole episode (as his collaborator, Aniruddha Bahal also claims he is doing), seems to be the kind of person who is himself caught up in a political web of his own. According to the Daily Pioneer, the Union Home Ministry has ordered an inquiry into what may be a plot to destabilise the government. The Pioneer had reported in its March 22, 2001 edition that a director in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Thomas Mathew, had often announced his intentions to discredit and destabilise the Vajpayee Government, and that Samuel Mathew was a regular visitor to Thomas Mathew’s office and that there was a great deal of intimacy between the two men. The officer and Samuel Mathew are said to share an intense dislike of the Government in general, and of Defence Minister George Fernandes in particular. It was also reported that Samuel Mathew claimed that he had the backing of rich NRIs and money would not be a problem if meetings could be arranged with leaders like Mamata Bannerjee, Ramvilas Paswan, Chandrababu Naidu and George Fernandes. More importantly, and which no newspaper seems to have picked up, is the comment by Aniruddha Bahal in his live Internet chat on Rediff.Com. Here is the revealing excerpt:

Sivan: “Bahal, Do you guys have any Political Connections and also what are your comments on the reports that your Partner Samuel has connections with the Congress”.

Aniruddha Bahal: “Samuel has no connects with the congress currently”.

Note the last part of Bahal’s comment carefully. He says Samuel does not have a connection with the Congress “currently”. What does that mean? That Samuel was a Congressman till recently, and only now has severed his connection with the party now? What kind of connection did Samuel have with the Congress party? Did he scheme this particular entrapment with other Congress party members/operators? How much did the Congress party know beforehand of this scheme to entrap defence officers and the ruling coalition members? Why have reporters not pursued Samuel Mathew’s political connections, and was his Congress connection the reason too that Priyaranjan Das Munshi, the Congress leader, at the first press conference when Tehelka made public the tapes?

There is no doubt that any objective reader of English newspapers in India will find that most of them are opposed to the BJP and the RSS, and that many of the well-known journalists and media commentators have carried out a sustained and shrill campaign against the Sangh Parivar at least since the Ayodhya incident. As an observer of the Indian-American scene, I also know that since 1996, when the BJP first sought to form a government, a number of commentators and academics, including very prominent Indian-Christian journalists and commentators, launched a scathing attack and a denomination campaign against the “Sangh Parivar”. As I noted in an article in India Star, the vilification of the BJP and the RSS had gone to the extent of Hindu-bashing, which was allowed in India Abroad owned by an Indian-Christian, and whose editor was also Indian-Christian. I mention their religious background because it seems that a number of Indian-Christians in the U.S. have taken up their cudgels against the BJP and have gone to the extent, recently, of writing a letter to U.S. Congressmen that if the U.S. were to send aid to India for earthquake relief it should go only to Church and Christian charity organisations. This kind of activity is not just political activity but seems to be both anti-national and subversive. So, it would be interesting to find out the real reasons behind Samuel Mathew’s eagerness to trap the BJP leaders. Moreover, what happened to Tehelka’s initial claim that they had something against the Congress too, and as to why their editor Tarun Tejpal now says there is nothing against the Congress? And what about the insinuation that L.K. Advani and his Home Ministry was involved, and then the quiet withdrawal of that statement by Tejpal?

Arun Shourie is right when he says that in the tradition of the old “muck-rakers” journalists will sometimes have to resort to non-traditional means for uncovering crimes, scandals, or plots at undermining the country. But, in this case, I believe what we have is a deliberate attempt at undermining this government rather than just exposing corruption. Hopefully, the Justice Venkataswami commission will not only get to the bottom of the culture of corruption in the defence establishment but also uncover any conspiracy at undermining the government.

Ramesh Rao, March 26, 2001

Letter addressed to U.S. Congressmen by the “Federation of Indian American Christian Organisations in North America” dated February 25, 2001, and urging Congressmen that “If funds are sent we suggest that they be sent directly to organisations such as World Vision, Missionaries of Charity, Catholic Relief Services, etc. This insures that the funds reach those who desperately need it. Money given to the government of India will be ill spent for this purpose”. P.D. JOHN, co-ordinator for the organisation, signed the letter.

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