Monday 25 November 2013

Tarun Tejpal: The Mighty Fall



For the past few days this middle aged man with a receding headline and neatly trimmed grey beard and pony tail has been staring you from TV screens, news websites and the pages of newspapers. But they are all either his still photographs or old footages; the man is actually ducking the media ever since the cover over his alleged sexual assault got blown over.

Dubbed as 'Nirbhaya moment' for Indian media, it is probably the first such case where a well known editor has been caught pants down, under the blinding glare of publicity and put through the wringer of crowdsourced social media. The latter is an amoral loose cannon which nobody can either rein in or apply brakes.

In earlier instances of editors indulging in such testosterone fuelled antics, things used to get swept under the carpet. The media houses used to close ranks and observe an incestuous 'code of silence'. The matter used to remain contained to the realm of office canteen and press club gossip, but never enter the public sphere. But now with social media 'following' us everywhere the rules of the game have changed. They no longer remain 'in-house' or 'internal', but go 'viral'. Caught in a time warp, Tarun Tejpal and Tehelka management failed to notice this.

Tejpal in his apology says it was 'lapse of judgement'. How true! After all he failed to gauge that this woman was not going to be frightened to silence (she even told his daughter) just to keep her job or quietly resign and fade away. Nor did he realise that times are changing and women, especially in metro cities, no longer feel intimidated by the adverse publicity while reporting sexual harassment or rape.

His apology was akin to the remorse a young brat shows after breaking neighbour's window pane while playing gully cricket. It had more to do with the fear of punishment he may have to undergo than the offence itself. His bizarre move to 'recuse himself' for six months to 'atone' for his actions were a far cry from the hammer and tongs stand his magazine usually takes to condemn others for a similar offence. And wonder what transformation is going to happen to him in these six months. Later he became less penitent and claimed it was a consensual encounter and is now even spinning conspiracy theories.

Though Tehelka came as a whiff of fresh air in the stifling atmosphere of Page 3 culture and paid journalism, Tejpal later became associated with some dubious corporate houses to boost the sagging finances. His association with ThinkFest and the presence of a Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef in its latest version also drew lot of flak (though nothing compared to this episode). The UPA government also has a lot of answering to do.  

The magazine editor Shoma Chaudhury took to the 'her master's voice' tradition with a verve that would make Renuka Chowdhary or Manish Tewari envy; but decimated her own credibility in the process. Her claim that the woman journalist was 'satisfied' by the apology was the final nail. The fact that this 'activist' magazine was reluctant to form a committee to deal with sexual harassment cases only provided one more handle to its detractors.

And the magazine has them in great numbers. The foremost, of course, is BJP whose leaders were badly exposed in Tehelka's early sting operation called Operation Westend in its earlier avatar as a start-up web site. Rattled by the expose, the then Vajpayee government went after the website and its main promoters First Global in a manner that seemed like a throwback of Indira Gandhi's infamous Emergency. Later after the Gujarat riots Tehelka carried out another sting exposing Sangh Parivar and BJP. Now with snoopgate become hot for BJP in general and Modi in particular, this scandal is godsend. Internet trollers loyal to them would now like us to believe that whatever Tehelka did in past was sham. For Tarun Tejpal's professional rivals it is time for quiet celebration.

The worst hit are the Tehelka employees. Many journalists and other employees joined Tehelka because they were passionate about its hard hitting brand of reporting and soldiered on despite poor service conditions, when compared with other bigger publications. It is these people who have been badly let down by this scandal.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Friday 22 November 2013

Quote and Misquote


When I heard about Bharat Ratna awardee C N R Rao being at pains issuing clarification after clarification regarding his remarks about politicians, I was reminded of an old Pope joke. The Pontiff visits US and is asked by a journalist whether he would visit a night club there. The Pope tries to play safe and asks "Is there a night club in America". The next day the top headline of all newspapers was "Pope asks 'Is there a night club in America?'"

Similarly Rao was only lamenting the fact that the government's funding towards science was measly and politicians were doing 'idiotic' things. But for TRP/predatory circulation driven media it was too tempting not to 'spice' things up. So they went to town stating that 'Politicians are idiots: C N R Rao'. The noted scientist may have by now realised the even the most unpredictable electrons and ions in particle chemistry are far more easier to handle than mediamen.

As for funding on science research, Rao would realise how blessed his community of scientists are if he bothers to take a look at what the government and universities spend on humanities. The sole exception, of course, was the  alacrity with which it goaded the Archeological survey of India to carry out a gold hunt at Unnao, based on a Sadhu's dream.

And it not just the politicians, the bureaucrats are also have a major role. They painstaking work day and night to ensure that there are enough spokes to keep files moving at a glacial pace.

The scene at private sector is no better. The crony capitalism driven industry captains have little patience for long gestation activities like research, thanks to their 'sasta aur tikau' mindset.



Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Monday 11 November 2013

Satellite vs Bread


Amidst the rollicking feku and pappu Diwali special political fireworks and the long drawn 5.000-piece ladi cracker like hype over the impending retirement of a cricket icon, the ISRO's giant leap in its Mars mission got an ephemeral Diwali rocket kind of attention.

Thankfully the lift-off was 'picture perfect' and drew lots of adulatory messages. The ISRO has come a long way from its modest beginning when many of its launch vehicles used to end up in Bay of Bengal. But there were still some naysayers wondering whether a country with sub-Saharan social indices should indulge in such ego trips.

But they were silenced by the 'Jai ho' types who said the mission cost ISRO $73 million and in rupee terms it works out to 450 crore. They did some kitna deti hai type number crunching and came up with an ‘earthier’ finding that in kilometre terms it works out to Rs 12/km - equivalent to auto fare. So a mission to Mars, after all, need not mean guilt trips over country's elusive victory over poverty!

The foreign press was busy comparing ISRO's frugal mission with that of NASA's, whose annual budget runs into billions of dollars. Space entrepreneurs may be smelling an outsourcing opportunity. However what caught my eye was British tabloid Daily Express headline 'India sends a spaceship to Mars after UK gives £280million in aid'. It had an air of a charity donor rueing that his money was not being spent to feed the poor, but instead the caretakers' have pocketed it to buy i-Phones!

In this eternal debate between satellites and bread, it will indeed be suicidal to keep the space programme in abeyance until the country wipes of its poverty. But it will be worthwhile to imbibe ISRO's values of frugality, ingenuity and industriousness to improve the country's social indices.

Also Read: Bangalore Beat

Sunday 3 November 2013

Resurrecting Sardar Patel



Sardar Vallabhai Patel is now unwittingly 'trending' in the consciousness of mango people, thanks to the Congress-BJP  dogfight over his legacy. In our country it is a sad fact that 'honouring' any late leader has been reduced to ceremonial gestures such as erecting statues, naming roads and buildings; garlanding his or her statue or photograph on birth and death anniversaries. Our nano attention span rarely goes beyond that. Little is done to understand what they stood for and how to propagate their values.

Patel, the country's first home minister, and many freedom struggle stalwarts such as Subhash Chandra Bose, C Rajagopalachari and numerous others became fading memories, mainly relegated to their home states, after the country attained freedom and the citizens began taking that freedom for granted. Moreover since Rajaji and Patel had right wing views on economy, they did not find much favour in the era of Nehruvian socialism and licence permit raj.

After Indira Gandhi came to power the ruling political and bureaucratic class realised that hero worshipping the First Family of Indian politics - the Nehrus was the only way forward and many took to it with gusto. All governmental schemes were named after members of the Nehru family. All others got blanked out, even roads named after Mahatma Gandhi are at best known as 'MG Road', with hardly anyone aware what 'MG' stands for.

As for Patel whatever little remembrance the Indian populace had about him got further diminished in 1984, after  the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi fell to assassins bullets on his birth anniversary - October 31. Since then the Congressmen face the yearly quandary whether to celebrate Patel's birth anniversary or mourn Indira Gandhi's death. No prize for guessing what they usually choose.

Little do the people know that had it not been for Patel we would have got a 'moth eaten' (my apologies to Mohammed Ali Jinnah) India with 563 petty princely states wreaking havoc and Pakistan fishing in those troubled waters. We would have required a passport to go to cities such as Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Patiala, Agartala and Jaipur; and not to speak of Kashmir. Patel persuaded the princely states (arm twisted the recalcitrant ones with threat of military action) to fall in line.

For this he is often compared to Otto Von Bismarck, the man who unified Germany with 'blood and iron' and the original practitioner of realpolitik. But while the Prussian Chancellor had to deal with principalities that were far more homogeneous in terms of language and culture, Patel had to contend with princely states that were as diverse as they could get.

For Narendra Modi and BJP a neglected Patel was an easy picking to bolster their political future, since Hindu Mahasabha leaders like Veer Sawarkar or Shyama Prasad Mukherjee don't enjoy a pan-Indian appeal. It has been in the works even when L K Advani was leading the party, under Modi it has become shriller.

What followed was a clever propaganda campaign. He sparked off a debate by saying Patel would have made a better Prime Minister and then went on to plant a lie that Jawaharlal Nehru did not attend Patel's funeral. In this era of Google and Wikipedia such lies have a very short shelf life. The last word on this issue has still not been said.

Modi’s plan for a grand statue of Patel, spending humungous Rs 2,500 crore, sounds more like Mayawati-isation of an illustrious leader, who discarded his flourishing law practice and brown sahib ways to become a dyed in khadi Congressman.

Picture courtesy: Wikipedia

Also Read: Bangalore Beat