Blowing the whistle

Only those totally indifferent to the demands of ethics and morality in public life can seek to rubbish the revelations by questioning the methods Tehelka used, writes HARISH KHARE.

WERE THE tehelka.com revelations the finest moment of Indian journalism or were they an essay in a journalistic enterprise of doubtful ethics? No single piece of journalism ever in the past did so much and so effectively to remind one and all that there was a social expectation called probity. But entrapment? May be; but only those who are totally indifferent to the demands of ethics and morality in public life can seek to rubbish the revelations by questioning the methodology Tehelka adopted.

It is rather hilarious that the questions are being raised by a political crowd that has all these years benefited from intrepid journalism. After all it was Mr. Arun Shourie who, in the early 1980s, thought nothing of reporting the babblings of an unsuspecting Gundu Rao over a friendly, off-the-record lunch conversation. That was the age when moral indignation was a much- valued tool in the armour of the journalist; today the same breed of journalists finds itself having to explain away questionable deals. Later on it was Mr. Pritish Nandy who trapped a Hansraj Bhardwaj into paying unflattering compliments to senior Congress(I) leaders.

And, though the Congress(I) leaders themselves are quite happy to take political advantage of a journalist's labour, these leaders have in their own time practised every trick in the trade to hamper journalists. The very Congress(I) leaders who are today strutting before the television cameras are not averse to using their leverage to harass and intimidate professional newspersons. The Government, whose ``holier-than-thou'' tone is set by former journalists and former crusaders, has reportedly ordered an inquisitional inquiry into the tehelka.com organisation. May be the enterprise is financed by people who have a shady past; but, by the same yardsticks most of our so-called ``professionally run'' corporate firms would be open to close scrutiny.

Still, the Government is entitled to exercise every quiver in its coercive and intimidatory armour. May be the next dot.com investigative journalistic venture would be more scrupulously put together.

It is possible that after the Tehelka tapes, politicians, bureaucrats and the so-called well-informed (read middle men) would be wary of talking to journalists; but then, as every journalist worth his professional grain knows, what an interlocutor values is the scribe's known track record of integrity and competence.

Was the Tehelka investigation a politically-motivated venture? This is not a new question, and has been raised in the past to spike any tendency on the part of this or that news organisation to look too closely into the shenanigans of those in power. Admittedly, to the extent every good journalistic exercise, whatever the medium, has a political consequence, the Tehelka tapes were definitely politically explosive material. But to its credit, the Tehelka crowd so far has not behaved as if it was a partisan against the NDA Government; rather it has made all the correct noises about documenting a phenomenon which everyone knew existed but was unable or uninspired enough to undertake so far.

From where did the finances come? This is an unfair and motivated question; the question is not asked whenever any established news organisation comes up with a scoop, and there is no reason why Tehelka should be asked to explain its financial credentials. If anything, the Tehelka investigators are to be judged by the results of their labours, and the country is grateful that they have taken the collective mukhota off the face of the self- appointed deshbakhts.

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