Opinion - News Analysis

The message to the media

By Harish Khare

If the Government and its apologists are to be believed, then the arrest (and subsequent release) of a Tehelka reporter by the Delhi police is an isolated incident and could in no way be called an attack on the "freedom of press''. The Delhi police moved in after the CBI lodged an FIR that one of its officials was manhandled by the Tehelka reporter.

Since the CBI has indeed been seen over the years as being the "hand-maiden" of the party in power, the obviously natural inference is that the agency had lent its name to a vendetta against the news portal. This is at variance with the CBI's self-image.

The real culprit perhaps is the Delhi police who have once again displayed over-zealousness to please the political masters. The Tehelka reporter's arrest is seen as a classic case in point. In fact, they are not the only official agency that has pitched in the NDA establishment's desire to bring the news portal to its knees for daring to expose "corruption'' in defence deals. These agencies know that if there is one issue on which the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the Defence Minister agree, it is on this one point-agenda of teaching the Tehelka crowd a lesson.

A similar, even worse, vindictiveness is being exhibited in the case of another reporter, Iftikhar Geelani of the Kashmir Times. In this case, a journalist has been jailed for the simple crime of being a "separatist'' leader's son-in-law; because the political establishment in Srinagar wanted to get tough with Syed Ali Shah Geelani, his son-in-law Iftikhar Geelani was also to be fixed on the flimsiest of charges. Iftikhar has been languishing in jail on a charge of possessing a 1996 Pakistani publication — that too downloaded from the Internet — about the deployment of Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir.

What is most disquieting is that the Delhi police have now made Iftikhar's continued incarceration a matter of bureaucratic pride and have resorted to every trick in the trade to keep him in jail. Even the military intelligence has lent its credibility to the Delhi police's argument that Iftikhar is indeed guilty of violating the Official Secrets Act. The message is clear: any journalist can be hauled up any time for possessing this or that document and the authorities declare that it is "useful to the enemy or an unfriendly powers'', inviting the penal provisions of the Official Secret Act.

The Union Home Minister, L.K. Advani, is indifferent to the entreaties of various journalistic organisations to intervene and stop the palpable miscarriage of justice. Contrast this with his aggressive defence in the Lok Sabha of the Defence Minister, George Fernandes' visit to the Vellore jail to see the MDMK leader, Vaiko. Mr. Fernandes has termed Mr. Vaiko's arrest under POTA as improper.

All that Mr. Advani said was that "no law prohibits a member of the Government from meeting a colleague of his in prison. It certainly conveys a certain message''.

This message was spelt out for Mr. Advani by a Congress MP, Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi. The Lok Sabha transcript of the debate reads: "Is it proper on the part of the Defence Minister of the nation, as reported in the newspapers, to go to Tamil Nadu to meet that particular person in custody? If so, in the fitness of things, does it boost the morale of the armed forces of our country? Is it in propriety of the House that a member of the Council of Ministers and no less than the Defence Minister calls on an accused, who is charged under POTA''

Yet because of political compulsions Mr. Advani could only waffle. Police officers and other law-enforcers across the land can only take note of the "message'': there are two sets of standards, one for the ruling party and its friends and another for those who dare to be critical of the Government.

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