HISTORY WAITS

Editorial
The Telegraph, 28 October

There is one lifetime, there is one opportunity. West Bengal stands today face-to-face with a unique opportunity. Never before has West Bengal been at the receiving end of so much keen interest exhibited by foreign investors and even policy-makers.

The most obvious example of this interest is the visit of Henry Paulson, the treasury secretary of the United States of America, Dick Parsons, the chairman and chief executive officer of Time Warner, and Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state. These are the three really important personalities who have chosen to come to the state instead of doing the usual round of Delhi-Bangalore/Hyderabad-Mumbai.

But there have been other industrialists and investors, who have been visiting the state over the last two years to explore possibilities of doing business here. The image of West Bengal has obviously undergone a sea-change in the last few years.

It would be unrealistic to deny that this transformation has been powered by the vision and the efforts of one man: the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. West Bengal’s image was on a downward spiral since the Sixties. It was perceived as the state where violence and labour militancy reigned supreme.

Poverty, squalor and strikes were the three words that immediately came to mind when West Bengal was mentioned. It was notorious as the state from where capital fled and where economic growth plummeted. It was not an easy image to alter. Mr Bhattacharjee has been successful in conveying the impression that the government of West Bengal is now investor-friendly and very eager to carry forward the project of industrializing the state. He has curbed irresponsible trade unionism. Most important, he has lifted the pall of gloom that hung over the state. A sense of optimism now pervades the investment climate.

But even Mr Bhattacharjee’s most ardent admirer will not assert that the process of transformation is complete and problem-free. The attempt to industrialize has met with many obstacles and violent opposition leading to loss of lives. The people of the state are still struggling to slough off a cosy mindset that was anti-work and anti-enterprise. Mr Bhattacharjee’s own party — the Communist Party of India (Marxist) — is fighting its own ideological demons. A party that carries the birthmark of anti-capitalism finds it difficult to accept the enthusiasm of a chief minister for capital. The chief minister cannot allow these hurdles to either stop or slow down the actualization of the vision that he has presented before the people of the state. History has placed West Bengal in the cusp of a critical transition.

It is for Mr Bhattacharjee to establish that he is the man of the moment, destined to take West Bengal forward. He has before him the opportunity of a lifetime. It is for him to seize it.

ABP, Time Warner in deal

The Telegraph, 31 October

New Delhi, Oct. 30: Time Warner and ABP Pvt Ltd, which publishes The Telegraph, have reached an understanding to launch the Indian edition of Fortune, the world’s leading business magazine.

Fortune India is expected to have a mix of global content and locally sourced news to reflect the integration of a newly reforming India with the world.

Vivek Shah, president of the Fortune/Money group, announced the new publication at a lunch hosted today by Aveek Sarkar, chief editor of ABP Group. Dick Parsons, chairman of the AOL Time Warner group, was present.

Parsons, responsible for the financial turnaround of the Time Warner conglomerate in the four years since he came to the top job, said he was proud to be associated with the new venture.

The ABP Group, Parsons said, is the Indian equivalent of the Time Warner group in the US.

Fortune India, which is likely to be launched next spring, is the third country-specific edition after Fortune China that has been around for 10 years and Fortune Turkey, launched last month.

The Fortune magazine was founded in 1930 in the US. With a circulation of one million copies, it is acknowledged as a touchstone of the rich and powerful worldwide.

“Why now?’’ asked Shah, at the announcement of the launch of the Indian edition on the sidelines of the magazine’s annual global conclave in the capital.

He answered the question himself: “India has become a major player in today’s business landscape. The Indian market has risen to the top of every CEO’s agenda and is therefore the perfect venue for the leading global business magazine.”

ABP’s CEO D.D. Purkayastha echoed him. “India has the need for a high-quality, internationally renowned publication. Our market is quickly progressing and we are confident that Fortune’s innovative and forward-thinking content will successfully guide our business leaders.”

Fortune India, a monthly, will compete with Businessworld, the business weekly that is one of 11 publications from the ABP stable.

The group, which started with a four-page evening daily in 1922, also owns three 24-hour TV news channels, two leading book-publishing businesses as well as mobile and Internet properties.

We are free, the Boss says so

Sugato Hazra Former editor, Kolkata TV, and communications expert
The Pioneer, 19 October

How vibrant is the media in West Bengal? An insider reveals how the media functioned in West Bengal till Nandigram, followed by the Rizwanur episode, blew the bottom out of a system of manipulated objectivity

In Communist West Bengal, the CPI(M) relies on a media brand called 'Buddha'. The task of the Chief Minister is to sell a dream to the people, while the party organisation takes care of the nitty-gritty of converting that into votes. The Left rulers in West Bengal operate within the set parameters of India's vibrant democracy. To influence the public there is a strong presence of the party mouthpiece, Ganashakti.

Party members and supporters are supposed to read and to trust Ganashakti. For those having more faith in the electronic media there is a 24-hour news channel where only disciplined minds can work. The channel delivers the right (or 'left'?) news for the modern generation. Organising the finance for newspaper and the channel is not a problem since the poorest of the poor of Bengal are ever so willing to contribute their last paisa in ensuring the viability of Ganashakti and its clones. Moreover, it's not polite to ask such questions.

But the party media can only reach the faithful. They cannot guarantee that the so-called, free media will not corrupt the minds and spirits of the reactionaries. Mahatma Gandhi believed that if a newspaper were to run into difficulties as a consequence of publishing truth, it should rather close down than buckle.

The Mahatma did not have that much faith in the rules of the market economy. In the media business, no promoter would like to close down just for the sake of an abstraction. In any case, truth, as depicted by the Japanese filmmaker Akhiro Kurosawa in his 1951 film, Roshomon, has many sides to it.

To survive, the non-attached Bengali press presents 'truth' in different shades so as to ensure their own continuity. Those with limited circulation and reach, as well as those who are too big to manage their affairs without a little help from Government, fall in line with the dominant political force. They end up parroting a line that is too often miraculously similar to that of Ganashakti.

But there are still those who fall in neither of the two above-mentioned brackets. They are neither small, nor big. So, to survive, they must perform a kind of jugglery with the 'truth' that is perhaps unknown elsewhere. They must appear to be unbiased, yet within acceptable limits so that West Bengal's gains from having an uncrowded democracy are not frittered away.

This, of course, is predictable, since belligerence proves too costly in West Bengal. The largest-circulated Bengali daily of the State, which was once a fierce upholder of the 'truth', had to bite the dust because the ruling party organised a strike which proved too crippling. Printing a paper is only part of the business, distributing it is another. In a single-party democracy, distribution of media products that challenge the dominant forces is dangerous business. 'Dissenting' voices may turn physical as well. Thus, in West Bengal, hostile TV news channels are often taken off the air by cable distributors who, wily nilly, interrupt news channels showing events that the public can do without. In a democracy everybody has a right to disagree including cable operators. If, in the process, viewers fail to watch certain events they ought not to, then the democratic system is that much enriched.

Thus, it is deemed that Nandigram-like violence or police overkill in Singur, incidents that are too 'complicated' for the not-so-erudite viewers and may mislead public opinion, ought to be contained. This is a smarter way of ensuring public good than doing a Nehru with the Constitution. The first Prime Minister had effected the first Amendment of the Constitution, by which freedom of speech and expression was guaranteed under article 19(1)(a). Conservative critics of free speech, who still blame Nehru when they see media excesses like bogus sting operations or intrusions into celebrities' private spaces, would do well to recognise the last-mile censorship carried out by the cable operators of West Bengal.

There is a third instrument of taming the media. This emerges from out of the compulsion of the market economy and single-party democracy. Under the unique system largely developed in Kolkata the opposing voices operate within a Lakshman rekha. For example, if some steps are condemnable, like, say, violence over land acquisition, the independent media will condemn it but with certain qualifiers so as not to mislead the public. Rule one, 'Brand Buddha', a symbol of growth and development, should not be tarnished. Mortals of lower rank to Chief Minister must be passed the blame. Second, the compulsions that drove the undoubtedly democratic Government to take the apparently undemocratic action must receive equal prominence.

For instance when lives were lost in Nandigram, a leading Bengali channel kept on showing how the torching of a police jeep acted as the Godhra incident. This is known as balancing act. Those who fail to do so are checked by the ever-vigilant cable operators, who, after all, have a public responsibility to carry out.

And, finally, there is the good old leak. Independent. but not very uncooperative, media houses are occasionally recipients of scraps of profound knowledge that go a long way in managing the public disgust in certain unpalatable situations.

The Justice Sabharwal affair

Judge The Judges ~ But Don’t Spare Media!

Rajinder Puri
The Statesman, 17 October

Former Chief Justice YK Sabharwal allegedly passed judgments that gave business advantage to his sons. A group of lawyers published their findings to this effect. A Mumbai newspaper reported and commented on their findings. Delhi High Court slapped contempt of court case against the media persons and convicted them. They were sentenced to brief prison terms. The Supreme Court stayed the imprisonment and granted bail to the convicted while it judged the case. All this has led to what is described as the media-judiciary war.

The conviction of the mediapersons on grounds of committing contempt of court raised eyebrows. Should allegations in a media report against an individual judge be construed as contempt of court? Meanwhile, the movement against Justice Sabharwal gathered force. A large number of celebrities, including distinguished legal luminaries, entered the fray. There was a demand for a proper inquiry to clear the air.

Conflict of interest

What do media reports say against Justice Sabharwal? It is alleged that the judgments delivered by him gave advantage to his sons who were businessmen. Assuming this to be correct, was the judgment itself flawed or injudicious? After all, there were other judges on the bench who delivered the same judgments. However, if the outcome of the case under adjudication did affect the business interests of his son, there was clearly a conflict of interests confronting Justice Sabharwal. In the circumstances, should he not have removed himself from the Bench to avoid serious breach of propriety? That is where matters rest at present.

The controversy escalated after it became a judiciary-versus-media dispute.
Questions are being raised now about the system and about the need to ensure that there is accountability in judges. All this is very well. These are questions that should have arisen decades ago after innumerable incidents involving the judiciary.

Journalists patting themselves on the back claiming they fight for justice appear somewhat incongruous. Justice implies consistency. If ten persons flout the law but only one is questioned ~ would that be justice? The media remained silent during earlier judicial controversies. It is going to town on this. So, is it only to protect itself that the media is questioning the judiciary? People hope this movement against Justice Sabharwal will bring reform. They smell success. This scribe smells a rat.

In the forefront of the present campaign is former Chief Justice JS Verma. He goes so far as to demand that Justice Sabharwal’s controversial cases be heard again. It may be recalled that Justice Verma presided over the bench hearing the Jain Hawala case. To ensure fair investigation Justice Verma ordered the government to insulate itself from the probe. The investigation was monitored by the Supreme Court in camera. Only then did the CBI file charges against the accused. Amazingly, Delhi High Court dismissed that case because of inadmissible evidence, even though the Supreme Court had monitored the probe. More amazingly, the Supreme Court itself endorsed the High Court’s view regarding insufficient evidence! If the CBI had deliberately spoilt the chargesheets, could not the Supreme Court have prevented it, since the court was itself monitoring the case? What follows is perhaps most amazing.

During the hearings, Justice Verma disclosed in the open court that pressure was being exerted on him. Such pressure is criminal. But he refrained from naming anybody. So, was he abetting a crime? One of the petitioners in the case accused judges on the bench of moral turpitude, and of accepting bribes, through an article published in a small journal. Surprisingly, the judges chose to ignore the allegations that were being circulated in media circles and among lawyers.

Eventually, it was the Supreme Court Bar Association that slapped a contempt of court case against the petitioner. The article in question also alleged that Justice Sen had visited the house of a prime accused while the case was pending.

During consideration of the contempt case Justice Sen admitted to having visited the house of the Jain Hawala case accused while the case was pending. He claimed he did not know the accused’s identity when he visited him. But when he did get to know, why didn’t he remove himself from the Bench?

The court dismissed the contempt case. It described the allegations against the judges as scurrilous. Yet, amazingly, it refused to punish the petitioner. It appeared as if it wanted to bury the controversy and possible scandal as quickly as possible. As far as the Jain Hawala case itself was concerned, its final disposal was equally bizarre. The court ruled that the law be amended to create the post of the Central Vigilance Commissioner who could oversee the functioning of the CBI. Why did the court suggest this? It cited the Jain Hawala case for justifying the order. But the Jain Hawala case was dismissed because, according to the court, it had inadmissible and insufficient corroborative evidence!

After retirement Chief Justice Shamim of the Delhi High Court, who dismissed the case, accepted Chairmanship of the National Minorities Commission. Chief Justice Verma, after retiring from the Supreme Court, accepted Chairmanship of the National Human Rights Commission. Both appointments were made under LK Advani as the Union Home Minister. Advani was one of the prominent accused in the Jain Hawala case. Did the acceptance of these posts by both judges conform to any sense of propriety?

A pity

Participating in a seminar in 2004, Justice Verma said that the CBI had functioned poorly in the Jain Hawala case, which ought to be revived. A great pity he did not realise this while he headed the Bench that had supervised the CBI investigation until the time that chargesheets were filed. In August 2004 Justice Verma appeared on BBC’s Hard Talk, and lamented that moral standards of the judiciary had declined and that judges should be made accountable. One can only speculate on how he would rate his own performance during and after the Jain Hawala case. Today he virtually leads the campaign against Justice Sabharwal.

Through all this amazing judicial conduct during the Jain Hawala case, the media had remained mute. It was one among many instances of the media’s amnesia. The media’s underplaying this case was understandable. Forty national leaders, including the late Rajiv Gandhi, had been identified by the CBI for having received money in the Jain Hawala case. How can sauce for the goose be sauce for the Gandhi?

The author is a veteran journalist and cartoonist

Concerns and complaints beyond the routine

K. Narayanan
The Hindu, 17 September

The last two columns in “Online and Off line” set out what key journalist staff of The Hindu felt about the functioning of the Readers’ Editor for the last 18 months and its impact. In general, there was welcome for my endeavours and there were also suggestions for rectification and improvement. That has a reader (Dr. J.P. Reddy, Nalgonda) asking me: should you not have sought the feedback from readers on the effect of the corrections made by the Readers’ Editor, “a unique institution with good and affectionate response from readers”? He adds, “The reader is the customer and can judge the performance better than sales persons.” Well, according to some newspaper proprietors, journalists are just selling a product!

Dr. Reddy has a valid point. But I have never had to seek readers’ responses. From Day 1 they have been flowing in, sometimes a trickle, some days a torrent, but never still. The comments are wide-ranging in tone and substance. Major topics of fact and style are raised. The sentiments range from the appreciative to the abusive.

* * * 

In recent days, the uncomplimentary comments have formed a bigger proportion than usual. And with good reason. Along with criticism of the contents of the paper also comes a swipe at the Readers’ Editor (and tangentially at readers too) – “a farce … doing disservice to the readers … pointing out spelling mistakes pointed out by readers (retired government employees) and nothing else … He should have taken a suo motto stand and given an explanation.”

Angry reader R. Raja (Hyderabad) should realise that the Readers’ Editor does not, and cannot, act suo motu. He only reacts when readers point out some omission or commission, and tries to analyse why and how something was done or not done. He is, under the Terms of Reference, enjoined to consider and respond to readers’ concerns, comments and complaints in a prompt and timely manner. The response may not be immediate, for often the reader’s query has to be referred to someone and a reply has to be awaited.

This reader’s grouse revolved around what he termed “cover up,” referring to The Hindu’s “contradictory” editorial stands on the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal. More readers expressed themselves strongly on the editorials of August 6 and 20, 2007, and the subsequent signed clarification. “If the detour was surprising, more surprising was the explanation”; “comically brave attempt to justify the turnaround”; “readers are extra cautious reading your opinion”; so went the comments. There were also the genuinely perplexed, and those unhappy with what they saw as political compulsions influencing the paper.

* * * 

Editorial stances the paper adopts do not fall within my purview. But this was the first time, in my long innings in journalism, that I was coming across a newspaper (particularly the one with I have been associated all along) having to convince readers that there was no contradiction in the positions it had taken, within a short span of time. The comprehensive news coverage The Hindu provided on the nuclear deal was appreciated, with the stray comment that it was anti-deal, but the editorials did confuse some readers.

* * * 

That a section also had come to associate The Hindu with some bias became apparent in the avalanche of angry protests a typographical error produced. In normal circumstances it would have been innocuous, even hilarious. But not this one. The Readers’ Editor’s office had to face the fury of abusive readers, who descended to the personal level.

All because the “immortal call of Swami Vivekananda” became “immoral” in print. (My editor used to warn me to be on guard about some words that in misprint could become obscene or vulgar.) Though the Editor said “it is ridiculous to interpret a spelling mistake as a deliberate insult,” in this case, readers saw it as part of the “anti-Hindu stand” of The Hindu, “a Freudian, Marxist slip” and an “intentional humiliation.” The explanation that it was a routine printing error was brushed aside. The entry next day in the “Corrections and Clarifications” column was termed lame and inadequate. It was not prominent enough when a Page 1 apology was warranted, they said.

* * * 

There were objections too, though small in number, to the M.F. Hussain work on the front page of the Independence Day special feature. A “faceless Bharat Mata” was in bad taste, was their view.

The Readers’ Editor’s office is now familiar with some names, and some nameless persons who are regular in denunciatory declamations about The Hindu’s un-Hindu character (for these campaigners, Hinduism is synonymous with the BJP). But many of the callers who were upset over the misprint did not belong to this category. Therefore, their concerns, to me, were disturbing and needed to be addressed.

* * * 

On a different footing is the dislike readers express of the Page 1 featuring of the photos of Sanjay Dutt and Salman Khan going to/coming out of prison. They are not judicial heroes but convicts in criminal cases, they point out. The selection and placement of photos is undoubtedly a matter of editorial judgement. Readers question the Page 1 prominence. Well, there are policemen who hug or shake hands with the actors when they come out of jail!

Readers have also voiced doubts and disquiet over the treatment given to some categories of news. Their concerns, and the editorial response to them, merit separate treatment.

readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

Opening western minds to international crosswinds

The Hindu, 3 March
Ramesh Thakur

Why do the major newspapers not organise a reciprocal exchange of columns — we will publish as many of your articles per month as you take of ours?

THE TECHNICAL gadget that Americans are most in need of, it's been said, is a hearing aid. Too many of them are prone to lecture, hector, and otherwise pressure much of the rest of the world, in the far from touching belief that the American way is the only way.
To be sure, America and Americans do indeed have much to be immodest about. The vibrancy, dynamism, and energy of Americans can be very infectious. The pinnacles of achievements that the United States as a country, society, and people has reached is worthy of great self-pride. Some of the rage against all things American is based on nothing more substantial than envy of the successful, as captured in the protest banner "Yankee go home — and take me with you!" That said, it is just as true that, in most civilisations, humility is a greater social virtue than pride and vanity on constant public display. There must be a good reason why we have one mouth for speaking but two ears for listening.
Before the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, many other governments were at the receiving end of moralising lectures, from westerners in general and Americans in particular, about the absolute inviolability of human rights, no matter how grave or real the security threats some of them faced. The subsequent trajectory of American practices and discourse shows just how shallow the understanding of and commitment to human rights was. But it also proves the point about world views being grounded in our own experiences, much more so than in any abstract conception. The world view and perspectives of western governments, scholars, and commentators changed dramatically after 9/11 with regard to the proper balance between hard and soft power, force and diplomacy, security and liberty, and unilateralism and multilateralism, compared with what their previous position had been based on — theoretical arguments rather than actual experience.
The progress of history rests on the battle for supremacy of competing ideas. The power and wealth of western countries give them a dominant role in shaping the international public discourse. This is a privileged position they have earned, and the rest of us have little claim to object. But imagine if the United States had given a respectful hearing to opinion from around the world in 2002-03 on Iraq: the wasteful spilling of so much American blood and treasure might have been avoided.
Yet there is no effort by any of the mainstream U.S. media, as far as I know, to harvest international opinion on the great issues of the day for dissemination to the domestic American audience. Instead the trafficking in the opinions and thoughts of international public intellectuals is almost all one-way. This seems to rest on an implicit racist assumption in both camps. Namely, that when western and non-western values diverge, the latter are in the wrong and it is only a matter of working on them with persuasion and pressure for the problem to be resolved and progress achieved. The cognitive blindness is shown in the statement by scholars Thomas Risse and Stephen C. Ropp that "pressure by western states and international organisations can greatly increase the vulnerability of norm-violating governments to external influences." Self-evidently, only non-western governments can be norm violators; western governments can only be norm setters and enforcers. The philosophical antecedents of such beliefs lie in the 18 th-19th century theory of evolutionary progress through diffusion and acculturation from the west to the rest.
Or consider what, in some ways, is a more tragic example. A massive earthquake and tsunami struck the Indian Ocean on December 26. In the three weeks following that, the International Herald Tribune published 16 opinion articles on, or in relation to, the tragedy. Not one was by an Asian. The equally influential Financial Times published six articles, of which again not one was by an Asian. Each by itself was of very high quality, as one would expect from these newspapers. Nevertheless, it would be surprising to find that either paper has ever carried opinion and analytical pieces on a major western tragedy (9/11, the London bombing, the Madrid bombing) written solely by developing country authors.
This imbalance of voice in the international discourse has built up a dangerous sense of resentment by the silent majority of the world's peoples. Developing country governments sometimes complain about the activities of international media commentators as interference in their internal affairs and view them suspiciously as instruments of `soft' western intervention. They are surely right in the implied belief that media weight augments foreign policy tools and comprises part of what Harvard University's Joseph Nye has labelled "soft power." The U.S. is indeed a more powerful world actor for being able to draw on a rich civil society, a depth of scholarly knowledge, and a media that has market dominance and reaches into the farthest nook and cranny around the world.
Still, this begs two questions. First, should not governments learn how best to strengthen civil society in their own countries and enter into partnership with them in the pursuit of shared international goals? Why is it that non-western governments complain about biased coverage by western media instead of doing something constructive? Journalists are censored, manipulated, harassed, and sometimes even imprisoned and liquidated.
To be sure, English is the dominant medium of global communication, and the BBC and CNN are truly global brands in the world of media. Yet today they are being challenged by Al Jazeera, to the point where Washington has had a strained if not antagonistic relationship with the group in relation to its coverage of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Of the large and well-established Asian democracies, India and Japan could easily by now have supported the emergence of truly global media brands as well. Quite a few Indian journalists have world recognition but, almost without exception, they work for western print and electronic media. In its desperation to control information, news and analyses, the Indian government has effectively aborted the rise of independent Indian news services with the authority and credibility to command a global following. Not for nothing was AIR known as "All Indira Radio."
The BBC provided the model; is it the west's fault that Indians failed to emulate such a positive example? The net result is that India (like China and Japan) does indeed lack a key agent of international influence and a crucial ingredient of soft power in the modern networked world. In this respect, sadly, India is a metaphor for all of Asia. The challenge for enlightened national interest diplomacy is how best to nurture civil society and credible media so that they help to project local values and perspectives to a receptive international audience.
Second, western commentators have their columns regularly reprinted in newspapers all over the world, which is good. Readers of The Hindu have regular access to selected opinion articles from The Guardian. Should westerners not make a deliberate effort to read and listen to what the rest of the world might have to say? Should not readers of The Guardian be exposed to The Hindu's columnists? Or do we simply assume that if the rest of the world has a different opinion, it is wrong? It is clear to me, as a professor and as a high-level U. N. official, that the writings of Siddharth Varadarajan, to take just one example from these pages, do not compare unfavourably to the best that The Guardian has to offer on some of the most sensitive contemporary issues like Iran.
Hence the final question: why do the major newspapers not organise a reciprocal exchange of columns — we will publish as many of your articles per month as you take of ours? Or do we share the westerners' implicit belief that what they have to say on any and every topic is important for the whole world to know; but what we have to say about our own affairs may perhaps be worth considering, but otherwise we should know our place and stay there.
(Ramesh Thakur is senior vice rector of the UN University in Tokyo. These are his personal views.