Lessons from our backyard

Candid Talk

Fans of Newstrack the popular investigative journalism show on TV Today, produced and hosted by Madhu Trehan in the late 80s can now catch up on her activities in these past six years through the pages of her book Prism Me a Lie Tell Me a Truth: Tehelka As Metaphor.

 The title may seem self-explanatory. No one can forget the infamous sting Operation West End that led to the resignation of  Defence Minister George Fernandes and the humiliation of his colleague Jaya Jaitley, the then president of Samata Party. The gory expose involved spycams, bribery, lies, sex and deception. High-ranking army officers were bought at a price and naked corruption lurked shamelessly in the highest corridors of power and defence ministers’ homes.

But Trehan goes on to emphasise, “When I was commissioned in 2002 to write a book on Tehelka’s Operation West End, I thought it would be a three-month bang-off book. It turned out to be a mammoth project, involving six years of heavy research and over 40 in-depth interviews. I relate the story and draw its characters as it happens through different eyes and experiences. Strangely, none of the accounts of the incidents as narrated by the different people involved tallied although they were the same incidents. I draw my own conclusions but leave it to the reader to choose what to believe.”

Like all good stories there are plots, sub-plots, heroes, villains, pawns and scapegoats. But here’s the kicker. By using subverted instruments of democracy, viz, a captive judiciary and an enslaved bureaucracy, the government in power silently but surely attempts (and largely succeeds) in destroying Tehelka and its investors. This did not happen in some obscure banana republic or curtained-off dictatorship but in our own backyard where we boast of freedom, liberty and a constitutional democracy.

The rot does not start or end at the top but is ingrained in our psyche and the air we breathe.

“National honesty is necessary for India to become a global player,” says Trehan quoting loosely from her book. “While more people are becoming socially aware and moving into areas of charitable community work, it is a daily struggle to stay honest in India. The lower middle class (aspirational) want everything and want it yesterday. Economic liberalisation has also created a new class called GABAMS (Get ahead by any means), where words like ethics and morality sound prissy, preachy and outdated.”

“Scams are unearthed on a daily basis almost, but how many scamsters especially, politically connected ones, have spent any time behind bars? Audio-visual media is the best way to reach out to people with the right message. Look what a film like Taare Zameen Par did for dyslexic kids in India,” she adds.

Trehan’s book deals not only with the aftermath of Tehelka and all its ramifications but also the moral dilemma faced by most Indian citizens today. Her message is simple —
“We can no longer turn our faces away and pretend that corruption doesn’t bother us simply because when we wake up with no electricity or water, pay bribes at every level, swallow contaminated food and medicine, watch our children being mowed down by public transport officials with no accountability, drive on dirt roads that masquerade as highways, we have only ourselves to blame.”