Back to you, Barkha...

I work as a humble economist in a corporation, entrusted with the work of forecasting various economic variables for the next few years. By humble, I do not necessarily mean being completely oblivious of my CV. By humble, I mean a suitably nincompoop, irrelevant existence. In around December every year, my colleagues and I sit around a table; discuss endlessly about where GDP or inflation or interest rates are projected to grow; and in the process significantly deplete the pantry’s inventory of tea, coffee and biscuits. We discuss on and on as to how mining is projected to perform; how domestic demand will pan out; is Pranab Mukherji serious about a 10% plus growth next year, how many infrastructural projects are to come out.......or, maybe we could simply telephone Ms Nira Radia. If we weren’t such a ‘humble’ entity; then perhaps the maverick lobbyist cum PR agent who has enough muscle to shape governments; could also pull some strings at the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI; yes they have a ministry by that name!) to oblige us with figures close to our forecasts.



But what hurts me today is not that my ambitious numbers of GDP for the next three years will most probably be rubbished by the official figures when they come out. I am hurt because Ms Radia has effectively rubbished the sanctity of the average Indian’s intellectual icons. A middle-class Indian battles through endless exams, trials, tribulations, degrees and jobs – all to one day add a dash of education to his or her opinions, when an occasional spare ear pops up. Even then, the average ruminating opinionated Indian remains incoherent in expressing itself. Listen to the audiences at talk shows - people who raise their hand for the mike (and ultimately get it) mostly seem to be groping for the exact words and the precise opinions. In some part of the sentence, they tend to lose the plot. It seems more like they are saying things aloud to themselves, in an effort to understand clearly what they had thought of in the first place.



In this regular confusion, anger, incoherence and frustration of expression and communication, emerge people like Barkha Dutt, Prannoy Roy, Rajdeep Sardesai, Javed Akhtar, Aamir Khan, Chetan Bhagat, Suhel Seth, Arnab Goswami (coherent?) or Vir Sanghvi, to name a few. These people happened to frame the right sentences in the right tone in front of the right medium and at the right time. They were deft with words, looked convincing on the screen, had good make-up artists and were friends with cameras. Suddenly the muddled-up opinionated masses heard an articulate pronunciation in the cacophony. An evening show, an odd movie, a well-written book or a small stormy media event; and these people got catapulted to the thrones of demigods in the fairy tale world of media. People started watching their shows, reading their editorials, quoting how successful they were......and most disturbingly using their opinions to shape their own.



So when in the recent transcripts of Ms Radia with Vir Sanghvi, I realise that she is almost dictating his editorial piece; I am rudely shocked. This is the man who recounts fond journalistic stories of valour and has now retired into a ‘Travel and Living’ existence, writing fancy reviews of five-star hotels. Consider the transcript below between the two, that is out:


VIR: What kind of story do you want? Because this will go as Counterpoint, so it will be like most-most read, but it can't seem too slanted, yet it is an ideal opportunity to get all the points across.


RADIA: But basically, the point is what has happened as far as the High Court is concerned is a very painful thing for the country because what is done is against national interest.


VIR: Okay.


RADIA: I think that's the underlying message.


VIR: Okay. That message we will do. That allocation of resources which are scarce national resources of a poor country cannot be done in this arbitrary fashion to benefit a few rich people.


RADIA: That's right.


VIR: Yeah. That message we will get across, but what other points do we need to make?


RADIA: I think we need to say that you know it's a lesson for the corporate world that, you know, they need to think through whenever they want to look at this, whether they really seriously do give back to society.


VIR: So I will link it to the election verdict. The fact that there has been so much Narega, that Sonia has committed to including everybody, that it should be inclusive growth. It shouldn't just benefit the few fat cats. It shouldn't be cronyism. It shouldn't be arbitrary. That's how the message for this five years of Manmohan Singh should be that you have to put an end to this kind of allocations of scarce resources on the basis of corruption and arbitrariness at the cost of the country, otherwise the country will not forgive you.


RADIA: Yeah, but Vir, you have to keep in mind that he has been given the gas field by the Government to operate. He spent ten billion dollars on it.


VIR: Okay.


RADIA: Anil Ambani is getting the benefit without spending a cent on it ¦


VIR: I'll make those points, no?

RADIA: Yeah.


VIR: So I'll make those points. The people, because the system is so corrupt and open to manipulation, by manipulating the system, by not paying anybody you can get hands on resources. Therefore the only way Manmohan Singh hopes to survive is to get a handle on the resources and have some kind of way of allocating them that is transparent, fair and perhaps done by him.


RADIA: But there you will be attacking Mukesh only, no.

VIR: Why, why, why, explain that.


RADIA: You see, because a resource has been allocated to Mukesh in this case.


VIR: So, what point do you want me to make?

RADIA: The point I'm making is that here, the point is limited to the fact that you cannot have a High Court deciding on this. You cannot have a tribunal deciding on this.


VIR: What about ministers?

RADIA: Even ministers.


VIR: Spectrum and co is ministers, no?

RADIA: Yeah, even ministers. You want to really look at, maybe there's an EGoM [Empowered Group of Ministers] that got set and is looking at the pricing issue, and natural resources should be decided not by any of this arbitrary mechanism. It has to be one for the country. And there should be some sort of a formula that Manmohan Singh has to...


VIR: Yeah, that is the message, you know. There should be a formula by which resources will be allocated in a transparent, non-arbitrary sort of way. That has to be a message, no?


RADIA: Yeah. And also, you know, going to court.


VIR: That the people want resources, they have to be back to society. They have to pay the Government. They have corporate social responsibility. They have to care about the people who are going to be displaced, the people who are going to lose things. You can't just go ahead and rape the system.


RADIA: Yeah. But you want to say that you know, more importantly that here a family MoU has taken precedence over national interest, and what the judge has done. I mean you'll have to attack the judge here because the judge has, what he's done, he's given preference to an MoU. He has held on to the MoU and said, 'Okay, this had to be implemented.' But he has forgotten what's good, that's why it raises a bigger constitutional issue.


VIR: Which is?


RADIA: Which is natural resources is really a constitutional issue. It has to do with the country and the nation.


VIR: It's not between two brothers and their fight.


RADIA: It's not and therefore the judge's interpretation of an MoU


VIR: Yeah.


RADIA: It cannot be the basis of the way how we can proceed on these sorts of issues. I mean, you have to attack the fact that the judge has only gone into the MoU. His entire judgment is on the basis of the MoU.


VIR: Yeah.


RADIA: And therefore a judgment between two family members cannot be how you decide the future.


VIR: Okay. Let this Rohit come, let me explain to him, and I'll talk to you and tell you what line I'm taking.


RADIA: Okay. And you'll do it for next Sunday, is it?


VIR: No, no tomorrow
So the editorial I would have read on the ill-fated ‘tomorrow’ with the sagacious snapshot of the illustrious journalist, Mr Vir Sanghvi on the top of the page; was nothing more than Mr Mukesh Ambani’s publicist’s press statement. All of a sudden I feel like a classic idiot. How many of such op-eds and intelligent points of views had this person pedalled at the behest of vested interests? So when I tune in to listen to a Barkha or some other ‘intellectually’ articulate media friendly face making a point vociferously, gesticulating and asking seemingly pointed questions; they are no more than petty models, modelling somebody’s interests. In the transcripts of Barkha with Radia; it almost seems as if the duo were deciding on behalf of the nation who gets to be in the cabinet. A power broker is what has become of the once outspoken journalist on the Kargil front. Hand in glove, with so many vested interests; speaking out for her as of now would prove to be quite a career-threatening move.


A friend of mine who was in the media industry until recently; had a more sympathetic view of this entire revelation. She reasoned, “Why are people so shocked? Why does everyone suddenly have to take a high moral stand? This is how the media industry works. You need to humour lobbyists to find out the internal news. Or else how would they get to know what is happening of political parties and corporate houses? It happens all the times.” She took a breath and the erstwhile dormant intellectual rattled on, “All these people who are shocked....come on, everybody takes a bribe, doles favours, etc. Its just that the spot light is not on them and its quite convenient to sully somebody’s good name.”


True. But aren’t these media moguls the same people who immediately run to high moral ground while reporting a scam? Don’t they all assemble with their serious faces asking the ‘Shouldn’t this’ and ‘How could this’ and ‘What was the role...’ prefixed questions? Aren’t they all screaming out “I’m first, I’m first’ whenever an Adarsh society or a CWG comes by?

Or should we simply conclude that the poor victim taking the beating was simply the guy who had a lazy, incompetent PR agent?


Perhaps my friend is right. It’s how business may pragmatically happen in a TRP hungry, insecure industry. And that I may be a foolish novice to believe in everything that a Barkha, Vir, Chetan and Amir churn out. But I also happen to believe in the CBI and ED. I have faith in the courts of the country. I have faith that the Reserve Bank of India governors are out there protecting the interests of the common man through their monetary policy. I believe in the fact that despite thousands of grafts running in this country at this very moment; I am not residing in a banana republic. But tomorrow if a CBI officer is found corrupt, a Supreme Court judge tainted or a minister cheating the exchequer of crores of rupees where India regularly overshoots its budget; I feel vulnerable. My tomorrow will not drastically change with the editors of top media houses compromised. I would still be in that conference room, developing acidity from endless cups of coffee and doing my job. It’s just that all this makes me feel vulnerable.




Somehow, the statement, ‘Back to you, Barkha’ charms me no more......