Gandhi Bullies the Press
D'MONTE, DARRYL
DEBATE IN THE FOURTH ESTATE Gandhi Bullies the Press By Darryl D'monte Bombay During his trip to Washington last October, India's Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi admitted he was facing some...
...DEBATE IN THE FOURTH ESTATE Gandhi Bullies the Press By Darryl D'monte Bombay During his trip to Washington last October, India's Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi admitted he was facing some political problems back home...
...Gandhi seems to have underestimated the mettle of the Express' owner and editor, however, for the confrontation has only served to strengthen them in their defiance...
...In fact, the men surrounding "Mr...
...On Shourie's instructions, Express reporters pursued the charges and uncovered an unsavory story of kickbacks amounting to $35 million...
...The Times also carried an article by Prem Shankar Jha, former editor of the Hindustan Times (New Delhi's biggest English daily...
...Shourie's aggressive stance toward the Gandhi government has greatly enhanced the popularity of the Indian Express...
...In an unprecedented display of thoroughness, they examined all the paper's editions...
...Taking the front page of his paper, he declared: "I will not yield to such high-handedness...
...Arun Singh, an adviser to Rajiv and his closest friend, resigned from the Defense Ministry over the same issue...
...So far 11 separate prosecutions of the Express have been launched, and the government has presented 26 demands for additional evidence...
...They tended to go abroad for their education, and then to work for important international or national organizations (Shourie himself earned a PhD in economics from Syracuse University and was employed for a time by the World Bank...
...Meanwhile, an unexpected development occurred that worked to Gandhi's advantage...
...Shortly before the conclusion of the strike in December, the government made its next move: Exploiting its ownership of the land on which the Express' Delhi headquarters stands, it took financial control of the building and began collecting the rents subtenants had been paying to the paper...
...Lengthy defenses of the paper's attempt to resume Delhi publication in the face of the strike appeared in the editorial columns of its other 10 editions...
...Girilal Jain, editor of the pro-Establishment Times of India, has made no secret of his contempt for what he calls the "Galahads of the press" who tilt their lances at the highest powers in the land...
...But Shourie has his critics within the journalistic community...
...It is indicative of the kind of change the Prime Minister's image has undergone that Shourie is now his most bitter detractor...
...The inquiry, joined by an American investigative firm, exposed the involvement of a close Rajiv aide, Indian film idol Amitabh Bachchan...
...Although he had been unwavering in his criticism of Indira Gandhi, before he returned to the Express Shourie was full of praise for her son...
...The excuse given by authorities was that the Express management had been remiss in meeting its mortgage obligations...
...The editor has relentlessly assailed Gandhi in print, and has gone so far as to meet with India's President about the possibility of his dismissal...
...He then tipped his hand when he went on to say they were mostly "illusions built up by newspapers—one particular newspaper...
...Everyone here knew that Gandhi—who swears by press freedom—had in mind the Indian Express, the second largest English-language daily in the country and his severest critic...
...He saw in Rajiv's massive mandate hope that the country would be governed by young professionals who placed themselves above corruption and power politics...
...Darryl D'Monte frequently writes on Indian affairs for The New Leader...
...The war of words and deeds between Gandhi and the Indian Express is being watched closely by everyone with a stake in freedom of the press in particular, and democratic rights in general...
...Even if that were the case, it is extremely unusual for the government to step in and play landlord in this manner...
...Characteristically, Goenka refused to be cowed...
...But Rajiv has not simply caved in either...
...Indeed, the Express has begun to enjoy the kind of kudos it received during the national emergency imposed by Mrs...
...He castigated "investigative" journalists for upsetting the cozy relationship Indian newspapers have traditionally enjoyed with bureaucrats, and for tempting the government to invoke the Official Secrets Act...
...Owned by the mercurial press baron Ramnath Goenka, the Indian Express comprises 11 different regional editions, spanning the length and breadth of the land...
...Antulay was shown to have been raising money for the Congress-I (for "Indira") Party through black-marketing in scarce cement...
...After pickets shut down the edition, Shourie, accompanied by about 300 journalists and some political leaders, tried to re-enter the Express offices behind a phalanx of recruits from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a Right-wing Hindu student group...
...Until last year, the journalistic climate fostered by the Prime Minister was a good one...
...Clean," as Rajiv had been dubbed, came from quite the same social background as Shourie himself...
...And in all the cases where the Express had done that in recent months, he added, this criterion was satisfied...
...Shourie's disenchantment with the Gandhi government began when Swedish radio journalists raised allegations of corruption in the awarding of a $1.4 billion arms contract to the Nobel subsidiary Bofors...
...Former Express editor S. Mulgaokar, perhaps the most respected figure among Indian journalists today, reminded his colleagues that the decision to publish material from official documents should rest solely on whether the public interest is thereby served...
...Now generally regarded as the real "Mr...
...As for Jha's insinuation that such bold tactics might lead the government to take a less indulgent view toward the financial affairs of other newspaper managements, Chopra observed that the obvious solution is for those managements to clean up their houses...
...Clean" of Indian politics, Singh took an active role in the Bofors investigation and quit the government when he felt Gandhi was trying to shield too many associates...
...He would be the first to deny any connection, yet last fall his taxmen initiated a campaign of harassment against the Express...
...Pran Chopra, a former editor of the Statesman, entered the controversy on the side of the Express...
...Gandhi between 1975 and 1977, when unlike the other papers it strenuously resisted her press censorship...
...Goenka, now is his mid80s, has boasted in the past that he began his business career with a single asset, a brass water utensil, and he is prepared to end it the same way...
...The violent encounter that resulted did much to alienate the sympathies of Indian liberals, otherwise favorably disposed toward Shourie's vigorous anti-Gandhi drive...
...The timing and intensity of these actions left no doubt about the intended message: "Behave, or else...
...The revelation that Amitabh's brother Ajitabh had left the country and set up house in Switzerland fueled speculation that the Bachchans were engaged in squirreling away the illegal commissions abroad...
...The paper's Delhi staff (not the journalists) called for a strike...
...Now in his early 40s, Shourie first achieved fame in 1981, while serving as executive editor of the Express, for masterminding an expose of the misdeeds of Abdul Rehman Antulay, then chief minister of Maharashtra State...
...Playing into the government's hands, Shourie and the management claimed the threat was an attempt to install a Congress-I stooge as union leader, despite scant evidence to support the contention...
...He pointed out that dogged investigation and the quoting of secret documents are crucial if the fog of official lies surrounding cases like the Bofors kickback scheme is to be penetrated...
...Several irregularities were discovered, to no one's surprise: Indian newspaper groups, with their intricately intermeshed ownership patterns, lead complicated tax lives...
...It is edited by Arun Shourie, arguably the nation's best known journalist, albeit a man who sees himself more as a campaigner and pamphleteer than as an old-fashioned scribe...
...The crackdown on the Express has sparked a lively debate in India...
...They were scions of upper-middle class families, in sharp contrast to the homespun politicians Mrs...
...Prominent among them is Gandhi's former finance minister, Vishwanath Pratap Singh...
...Moreover, equipment purchased by the paper from abroad as a part of its introduction of computerized Western technology has been seized by customs officials in Bombay...
...As it brought to light attempts by the Gandhi government to cover up the Bofors affair, the Express became the rallying organ for the growing number of dissidents in the ruling Congress-I Party...
...Shourie left the Express five years ago after a falling out with Goenka, but was brought back last year as editor-in-chief...
...Gandhi felt at ease with...
...Its once declining circulation has increased nearly 10 per cent under his stewardship, though it still lags behind the Times of India (which has only half as many editions...
...His crackdown on the Express has clouded the atmosphere—whether temporarily or permanently only the next few months will tell...
...Finding that tax intimidation would not silence the Express, the government began to look for other ways of achieving its end...
...To my last breath I shall fight for the principles, for the freedom that we fought for under the banner of Mahatma Gandhi...
Vol. 71 • February 1998 • No. 2
