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Hartosh Singh Bal turned from the difficulty of doing mathematics to the ease of writing on politics. Unlike mathematics all this requires is being less wrong than most others who dwell on the subject. He is the Political Editor of Open. EMAIL AUTHOR |
The Prime Minister finally broke his silence to assuage the ‘nervousness of the corporate sector’ over phone tapping. Important as it was to send this signal, after all it is no one’s case that the Government should indiscriminately monitor phone conversations, it is even more important to worry about the signals Manmohan Singh did not send. He is not the Finance Minister of this country, he is the Prime Minister. The nervousness among some corporates is but one part (a minor part, despite attempts by some to selectively emphasise this aspect) of the fallout of the Radia tapes.
Did the Prime Minister not want to assuage the nervousness of the ordinary citizen on hearing these tapes? Did it not occur to him that concerns about India becoming a banana republic, thanks to phone tapping, actually conceal the fact that the tapes suggest it may already be one? Does it not occur to him that there is considerable reason to worry when people like Tarun Das, closely associated with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), boast of how they pitched “big time” for the ‘surface transport’ portfolio to be allotted to Kamal Nath?
Tarun Das has clarified that, “In exchanging ideas with people about a wish list of responsibilities, I did talk about ‘surface transport’ for him. When I used ‘big time’, I mean forceful.” What is not clear is who these ‘people’ were. On the very evidence of these tapes, Tarun Das is one of the few people in the country who has direct access to the Prime Minister.
On 4 July 2009 at 20:21:52, Tarun Das tells Niira Radia: “We need to clear this up because my point is that I met the PM today half an hour alone, one-to-one…”
On 8 July 2009 at 09:27:26, Niira Radia talking to Sunil Arora, former CMD of Indian Airlines, says, “Sunil, hi, listen because I have to quickly rush, woh Tarun mil raha hai Prime Minister… uske liye pointers bhej do Tarun ke liye [Tarun is meeting the Prime Minister… send some pointers for him], ki what has been ailing it and what have been the issues including the unions and all that…”
Taken together, these conversations indicate that Tarun Das is a man who had frequent access to the Prime Minister and was talking to him on a host of issues. It is also clear from several other Radia conversations already made public that at the time Tarun Das was keen to ensure that Niira Radia arranges a reconciliation between Ratan Tata and Sunil Bharti Mittal; in return, he was willing to help her to the extent of briefing the PM about Air India on her terms.
This raises two related and disturbing questions. Did Tarun Das directly lobby with the PM for Kamal Nath? (Tarun Das’ apology for his unflattering comments about the man says nothing about the veracity of the allegations they contain.) Did Tarun Das directly act on Niira Radia’s behest in some conversations with the Prime Minister? These are questions Tarun Das can perhaps answer, but how do we know we can trust those answers? What we need to know are the Prime Minister’s thoughts on these issues.
The Prime Minister’s own integrity and probity are besides the point here. These tapes reveal networks of influence that reach up to the Prime Minister without his being aware that there was an attempt to steer his responses. These tapes indicate a person charged with criminal conspiracy could access the highest office of the country on policy matters. Is this not a reason for worry?
Over and over again in these tapes, there is also evidence, direct and indirect, of attempts to influence the process of Cabinet formation by people who had no business being involved. This includes media persons who can now shout themselves hoarse about our naïveté in suggesting they could influence such a process, while failing to face up to the fact that they were involved in acts that do not fall under any reasonable and ethical definition of the term ‘journalism’.
This collusion between corporate interests, lobbyists and senior journalists (though it may well be time to ask if the term ‘journalist’ should apply to editor-owners or employees who own significant stakes in media organisations) worries people far more than any real or imagined concerns of a few corporate houses. Is Manmohan Singh not the Prime Minister of a country that extends beyond India Inc.?
The India growth story is not an end in itself. It will matter only if it delivers benefits to ordinary citizens. These tapes indicate that we live in a country where we have lost our right to influence policy to a handful of powerful individuals with vested interests. This is the hallmark of crony capitalism. Does the PM really have nothing to say about this? What kind of republic, then, are we living in?
OLDER COMMENTS FIRST
14 COMMENTS
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When the history of contemporary India will be written, the time of Puppet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and puppeteer M/s Sonia and Rahul Gandhi will be mentioned as the darkest period.
Together, the shameless troika has, with the help of handful of other greedy ministers, destroyed the nation economically. What is more alarming is that a person with the education of Mr. Singh has presided over this period of economic destruction.
Mr. Singh has failed on all fronts, prices are rising, inflation is out of control, builder /politician/ land mafia nexus is at its peak and the poor are dying of hunger due to the faulty policies of this government while there is plenty in the granaries of the nation.
It has become a joke that every time Sharad Pawar issues a statement, prices rise.
What this calls for is a revolution at the grass root level. Immediately, all the actors involved in the 2G Scam should be arrested and sent to jail.
The simple reason for this being that all of them are hugely or should I say 'big time' capable of tampering with the evidence.
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I agree ... India already is a banana republic, with a banana parliament, a banana judiciary and a banana press. With this chicken head as our primeminister.
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Dr. Manmohan Sigh can be proud (sic) of being the longest serving unelected Prime Minister of the Banana Republic of India. What a shame for the most qualified PM in the world? In Japan, such people would have committed suicide by now.
But ultimately, as per Sonia script, Manmohan will be thrown out as the most inefficient and corrupt PM and Rahul Vinci will step in to ave India !!!!
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The revealed tapes in public domain is just a teaser of the tip of the iceberg, the guy in possession of these, i am sure knows his boundaries.
Now, do the people living in other Banana Republics know that they are living in a Banana Republic? I guess not. It's the other countries, primarily the 1st world, that put these labels. And for all we know India if not clubbed "with" them may not be far from them in the matrix either. May be we are less Banana than say Chile.
May be now we know how telecom & aviation policies are/were framed, do we need actual taped conversations to gather that "all" policies are framed in similar if not even more brazen fashion.
PS: Your CAPTCHA token is a real puzzle!
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Dear Hartosh,
Your thoughts appear to be a whiff of fresh air in a rotten garbage dump that this country has become. All the crap about freedom of press, journalistic ethics and independent press is total night soil. Not only do we have journalists eating out of the hands of the rich and powerful, they cringe before the people that they feel can in any way benefit or help them. We used to have the 'sarkari' journalists who were fond of political patronage. From there they have graduated to all types of crooks out to make a fast buck and to advance their careers. What do you think of the 'national award' giving jambooris practiced by many press and TV owners? How do crooks become members of parliament, sports association heads, members of commissions appointed by Govt? How do they become billionaires in just matters of days?
You have shown an exceptional courage of conviction, character and integrity in taking the risk of asking the 'honest Prime Minister' relevant questions, which he will never answer. I wish the 'honest Prime Minister' had same qualities.
I remember reading an editorial in a leading newspaper which described the then "honourable" President having all the qualities of a dog except loyalty!!!!!!!!!!
Mercifully our 'honest' Prime Minister is truly loyal to his 'master'.
Our country needs many more honourable and fearless people like you.
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Dear Mr. Hartosh,
How are you? I did see your article 'The PM of banana republic?'. Banana republic means a politically & economically unstable country where a group of self elected powerful people are deciding the fate of a nation. Na, we are not a banana republic. What PM did is a right thing. The person who promised & delivered a nano in spite of all odds, played a constructive role in the progress of our nation & did so much of social work, that person is a hero for me any day. While doing all these things, he, his team & his companies slogged it out. I am sure they did not achieve what all they have achieved by tapping somebody's phone calls. This means his companies & his team do listen to him & they do follow him. So if somebody comes & tell me that his companies do not listen to him & stuff like that, I will not going buy that story. Similarly the person who fought for justice for innocent victims like Lals, Mattoos, Kataraas, Girhotras & victims of Bhopal gas tragedy is a hero for me. While fighting for justice for those innocent victims, she, her team & her channel did slogged it out. I am sure they were not sitting tapping somebody's phone calls. So if somebody comes & tell me 'uss ne karwalia, iss ne karwalia, ramesh ka aa gaya, sathish ka aa gaya' & stuff like that, I will not going to buy that story either. The statement 'Congress tho apni dukaan hai' has no meaning for me. It is somebody's private conversation & I don't want to hear it for the simple reason that different people talk many things in different moods. It was a blunder on government's part to leak those tapes & it is equally huge & massive blunder on media's part for using it to malign the image of some personnel & some organizations. What precedent are we setting? Tomorrow it may happen that some famous person's phone is tapped while he is talking to somebody in anger & he is saying 'I will kill him'. Some editor of some magazine will see that as a 'story of a decade' & he will put that person's big photo on his magazine's cover page with a big bold heading 'Murder plan busted'. Can anybody prevent him from doing so? He will have a justification, OPEN & OUTLOOK have done this in the past, so why not me? Let me give you another example. Pope John Paul II went to America for the first time. When he landed in New York then many reporters surrounded him at the airport. One of the reporters asked him 'POPE when are you planning to visit the night clubs in America'?. Pope asked the journalist sarcastically 'There are night clubs in America'?. Then there was this breaking news in the local channels, POPE JOHN PAUL II LANDED IN NEW YORK & THE FIRST QUESTION HE ASKED 'THERE ARE NIGHT CLUBS IN AMERICA'?. Since this conversation took place in front of the crowd so people took it as a humor. Consider a situation where the POPE is talking to this reporter on phone & his phone is tapped & leaked. Don't you think this would have become headlines all over the world? At least in Radia leak case some people got some chance to clarify, but trust me my friend POPE's carrier would have ended then & there itself. I hope it is clear to you & OUTLOOK now.
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Our great PM Looks like worried about the corporates than tha coruption...Who knows how much crores of money he got from each scams...
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@First Amendment
Some powerful people deciding the fate of the Nation is exactly the point the author wants to bring out. If corporate lobbyists decide what columnists should write and who should be allotted key ministries which directly control her clients business, we are not too far from so called banana republics.
There’s nothing wrong in employing PR specialists which prima facie Tata appears to have done to bat for their corporate interests but, if they used the services of Nira Radia despite knowing what means she uses, or directed her to use those means to create unfair advantage for her client – by manipulating press & mandate, should it be accepted in a non banana republic?
May be you look up to Barkha Dutt as your hero for hosting talk shows on high profile cases & may be you don’t want to believe that she helped Nira Radia with her client’s objectives of creating an unfair advantage for themselves by putting their man in the ministry. But at least she knew all this while that Nira Radia is a corporate lobbyist batting for some telecom companies and lobbying for A Raja to be given telecom ministry but Barkha kept that a secret, and when the whole lot of Radia’s taped conversations becomes public defends it as an “innocent error of judgment”?
Why do you think it’s Ok for govt to tape certain conversations but not Ok for the public to discover what the govt has discovered, the deep rooted politico-corporate-media nexus? And why do you think only you have the requisite wisdom not to take the conversation out of context like pope being taken out of context in your rather weak analogy?
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first amendment is nothing but a paid stooge of corrupt like tata rutan and dutt burkha .rutan tata was himself calling india a banana republic on one of the programmes of highly partisan and antinational ndtv.
tata making nano is no favour to indians ; this self inflammable car has now stopped selling and rutan tata is forced to close plants.
burkha dutt has many times proved her corrupt credentials ; india navy cheif was on record accusing burkha of helping terrorists through her telecasts on kargill and 26/11 mumbai attacks.
as for pope involvement of clergy in child sex abuse is already being talked about so no need to defame him by night club remarks....
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Rahul says he is for aam aadsmi. PM says he is for corporates. All bunglings and major scams under Mr Clean and the Congress only. Who is there to save the Nation?
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Dear Hartosh,
As usual, a master piece! I do not know if anyone in PMO really reads these articles. Otherwise, they would not have been so insensitive to the public outcry on the happenings which are being exposed every day.
I have a suggestion. Why can't we get the income and wealth declaration of ALL the MPs (first level), their kith and kin (with their source of income details)? This exercise must be done for ALL the officials in the secretariat which governs various ministries.
Also, we would like to know the list of all those journalists who worked (interacted, or 'stringing along' or simply helped her lobby!) with Niira Radia, and what they delivered her. When can we get to listen to the full tranche of the tapes? Why should it not be in the public domain, now that we know the government virtually sat over it, and could have given it a silent cremation (a short circuit will do the trick- YSR did it a few years ago in AP), had the tapes not been leaked. What is the guarantee that the tapes in the Supreme Court custody are NOT doctored or fully erased? Has any Judge listened to it and satisfied that the tapes are of Radia's interaction with others, and not of some movie? Anything is possible, given the magnitude of corruption.
We are more or less certain that the noose is tightening for the UPA regime and the PM is NOT totally clean. No amount of Surf Excel can clean the dark spots on the dirty linen.
We need continuous vigil to ensure the tapes are not lost, the investigation is on track, the money is tracked and finally collected, and the guilty are swiftly and severely punished.
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A very timely article.But the problem is that the people who Must read this will never do so .
Another problem is that we are Too influenced by probity of PM ,but he is only as good/bad as his complete cabinet .Why judge him in isolation.He is the Head and must take responsibility for full cabinet.
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Amazing article, PM must answer.... again amazed by the media not pointing to any of these.. is it all brought by Congress... where is outlook, why has this not stuck outlook as well ?
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Hey whoever you are, don't call me stooge!!!!!. Before passing your judgment on TATAS, type these words on your search engine 'What Ratan Tata did for the Mumbai Terrorist Attack Victims'. Then read all the links you see. I am sure it will change your opinion. Nano may be a self inflammable car for you, I see it as a big achievement by an Indian company. The one who told you Barkha was helping the terrorists, he has lost it. He needs some serious help. When somebody questioned the martyrdom of 26/11 martyr she was the only one who confronted him by saying his theory was like that conspiracy theory of al-Qaeda being not involved in 9/11. Get your facts right before you speak.
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