(By: M.V. Kamath)

The Government appointed Vohra committee has found a nexus between politicians, bureaucrats and criminals. That is no revelation, This has been suspected and that the Vohra Committee has merely given its seal of authority is common knowledge, Reams of paper have been devoted to condemn the politicians and the bureaucrats which is, of course, as it should be, Journalists have a duty to perform, But it seems it is about time that the Government sets up another Vohra Committee to unearth then ex us between journalists, politicians, criminals and advertising agencies. What has surfaced thanks to the revelations made by Smt Mayawati, Chief Minister of UP is alarming, but not new. The nexus between journalists and politician’s has always been there, only nobody talked about it, now it is the talk of the town.

It is not just in UP that many journalists have sold their souls to those in power, The malaise is widespread, ‘Take Bombay, for instance. In the old days a reporter used to be given may ‘be a wall clock or an ash tray or something rather small and inconspicuous for attending a business press conference. But how many wall ‘clocks would a reporter like to have? So the gift giving was upgraded. Re porters began to get shirts and suit lengths, Now this has been further upgraded. Reporters get gift coupons worth anything from Rs 500 to Rs 1000 or sometimes plain cash for doing their job. A commercial or financial correspondent has in recent weeks been making around Rs 50,000 a month, free of income tax. The Recruiting Director of the Calcutta based ‘The Statesman said in a signed article that when he came to Bombay to hire a reporter and interviewed prospective candidates, one of them frankly told him that if appointed as the paper’s financial correspondent, he would waive the salary, When he was asked why, the candidate blurted out make Rs 70,000 a month easily by ‘writing favorable on public issues. Why do I require your salary?”, or words to that effect.

New companies which issue shares ‘want their presence in the market to get known. They hold press conferences at which handouts are given along with an envelope containing crisp notes. This has become standard practice. Reporters write that they are told to write. If this is not corruption and bribery what’s it? This has forced the 12+member Malegan Committee to ask the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to evolve a code of conduct for financial journalists and publications, setting out the basis on which comments could be made regarding public issues offered by companies for listing on stock exchanges.

But the corruption of the financial journalists in Bombay is nothing in ‘comparison to the wholesale bribery attempted by the former Samaj wadi Chief Minister of UP. The Chief Minister has a Discretionary Fund at his disposal from which he can disburse monies to anybody he wants without being accountable to anybody. When he became Chief Minister there was only about Rs 20 lakh in the kitty. In the 18 months of his rule, the Discretionary Fund expanded 215 times to amount to Rs 43 crore. Out of this Mulayam Singh Yadav disbursed some Rs 42 crore in a reckless manner. The beneficiaries were largely Journalists, A correspondent of the Hindustan Times got Rs 75000. A correspondent of All India Radio received Rs 1.75 lakh, A convener of Angrezi Hatao Andolan, Varanasi, got a grant of Rs 17.5 lakh presumably to drive the English language out of UP, if not of India. The editor of Kranti Chetna an unheard of newspaper owned by Shradan and Anchal, a senior minister in the Mulayam cabinet received Rs 10,5 lakh. The bureau chief of Maya, a Hindi fortnightly from Lucknow, cornered Rs 5 lakh. According to Asian Age, three reputed editors of leading dailies received money ranging from Rs 16 lakhs to 27 lakhs. Reporters covering the Samaj wadi Party during Mulayam ‘Singh Yadav’s 18 months regime received sums ranging from Rs 2lakh to Rs 13 lakh. Land and luxury cars were given to high profile media men, Some Journalists got money for medical treatment. Advertisements were doled out to newspapers whether they existed or not. Some hardly existed. An Urdu weekly was given advertisements worth about Rs 43 lakh in one financial year while another tabloid published by the nephew of a former Samaj wadi Party minister was given Rs 10 lakh in complete violation of advertisement rules. According to Asian Age “in many cases advertisements were published and paid for even without the customary release order.” The paper quoted sources as saying that the State Department ‘also spent lavish amounts in paying for air tickets, hotel bills and shopping bills of journalists who went on an all-expense paid sojourn with the former chief minister.” Arun Shourie who won the Magsaysay Prize for his role in unmasking former Maharashtra Chief Minister Antulay’s shenanigans recently revealed in his column that among other beneficiaries of Mulayam, have been staffers of The Times of India group, The Pioneer group, the Maya group, the correspondents of PTT, Varta, Bhasha and AIR, Other names have been mentioned. Has anyone heard of Jadid Markaz Weekly? Run by Mr and Mrs. Siddiqui, it received Rs 5 lakh. The editor of Uthan Syndicate, one Girdhari Lal Pahwa for Rs 50,000..,and so on, Wedding or wed ding anniversaries of journalists were observed with parties at government ‘expense, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s misconduct seems unbelievable, The Statesman said in an editorial (August 8, 1995) that Mulayam even gave money out of the chief minister’s Discretionary Fund to his driver so that the poor man could get himself a pair of safari suits, the average tailoring charges being Rs 1,44,000 per suit And who   be blamed for all this? Firstly, of course, the reporters themselves. They sold their souls to Mulayal for filthy lucre, Mulayam was described as the friend of dalits, the Muslims and the underdogs. How could these journalists criticize Mulayam whea they had taken money from him? As Arun Shourie said, how can a dog bark when it has a bone in its mouth? Equally to be blamed are newspaper editors and proprietors who failed to pull up their staff, The blame has to be further shared by the All India Working Journalists Federation, the All India Newspaper Editors Conference, the Editors Guild of India (which has at last woken up to the situation), the Press Council of India (which too, has belatedly become aware of its duties) and other bodies. This large sale corruption has got to stop. We have blamed Indira Gandhi for corrupting and destabilizing institutions, we should now turn the searchlight inward, at ourselves. Or else, with what face can we criticize politicians and bureaucrats. Or, for that matter, criminals?

Article extracted from this publication >>  March 27, 1996