Reports that agencies conducting opinion polls may have taken bribes to manipulate data, though troubling, should not become an excuse to restrict Press freedom in the run-up to the election
A sting operation by a news channel last month has exposed the malpractices of 11 agencies conducting opinion polls in the run-up to the general election. Titled, ‘Operation Prime Minister’, the sting showed how some poll agencies were willing to manipulate data and provide misleading results for a price. The exposé does not have any evidence to show that any specific media-commissioned survey in the past year has been deliberately manipulated. Its main aim, as the news channel said, was to “expose the mindset and intent”.
Our Constitution guarantees the Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression. Neither the Constitution nor any Indian law requires that only truth be printed or spoken. There is an old saying: ‘Make hay while the sun shines.’ There is no law, and this is a good thing, that every private organisation in the country be registered or that they subscribe to a particular code of conduct. lying is routine and often the truth is buried under many layers of false claims.
On election eve, all parties devote their time and energy to prove that the rival group is full of crooks and scamsters, and hence, unfit to rule. The truth is that politicians, irrespective of their party affiliation, pose as public servants in order to become the masters of the people. There is a marginal difference between the Government lying and it doing wrong things. Public memory is short but let us not forget that one UPA Minister had famously said that the multi-crore 2G Spectrum scam had fetched zero loss for the Government.
Other scandals that the Congress-led UPA regime has overseen include the Adarsh Housing scam, the coal block allocation scam, ‘Railgate’, the Commonwealth Games scam, the AgustaWestland chopper scam and the Tatra trucks scam. This is apart from the State-level rackets that have come to the fore in recent years, such as the mining scam in Jharkhand under its former Chief Minister Madhu Koda, the National Rural Health Mission scam in Uttar Pradesh and the Sarada Group chit fund scam in West Bengal.
Scams are being unearthed in a routine manner. The only difference is that each time a new scam emerges, it makes the money lost in the previous look like small change. Compare, for instance, the paltry three-lakh- rupee bribe that Sukh Ram, Telecommunications Minister under Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, took in 1996 to award a Government contract to a private company, to the Rs 3,000 crore bribe money that A Raja allegedly made in the 2G Spectrum scam. Interestingly, in electoral politics, the petty thieves are hanged while the kingpins are appointed to high office.
In Delhi, many television channels have conducted sting operations not only against politicians but also on bureaucrats. However, little else happens afterwards because the Government passes all the laws and it is more concerned with the rights of thieves and criminals rather than those of the victims.
A new concept has been introduced in governance in recent years. It is called Coalition Dharma. Broadly speaking, it means inaction against any Minister who belongs to an important coalition partner party or turning a Nelson’s eye towards those whose support in Parliament is necessary for the Government to stand. This approach has resulted in the large-scale loot of the national exchequer.
In the undercover operation conducted by an investigative website, Cobrapost, code-named Operation Falcon Claw, 11 MPs from across the political spectrum were filmed as they reportedly agreed to lobby for a fictitious oil company in return for a bribe ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 50 lakh. Six of these MPs even wrote recommendation letters for a fee while another even demanded that his fee be delivered through a hawala operator.
The 2013 operation brought back memories from December 2005 when 11 MPs belonging to different parties were caught on camera agreeing to ask questions in Parliament for a price. The motive, obviously, was to make as much money as possible while peddling their influence. Unsurprisingly, the 2005 case is on the back burner.
Coming back to Operation Prime Minister, it is a fact that whatever does not suit the incumbent disposition becomes a legitimate target for the ruling outfit. Thankfully, the Election Commission is now looking into the matter. In this context, allow me to share with you the prayer delivered by Pastor Joe Wright before the Kansas House of Representatives on January 23, 1996:
“Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good’, but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare..
We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
We have shot anti-abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.
We have terrorised the world and called the victims terrorists. We have abused power and called it politics.
We have coveted our neighbour’s possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.
We have ridiculed the time-honoured values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.”
We cannot honestly claim that the situation in India today is any better. The party in power will always want to be painted as a paragon of virtue but the people know better. The Government will be well advised not to interfere with the independence of the media which has done a tremendous job in exposing the misdoings in society.
As Thomas Jefferson rightly said: “It is so difficult to draw a clear line of separation between the abuse and the wholesome use of the Press, that as yet we have found it better to trust the public judgement, rather than the Magistrate, with the discrimination between truth and falsehood. And hitherto the public judgement has performed that office with wonderful correctness.”