News by other means

News by other means

Who said investigative journalism was dead? Tehelka.com has invented aneffective new technique. The news portal has exposed the ugly face and grasping hands of corruption in high places. Public figures falling like nine pins testify to it. It is unorthodox but not unprecedented for journalists to pose as businessmen or dealers to get admission into secretive worlds and then to report on what they have found. In one celebrated case in the past, a journalist from this newspaper posing as a buyer was able to bring to light a shocking racket in which young women were bought and sold for a handful of rupees. Tehelka journalists had the benefit of technology to go further. Adopting elaborate false identities and, resorting to a technique used earlier to reveal cricket match-fixing, they recorded on hidden videocameras the actions and words of politicians, officials and army officers. Some of the pictures are fuzzy but there is no mistaking that they add up to a scoop. It is a new technique but to be effective, it is incumbent upon its practitioners to do their homework properly sothat nobody picks holes in it. Only time will say whether Tehelka's story measures up to this standard. While the result justifies the means in this case, there cannot be an omnibus endorsement of the technique.

Tehelka gives us an unforgettable documentary of personalities and attitudes at the very top. Never before has an Indian politician been caught live, like Bangaru Laxman, putting his hands out and accepting a cash bribe. Never has a serving Indian army general been heard setting his price in whiskey and cash. The true genius of Bollywood's scriptwriters can be appreciated after hearing Jaya Jaitley speak unctuously about the national interest while shovelling a large amount of cash to her party. It took cunning and some planning to get a long list of public servants, politicians, professional fixers and army officers, as foolish as they are greedy, to hang themselves with videotape.

In their story the arms deals are fake, corruption proven. It is the reverse with real defence deals. Much has been said and written about the sleazy world of arms contracts in the capital and a fog of suspicion has come to encompass every major one. But the facts of corruption have not been nailed down. The still inconclusive Bofors saga is the closest the country has come to getting to the truth. Now Tehelka allows everyone to see what actually goes on in the corridors of power, to hear talk of buying political access as if it is about buying onions. Perhaps it will lead to public pressure on New Delhi to change the way it does business.