This point has come home in a story that should be a frontline scandal in any democracy. A couple of newspapers have been reporting on an open secret of the media, the existence of private treaties. Under these, media houses invest in companies, which then receive favourable media treatment in turn, including column inches favourable to these companies. Bennett and Coleman pioneered this, but many other major institutions have followed. These deals are worth hundreds of crores. Not to put too fine a point on it, the Indian media has crossed into deeply murky ethical territory without even minimal public debate, self-reflection and media outrage. How deep conflicts of interest run in the Indian media, who is involved, what forms of advocacy or self-censorship these impose, ought to be a matter of grave concern. But what is astonishing is how little space there is in the media to acknowledge that there are serious issues here.

The case of Bennett and Coleman is particularly sad because the venerable Times of India had just recently expressed a resounding editorial policy. Gautam Adhikari penned a powerful statement on January 15. He wrote, “Yes, we have a motive. It’s to stick openly and steadfastly to liberalism. Unfortunately, the political landscape in India leaves little room these days for the play of liberalism as we understand it. Our liberalism compels us to be socially tolerant and economically as well as politically ‘free to choose.’”

I pick on this statement, not because TOI is exclusively guilty (there are probably many skeletons waiting to fall out of many cupboards) but because this statement, taken in the context of private treaties, signifies what liberalism has come to mean in India. The first is that liberalism has come to be associated merely with diversity rather than combining diversity with a sense of judgment. When all statements are of the same level, the sense of truth vanishes. But more importantly, economically free to choose cannot mean that there are no ethical lines to contend with. Unfortunately liberalism in India has come to be identified, not with exalted aspirations, but both these tendencies: no sense of discrimination, and total commodification of everything, including integrity.

... contd.