What are Shekhar journalistic standards?

Ram Bahadur rai

 

 

English language journalist Shekhar Gupta writes a column called 'National Interest'. After reading his column of February 18, some journalist friends called me.

 

They drew my attention to the last two paragraphs of the column. It said: “Twenty-seven years have passed, so I can reveal this nugget from my reporter's diary in Allahabad. V.P. Singh insisted on clean funding and spent as little as possible, campaigning on motorcycle being his brand proposition. One morning, as he sat "strategising" with buddies, in came Prabhash Joshi, khadi-clad editor of the formidable Hindi daily Jansatta. He had a suitcase with all of Rs.7.5 lakh in it, in cash. He said Chaudhary Devi Lal had sent his campaign contribution. Singh recoiled in outrage, how could he take it, his entire campaign was against politics of this kind. Joshi smiled, and told him what Devi Lal had said: tell Raja Sahab (Singh) that campaigns need vehicles running on fuel, which comes for money. So when vehicles start running on air and water, no money will be needed. Until then, shut up, and put up with whatever goes on.

 

“Which, of course, a chastened Singh did. Parallels with AAP's current embarrassment over the funny Rs.2-crore contribution, therefore, are not coincidental. Any witnesses left to that 1988 story? Several other reporters (besides me), it won't be fair for me to name. About also some of his journalist-strategists, I will only go so far as to say that one of those features in this year's Padma awards list.”

 

After reading this, I wondered about Gupta's account is accurate. Did V.P. Singh require a few lakh rupees in that election? Did Prabhash Joshi ever visit there? Who is this “journalist-strategist” featuring in this year's Padma awards list? So I began to ask around.

 

The first person I met was Sita Kumari Singh, wife of the late V.P. Singh. She is known as a clearheaded, resolute, sentient person. Did her husband accept money from anybody in that by-election, I asked her. No, she replied in a calm voice. She recalled that her husband and she reached Allahabad a month before that by-election and returned to Delhi only after the election result was declared. Had she seen Prabhash Joshi there, I asked her. She said she had no memory of Joshi visiting.

 

The next person I asked was jounalist Hemant Sharma. Like Shekhar Gupta, this was Sharma's first stint as a political reporter. Sharma told me Joshi had assigned him to cover the Allahabad by-election. He stayed there for 19 days, during which time, he used to reach Aish Mahal early in the morning; this was V.P. Singh's ancestral bungalow on Civil Lines, right behind the high court. Singh lived on the upper floor. Each morning, Singh climbed down the stairs, got on the pillion seat behind the motorcycle rider, and campaigned. Former home minister Rajendra Tripathi or **Vakil** Ram Shiromani rode the motorcycle, Sharma recalled. Did Joshi visit Allahabad, I asked him. No, Sharma insisted. He remembers the names of journalists covering that election with him.

 

The next person I asked was Santosh Bhartiya, then editor of the Hindi weekly 'Chauthi Duniya'. It was at the vanguard of opposition politics. Bhartiya was entrenched in Allahabad, working from early morning till late evening, day after day. He told me that election was being fought by the electorate itself. All kinds of people were taking on the expenses. So Singh was in no need of anybody's munificence, Bhartiya told me. He was confident Joshi never visited Allahabad.

 

It is worth stressing here that Rajiv Gandhi was the prime minister then and the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh was Veer Bahadur Singh. That election was clearly the axis of the churn to bring a new political ethos to power. In such times, the government's eyes and ears – its officials and its intelligence agencies – just sat around, twiddling their thumbs, showing no interest in the drama unfolding around them? If Prabhash Joshi reached Allahabad and disbursed Rs. 7.5 lakh to Singh in front of journalists, the govrnment agencies showed no interest in that? At a time when Singh was targetting the government on corruption?

 

After figuring all this out, I went and read the news report published in the June 30, 1988, issue of India Today. The byline at the end reads: Shekhar Gupta and Dilip Awasthi in Allahabad. I read the report word for word, looking for even a suggestion of money exchanging hands. You can read the report yourself. It says: “Allahabad was his referendum on the policies and ‘misdeeds’ of the political party and the leader that he was now accusing of being corrupt after serving his so faithfully for years. It was a crucial test for his sometimes holier-than-though insistence on running election his way: no cars, no flags, no loudspeaker, no money or muscle.” If Gupta were to care to read his own report before pulling such nuggets from reporter’s diary, he could have saved himself from boastfulness. Did he then deliberately refrain from reporting such an important infarction in Singh’s campaign? Why? Or is Gupta’s notional interest fed by other motives?

 

I suspect Gupta’s arrogance is dragging him into irrelevance. What are his journalistic standards? Does Gupta have any standards at all, or is he content plumbing the depths in his cynicism? One wonders about the motive behind him sullying the reputation of a dead person who cannot defend himself. Those who knew Prabhash Joshi will not trust Gupta’s words. But he has claimed that several reporters witnessed the exchange he mentions. If full disclosure is what he seeks, he should stop hiding behind a cloak of dark mystery. If he does wish to attack a dead person’s reputation, he should at least do it with facts. He should come forward and name the reporters he alludes to, as also the one featuring in this year’s Padma list. Else he should apologise and retract the words conjured from his reporter’s diary.