Now, this in itself is not any news frankly. “Lobbying” is no secret or crime; it’s called “Public Affairs” by most of the Public Relations consultancy companies and they proudly put it up under the “services” section on their websites. Take for example the following paragraph that appears on the website of IPAN, one of the leading PR agencies of India:

“Among our successful campaigns are those on behalf of STAR TV (to beat back a discriminatory cable TV regulation bill), the Soaps and Toiletries Manufacturers Association (to secure reduction in duties on cosmetics), the Express Industry Council of India (to stall a bill designed to protect the monopoly of the post office), the All India Meat and Livestock Exporters Association (to counter militant vegetarian groups seeking the closure of mechanized abattoirs producing meat for exports) and the Tea Packeters Association of India (to secure removal of excise duty on packaged tea).”

From the above paragraph, one can conclude, and (s)he would technically be not wrong, that some corporates paid money (unless IPAN carried out those campaigns out of some goodwill) to “beat back” and “stall” bills (inside or outside the parliament?) and decide excise duties that determine the revenue receipt of the government.

Should we be outraged that this is how policies of our nation are framed?

It depends upon how do you look at this whole public affairs thingy; clearly it’s not “illegal” in the present scheme of things. PR companies indulge in it, and more often than not, they depend upon bureaucrats, politicians and journalists in their “network” to carry out such “campaigns”.

But the problem in the current case is that Niira Radia’s company Vaishnavi doesn’t make a mention of this “achievement” of making A Raja the cabinet minister again on its website (in fact, there is no mention of “successful campaigns” on the website at all). There is an element of “secrecy” that has now suddenly come to light with Open magazine making Radia’s telephonic conversations with industrialists, politicians and journalists public.

Talking in terms of a purely public affairs campaign, it seems that the “deliverable” of the campaign that Niira Radia was heading was to install A Raja as the union cabinet minister. But it’s yet not clear who was the “client” or set of clients who “commissioned” this campaign and what were the clients’ motives (to reward A Raja for having carried out “successful” 2G spectrum allocation a year back?).

Clearly, if it was “just another” public affairs campaign, Niira Radia would have spoken out by now. Only she knows the truth and she is missing in action. We need to know who the “clients” were and what “strategies” were used, and of course, the professional “payments” that took place; we need a full case study and not just disconnected case facts (to use b-school lingo).

Unfortunately all the focus is on Barkha Dutt right now. Not that her involvement should be ignored, as has been blissfully ignored by the electronic media, but she’s not really the kingpin of this whole drama.

To the extent I could understand the transcripts related to both Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi, one thing is quite clear that both of them were acting as a conduit between Niira Radia and Congress leaders (for trading information) over the issue of cabinet formation when UPA came back to power last year.

Now both of them, in their defense, have claimed that this was a “normal” part of their job as a journalist – to talk to all kinds of people in order to glean information. Sounds plausible to me, for I’ve been a journalist myself.

But at the same time, there is a tone of “willingness” to be a messenger between Congress and Radia by both of these reputed journalists, which has cast aspersions on their motives. The tone and content of the discussions (in the leaked telephonic talks) points to the following three possibilities:

1. Smooth-talking by them to win over the confidence of Radia and get more information – a normal part of a journalist’s job and nothing unethical about that (Barkha Dutt claims Radia was a “valid news source” on DMK affairs).
2. They believed and trusted Radia in good faith and were being manipulated and used as pawns by her (to strategize against Congress?) as part of her campaign to install A Raja as cabinet minister again. They had no idea of what Radia was up to.
3. They knew the details of the campaign (lobbying) and were willingly a party to it (party to the campaign of making A Raja minister again, and not any party to the 2G scam; there is nothing in the tapes to suggest that) i.e. they were lobbying for A Raja.

Funnily, or rather tragically, we’d never be able to know the truth unless this issue is raised in a court of law, which means either Barkha Dutt or Vir Sanghvi has to sue one of the publications for defamation. (added on 20 Nov 2010 at 00:30 AM – and of course, Niira Radia can tell the truth, if we can trust her with that) I don’t think any publication has categorically accused these journalists of being hand-in-glove with Radia and being a party to the scam; most of them have uploaded the transcripts and asked people to draw their own conclusions. And no, please don’t sue me; I am not drawing any conclusions here!

In fact, I’d like people to stop drawing conclusions on Barkha and Sanghvi for the moment and not let the focus get away from the scam and the ring-masters of the scam. That’s the bigger issue.

Also, we must know why were the phones being tapped at all? Clearly it couldn’t have been done without the approval by the government and their knowledge, else it is illegal. If it’s legal, the government knew that there was a campaign to install A Raja as minister again. So they knew about the 2G scam, its ring masters, and kept quiet, something even the courts have suggested now.

Some conspiracy theorist can as well claim that these tapes were selectively leaked to shift the public focus on these two journalists and shield the real scamsters and ring masters. Quiet possible.

But that doesn’t mean that we completely ignore the involvement (in whatever capacity) of journalists (yeah, only Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi’s names are not there) and it’s really sad to see a complete blackout of the news by the electronic media and most of the print media except 3-4 publications (Open, Outlook and Mid-Day are the ones I know).

Silence will only make the whole thing appear fishier and erode the creditability of media, especially the electronic media, even further.

Unfortunately, this is not for the first time when media has refused to look inwards. Earlier, Press Council of India had showed some courage and had spoken against the menace of “paid news” but the whole issue was weakened and swept under the carpet.

Media organizations have often shown zero tolerance and have responded with threats when someone asks them uncomfortable questions or shows the ugly side of theirs. On many occasions, all of the media organizations have ganged up to suppress and silence criticism. Blogs like warfornews and mediaah were threatened and told to shut up and a website like Bhadaas has received legal notices from media organizations for publishing “news” against them.

If the Indian Army can accept that there were black sheep within their ranks who could be involved in human rights abuse, land grabs and other forms of corruption, why is media running away from the truth?

One can feel sad for Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi, as their credibility and integrity is being questioned based on vague speculations, but if the public, especially on Twitter, is behaving like a lynch mob, somewhere this incestuous and ostrich like behavior by media on the earlier occasions is responsible.

I don’t know how media could redeem itself in this particular situation. Someone could argue that just like politicians are asked to resign due to negative perception in the public, should the journalists not do the same?

But for that, media, especially the electronic media, has to feel itself as being answerable to the public. Unfortunately most of the television journalists don’t feel like that.

I don’t know if you guys recall, but this aspect was shown in the movie Peepli Live, where this “socially conscious” local print journalist named Rakesh (who dies in the movie towards the end) shares his frustration with media sensationalism over Natha’s suicide with Nandita, the hotshot English speaking television journalist. Nandita asks Rakesh not to fret over such issues and reconcile to the “fact” that journalism was just another profession like engineering, banking, etc.

Having been a television journalist myself, I can guarantee that many of the journalists today think the same way, it’s just another profession for them, and maybe there is nothing wrong with that.

But in that case, they’d be treated as just another professional, who must not be given any special privileges and treatment for the “nature” of their job. That’s what the mob is doing right now.

I thought of writing this article after I was approached by a national news channel to participate in a chat show on “freedom of speech”, where I was supposed to represent a party whose freedom of speech (the fake news reports) had the potential of “hurting sentiments” of others. Unfortunately the shooting for the show was to happen in Mumbai and I was not in a position to travel out of Delhi at that time and hence I missed the debate, but it surely made me think aloud over the issue.

The trigger of the debate (chat show) was Pakistan banning facebook, primarily due to a page titled “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day”, which they thought was offensive to Muslims and should have been deleted by facebook administrators. Even I had received a couple of nasty mails/tweets/comments after I made a joke on Pakistan’s knee-jerk reaction of banning facebook, and I knew that the issue of freedom of speech and expression was pretty relevant to me.

Recently, the issue of freedom of speech was again in center after an article published in TIME magazine was deemed offensive by many Indians, following which the magazine and the author appended their responses at the end of the article, both expressing ‘regret’ at having hurt people’s sentiments.

That has led some people to ask if TIME or any other western media outlet would have done the same (express regret) if the aggrieved parties were Muslims?

First let’s not confuse the situation and draw wrong parallels. TIME’s article was deemed to be offensive to the Indians and not to the Hindus as such and many non-Hindu Indians and NRIs had expressed their outrage over it.

It was made a case of racism rather than of religious bigotry, and more often than not, issues of racism are dealt with much more delicacy and sensibility in the western society than those of religious feelings.

Nonetheless, whether related to races or religions, can we really have an answer to “how far should freedom of speech and expression go?” Should freedom of speech be curbed if it hurts sentiments? Or should there be a freedom to hurt sentiments as well?

Perhaps the obvious answer would be a “no”, but if we think about it, there would be almost no freedom of speech and expression left in that case.

When a film critic trashes a movie in the most acerbic language in a review, undoubtedly he or she is hurting the sentiments of many people directly and indirectly involved with the production of the film. Why should a critic have the freedom to hurt the sentiments of these people?

If Hrithik Roshan approaches the courts to get all the negative and hateful reviews of Kites removed because they hurt his sentiments as well as those of millions of others who are his die-hard fans, won’t we find his assertion ridiculous?

Yet, let’s ask ourselves, why don’t we want to respect the sentiments of Hrithik and millions of his fans? If we don’t like Kites, can’t we just shut up and go home?

But we speak up and say loudly why we didn’t like a movie. Maybe because there is no “absolute truth” about how good or bad a movie can be, for the same movie could be loved and hated by different people. It is a matter of choice and opinion and differences are bound to exist.

In case of film reviews, we have agreed on an unwritten rule that these differences should be respected even if it hurts the sentiments of some people (and I’m damn sure it hurts the sentiments of Roshans when they read those reviews of Kites). So Bollywood gives the freedom to hurt the sentiments, two cheers to that!

Somehow when it comes to religious sentiments, we fail to follow this unwritten rule, maybe because many of us see and claim to experience the “absolute truth” in our respective religions?

As a skeptic, who is not convinced about “absolute truth” of any religion, why should I have not the freedom to hurt the sentiments of followers of any religion?

If I don’t like any religious practice or belief, why should I not speak up against it just like a movie critic or any of us speak up as soon as we don’t like a movie?

Although the TIME magazine article was supposed to be comic and satirical, for a moment let’s assume the author sincerely didn’t like some of the community traits of the immigrant Indians, why should he not have the freedom to speak up and hurt the sentiments of Indians? After all there is no “absolute truth” about what constitutes a good or bad community trait.

Clearly it’s not just about “hurting the sentiments”, we have to go beyond it and find out when there could be genuine reasons to question or curb a freedom of speech or expression that hurts sentiments. I can find three reasons:

1. It uses outright obscene or hateful language or modes of expression
2. It furthers fabrications and stereotypes to defame a group or individual
3. It encourages thoughts or actions that are anti-social or anti-democratic

(with reference to the point number one above, what constitutes obscenity or vulgarity is again debatable and a matter choice and opinion, but I’d leave that out of the scope of this article)

Clearly Hrithik Roshan can’t claim the negative film reviews to be falling under any of the above three categories, and hence critics have all the rights to hurt his sentiments while exercising their freedom of speech. But Indians accused the TIME article of having shades of all of these.

In fact, most of the countries have legal recourses to address grievances arising out any action that follows in any of the above three categories. Therefore, instead of getting outraged and go rampaging in the streets, it’s better to find a solution within the legal framework of that country. I guess in case of the TIME article, outraged Indians did neither.

In India, we have an added reason to curb freedom of speech – It threatens to disrupt public life and order – almost inviting people to go rampaging in the streets and hence bolster one’s legal case?

So, if tomorrow Hrithik can somehow prove that negative reviews of his films can disrupt public order, say his fans could start burning buses, he might get the negative reviews removed? I leave that upon legal eagles to comment if that clause in the Indian law against freedom of speech makes any sense.

Now let’s come back to drawing images of Prophet Muhammad or any other act of freedom of speech that hurts religious sentiments, do they fall into any of the above three categories?

Say, if I draw an image of Prophet Muhammad, which is a favorable depiction showing him as a compassionate human being, how can it fall into any of the above category? Maybe drawing images of prophet is an anti-social act in an Islamic society, but how can it be so in a secular society? The only argument against such an act could be that it ‘hurts the sentiments’. Should we then discard such arguments and continue to draw images?

That’s the most tricky aspect of religious sentiments that it only offers the logic of ‘sentiments being hurt’ in defense and demands respect for itself.

Even in case of individuals, we can find numerous instances where personal sentiments can be hurt with an action or speech that doesn’t fall into any of the three categories listed above. For example, calling a person with amputated legs as ‘lame’ might not fall into any of the three categories, and might even be the “absolute truth”, but most of us would not like to exercise this freedom of speech and hurt somebody’s sentiments.

Should we show the same kind of restraint in case of religious sentiments?

Desirable, but not feasible.

Not feasible, because many times it becomes necessary to question religious beliefs to uphold modern democratic and scientific values.

Someone like Richard Dawkins argues that religions were institutions proposing the ‘hypothesis’ of a supernatural creator God in the same way as any scientist would propose a scientific hypothesis for an observed phenomenon. In his book “The God Delusion”, Dawkins argues that like any other hypothesis, the God hypothesis should also be open for evaluation and even falsification.

So we would need to make that distinction when evaluating an act, which may not fall into the aforementioned three categories, but yet ends up hurting religious sentiments.

In fact one can distinguish such acts of hurting religious sentiments into further three categories (inspired from from an article that Noam Chomsky wrote, where he distinguishes three categories of murder):

1. Hurting sentiments on purpose with the sole intent to ‘hurt’ them
2. Hurting sentiments inadvertently or accidentally
3. Hurting sentiments with foreknowledge but without specific intent

Most of the images or cartoons of Prophet Muhammad that have been drawn recently fall into the first category, which I believe can’t be justified in the name of freedom of speech and expression, even if they (the images) might not have explicitly fallen into any of the three categories mentioned earlier (obscene, defamatory, or anti-democratic).

The TIME article, I believe, fell into the second category. Indians protested and the author as well as the publisher agreed that their original intentions were not to hurt the sentiments. Chapter closed, I hope.

But the third category is where I believe ‘hurting sentiments’ have to be allowed or condoned.

I was not a great fan of the campaign, but the original idea of “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day”, where it was requested not to draw obscene and abusive images of the prophet, but yet draw the images to drive home the point that threats of violence can’t curb the freedom of speech, fell in the third category, and that’s why I chose to make jokes on Pakistan banning facebook.

The organizer(s), who later dumped the campaign, surely knew that it would offend many Muslims, but they didn’t start the page just to offend them.

One can claim that the organizer(s) could have chosen another mean to drive home their point; but we can claim so in almost all other such cases that fall into this category, and what about those occasions when religious beliefs are conflicting with the modern democratic values? The only mean then left is to hurt the beliefs, sorry. Perhaps it also depends on how strongly you believe in “the ends justify the means”.

I don’t necessarily believe strongly in the above saying, also known as “consequentialism”, but I do analyze my thoughts and actions through the two sets of three categories mentioned above if someone accuses me of hurting their sentiments.