Journalists and the economics of truth
ing the Sebi” officers in Mumbai. These businessmen claimed proximity to a Congress politician who has risen to a very high constitutional post.
In addition, he paid consultancy fees of approximately `1 crore and took care of the hotel bills of the wife of a senior Cabinet minister because he was told that “if this… family stands by me then I will have (sic) great clout in India.”
Since a man who is charged with grave offences may well level grave charges against prominent individuals to deflect attention and, indeed, politicise a straight forward financial scam, it may well be improper to repeat the names of prominent people whose palms Sen claims to have generously greased. In any event, most of these names are now in the public domain and their identities are no longer a wellguarded secret or a subject of speculation. However, since the moral credentials of a man who presents himself as a sincere entrepreneur who was igno- rant of Sebi guidelines on accepting deposits from the public and who, in turn, was both blackmailed and duped by others more unscrupulous than him, hasn’t yet been fully established, it is best to view the contents of his “suicide note” with a large measure of caution.
Yet, while the political aspects of Sen’s defence of his misconduct have got full play in the media, there is another facet of his protestations of innocence that have been glossed over. In the concluding part of his 18-page “dying declaration”, Sen wrote: “My over all business crash is due to the media entry, extortion from the above named persons and blackmail by my own staffers and executives.”
Since the CBI, it has now emerged in the course of the Coalgate controversy that threatens to destroy the Mammohan Singh government, is accustomed to consulting the executive to check the grammar of its depositions, it may not be too hard for them to have Sen’s “last statement” translated into English.
In a nutshell, Sen’s accusation is startling. Once people got wind of the fact that what the Saradha bosses and their agents were doing all over eastern India, they started viewing him as the proverbial milch cow. Leading this pack of predators were not politicians, but people who ostensibly claimed to be from the media. Thus, in order to save himself from attacks in the media, Sen decided to invest in the very people who were either conducting so-called investigative journalism or threatening to expose him. He bought Channel 10, a Bengali news channel, for some `30 crore and engaged his erstwhile tormentors to provide him content for `60 lakhs each month. The erstwhile tormentors gave him an “assurance that (on) execution of this agreement they will protect my business from the government, that is the state government and also the Central government and I will be able to get a smooth passage…” Blessed with this assurance, Sen sunk in `50 crore into the channel and started three dailies. Ironically, Sen’s entry into the media resulted in all the media hyenas rushing to his door with the same threats and blandishments. The estranged wife of a former Congress minister at the Centre used her political clout to pay `25 crore to establish a channel for the Northeast.
Another `28 crore was paid to the former minister himself for a 50 per cent share of another channel beamed at the Northeast. A Congress MLA from Assam sold him a press and a newspaper for `6 crore. And one enterprising freelancer extracted `50 lakh and more from Saradha to set up an English channel.
What emerges from these revelations is a very disturbing phenomenon: Instead of being a watchdog against evil as it claims to be, a large section of the media has become a part of the problem itself. Just as Bollywood became criminalised from the proceeds of the Mumbai underworld, a large part of the media has become a cover for criminal enterprise. From chit fund scamsters to real estate sharks, the media has become a tool for buying influence. To me, that is the most disturbing lesson from the Saradha scandal.
The writer is a senior journalist