Tehelka
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| Editor-in-chief | Tarun Tejpal |
|---|---|
| Categories | News |
| Frequency | Weekly |
| Circulation | 110,000 (2008)[1][2] |
| First issue | 2003 |
| Country | India |
| Language | English, Hindi |
| Website | tehelka.com |
Tehelka is an Indian weekly magazine under the editorship of Tarun Tejpal. The publication began in 2000 as a news website, Tehelka.com. In 2001, with an exposé of match-fixing in professional cricket in India, it got public attention, but it was the defense sting, called Operation Westend that got it the international attention, which led to the resignation of Indian Defence Minister.[3][4]
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[edit] History
In 2001, Tehelka launchced Operation West End to expose the alleged culture of bribery at the Ministry of Defence (India) (MoD). It set up a bogus London-based company, and contacted MoD officials for selling thermal binoculars to the Government of India.[5][3][6] Tehelka claimed to have filmed Bangaru Laxman (the secretary of the ruling party BJP) taking bribe for helping the bogus company in procuring government contracts. During the process, Tehelka also met Jaya Jaitly, the head of Samata Party, and a close aide of the defense minister George Fernandes. It also accused the MoD officials of accepting alcohol and services of the prostitutes.[5] When the scandal broke, there was an outcry, and George Fernandes resigned (although he wasn't accused of taking bribe). Laxman also resigned, while Jaya Jaitly accused Tehelka journalists of being Pakistani agents and raised doubts over the authenticity of the tapes. The tapes were sent to UK for forensic examination, and were confirmed as genuine.[5]
In September 2001, Tehelka's editor-in-chief, Tarun Tejpal, was charged with "immoral trafficking" for offering prostitutes to the MoD officials during the sting operation. The main financial backers of Tehelka were made targets of investigations from the customs, the police and the tax authorities. By 2003, the number of salaried employees in the company had reduced from 120 to 1, and the company was practically ruined.[5] The meager budget of Tehelka, then a startup media firm, was exhausted by legal expenses facing a Commission of Enquiry. According to the Editor Shoma Chaudhury, Tehelka decided to bow out of the new Commission of Enquiry, after Justice Venkatswami was replaced with Justice Phookan.[7]
In 2003, Tehelka was relaunched as a weekly newspaper, funded by 200 founding subscribers and other well-wishers who donated more than $2,000 each[3]. The investigations against the MoD officials were revived in 2004, when the Congress-led government came to the power and handed over the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
In 2007, Tehelka once again underwent a transformation, and shifted to a regular magazine format. In September 2007, it came up with a Hindi news based web portal "Tehelka Hindi". Just after a month in October 2007, it once again captured widespread attention for an elaborate sting operation that claimed to have captured on hidden camera several perpetrators of the 2002 Gujarat riots admitting to horrendous crimes, and revealing the riots to be part of a well-planned conspiracy that had state sanction.
[edit] Major stories
[edit] Operation West End
Operation West End was a sting operation aimed to expose the corruption underlying India's large defence contracts. The original investigative piece by Tehelka in 2001 targeted several members of the then ruling coalition, the National Democratic Alliance, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party's Atal Behari Vajpayee. It showed several political figures, as well as army top brass, colluding to take bribes[8] that approached 4% of orders totalling hundreds of crores in order to approve defense contracts.[citation needed]
The minister in charge of Defence, George Fernandes of the Samata Party, resigned after the tapes were made public, but he was reinstated later. Part of the tapes show the treasurer of his party talking about accepting bribes of 1 crore or more from arms dealer ex-Naval officer Lt-Cmdr Suresh Nanda, son of ex-Chief of Naval Staff Admiral S. M. Nanda.
Initially the government, instead of acting on the evidence, accused Tehelka of fabricating allegations.[9] However, five years later, in October 2006, the Central Bureau of Investigation filed charges against George Fernandes, former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sushil Kumar, and others in the Barak missile case, claiming that there was reasonable basis to suspect corruption and criminal conspiracy.[10]
In March 2008, the Nandas were arrested[11]. Fernandes was interrogated in May 2008[12].
In the Tehelka tapes, the reporter (usually Mathew Samuel) poses as a representative of the fictitious large arms supplier West End. Both editor Tarun Tejpal and editor investigation Aniruddha Bahal did not initially support the sting operation, but agreed after Mathew Samuel initiated the sting. There were a total of 105 tapes shot by Mathew Samuel.
[edit] Armoured Recovery Vehicles
At one point, the Samata Party national treasurer RK Jain was trying to convince the fictitious dealer West End about his prowess in swinging deals. He mentions how in the first defence deal that he was involved in as the party treasurer, Suresh Nanda of Crown Corporation had paid Samata Party Rs 1 crore to swing the Rs 250-crore (USD 60 million) order for Armoured Recovery Vehicles (ARV) in favour of a Slovakian company.
- Samata Party treasurer R.K. Jain: "Nanda approached me. Czechoslovakia's price was the lowest, second Slovakian, third was the Poland."
- Tehelka: "Haan, Haan."
- R.K. Jain: "He said, 'I will give you one crore rupees in advance'."
- Tehelka: "Okay."
- R.K. Jain: "You get disapproved the last one. Czechoslovakia because they are so lower that we cannot match their price."
- Tehelka: "Okay."
- R.K. Jain: "If you can push him out. Delegation is going on to the... delegation has been ordered to go to Czechoslovakia. Stop this delegation, and technically reject this company. Here are the documents."
- Tehelka: "Hmm."
- R.K.Jain: "By which it's proved that this company is closed for the last two years. They will start only after getting this order."
- Tehelka: "Yeah, yeah."
- R.K. Jain: "I will give one crore rupees. And I will give you... if they are technically disapproved, then you are my agent."
- Tehelka: "Yeah."
- R.K. Jain: "For this particular... perks... and I will give you so much of commission."
- Tehelka: "Okay."
- R.K. Jain: "I said, 'Fine.' He gave me the correspondence. I took the correspondence to George."
- (the then Defence minister George Fernandes was from Samata Party)
- Tehelka: "Hmm."
- R.K. Jain: "And he said, 'All right, I'll reject it.' He is a very intelligent man."...
- Tehelka: Okay, it is manipulated.
- R.K. Jain: He wrote straight away on the file himself. He never goes and orders to a Joint Secretary. He wrote it himself, and sent the file back. Nanda gave me one crore rupees. He called me, "Yes, Mr. Jain, the file has come down. Like you know George…"[13]
[edit] Barak Missile System
At another point Jain also says that he had received another Rs 1 crore for the Samata Party from Suresh Nanda to help swing the contract for an air-to-air and surface-to-surface missile system for the Indian Navy. Nanda was an agent for the Israel Aircraft Industries who make the Barak missile.[14]
Since the tapes were the result of a clandestine sting operation they are not directly admissible as evidence in court. However, the videos (and the media furore following it) resulted in the Central Bureau of Investigation conducting its own investigation, based on which R.K. Jain was arrested in February 2006.[15].
[edit] The Truth: Gujarat 2002
The Truth: Gujarat 2002[16] was an extensive report on the 2002 Gujarat violence published by the Tehelka in its November 7, 2007 issue. The report, which was based on a six-month long investigation and involved sting operations, claimed that the violence was possible because of the connivance of the state police as well as the Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi. The sting operation led to partisan criticism and raised questions on journalistic ethics.[17]
[edit] Tehelka in media
The Tehelka expose has been documented time and again through various media sources. Veteran Indian journalist, Madhu Trehan, has penned down an entire book on the expose and its aftermath. The book, Tehelka as Metaphor, is a forensic study of the sting operation and how the Indian government got back by attempting to destroy Tehelka and its investors.
In 2004, Art Silverblatt and Nikolai Zlobin described Tehelka as a "muckraking site" in their book "International Communications: A Media Literacy Approach"[18]
[edit] References
- ^ Ashish Sinha. Covert to get its first cover story Business Standard, 12 May 2008.
- ^ Tehelka storm rages on Shuchi Bansal in New Delhi, Rediff.com, June 11, 2004.
- ^ a b c India's cultural elite revive muckraking magazine. The Christian Science Monitor, 26 July 2004.
- ^ Tehelka Practising journalism: values, constraints, implications, by Nalini Rajan. Published by SAGE, 2005. ISBN 076193378. Page 70-71.
- ^ a b c d Asha Kasbekar (2006). Pop culture India!: media, arts, and lifestyle. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781851096367.
- ^ Tehelka Billions of entrepreneurs: how China and India are reshaping their futures--and yours, by Tarun Khanna. Published by Harvard Business Press, 2007. ISBN 1422103838. Page 55.
- ^ The Story of Us
- ^ Rekha Saxena (2003). India at the Polls: Parliamentary Elections in the Federal Phase. Sangam Books Ltd. pp. 18. ISBN 81-250-2328-.
- ^ "Tehelka report: Fernandes cleared". http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/feb/04def.htm.
- ^ V. Venkatesan. Dubious deal. The Hindu Frontline. Volume 23 - Issue 21 :: Oct. 21-Nov. 03, 2006.
- ^ CBI arrests Nandas over Barak missiles kickbacks
- ^ CBI quizzes Fernandes in Barak missile deal
- ^ "Tehelka Tapes (transcript)". Tehelka.com. p. 21. http://www.tehelka.com/home/20041009/operation/investigation21.htm. Retrieved 2006-08-17.
- ^ Srivastava, Mihir. "Finally, West End Lands Jain In Jail". Tehelka. http://www.tehelka.com/story_main16.asp?filename=Ne031106Finally_west.asp. Retrieved 2006-08-16.
- ^ PTI (2006-02-07). "R K Jain arrested five years after Tehelka expose". Outlook. http://www.outlookindia.com/pti_news.asp?id=366868. Retrieved 2006-08-16.
- ^ The Truth: Gujarat 2002 in the words of the men who did it, Tehelka, Wednesday, 7 November 2007
- ^ MEDIA: The Gujarat killings, and the ethics of Tehelka, South Asian Journalists Association Forum, October 31, 2007.
- ^ [International Communications: A Media Literacy Approach -Art Silverblatt, Nikolai Zlobin, M.E. Sharpe, 2004. P.183]
