Elections 1999: Field notes from a (middle class) campaign meeting

28 August 1999
The Times of India

Field notes from a (middle class) campaign meeting in South Delhi

By Siddharth Varadarajan
The Times of India News Service

NEW DELHI: The BJP leader had spoken for more than half-an-hour when the
first interruption occurred. Belligerent and stout, Poornima Sethi, a
one-time MLA, had been berating the local Congress candidate, Manmohan
Singh, for selling the country to foreign companies, and Sonia Gandhi for
being a foreigner who harboured dreams of ruling over one billion Indians.

The audience in the Nilgiri Apartments community centre in Alaknanda, south
Delhi, listened impassively as she made a case for them to return Vijay
Kumar Malhotra as their representative. ``If you marry a Maharashtrian
man'', she said pointing to a woman in the audience, ``you will learn his
language, no? But Sonia. She still can't speak Hindi. On the other hand,
look at your behan, Sushmaji. In less than a week, she has learnt the
Kannada language of the people in Bellary.''

At this point, a woman in the front stood up. ``All this is very well. But
we have not received a drop of water for the past week. I haven't bathed
since yesterday and I am sitting in the front row so that my stink can reach
politicians like you.'' Caught off guard, Ms Sethi replied that water was a
local issue and since there was a Congress government in Delhi, she was not
responsible. ``Go to your councillor, not me.'' ``We like you personally,
Poornimaji'' said another woman. ``But BJP was in power for so long. What
did you do?.'' Ms Sethi changed tack. ``I know you support me but when the
time comes, you all don't vote. Only they vote,'' she said, pointing in the
direction of a slum cluster nearby.

``Who are they?'', asked a man in the audience. ``You know, the people in
the jhuggi-jhopris'', she replied. ``But aren't they also Indians? Don't
they have rights? Why are you dividing voters into `us' and `them'? he
asked. The BJP workers in the hall started stirring restlessly. ``The people
in the slums, they are keede-makaude (filthy insects)'', said a party
supporter angrily. He got up from his seat and tried to make his way towards
the questioner before others restrained him. When pressed, Ms Sethi said she
did not think slum- dwellers were insects. ``That is his private view''.

Ms Sethi resumed her speech but she had clearly lost her balance. ``The BJP
respects women,'' she said, apropos of nothing in particular. Up went the
hand of the same man who had questioned her earlier. ``But then why did
Vijayraje Scindia, Shekhawat and other senior leaders support sati in
Deorala?'' At this point, the BJP workers asked the man to leave. ``This
meeting has been called for Poornimaji to ask you all to vote for BJP. No
questions are allowed,'' said one. The man wouldn't leave but the party
activists managed to hustle him to the back of the room. ``I am not afraid
of any questions,'' Poornimaji bellowed from the front. ``BJP is opposed to
sati. If Vijayraje Scindia said something, that is her personal view.''

``Yes madam, but please lower the volume of the speakers,'' said an old man
from the side. ``OK, OK. I have finished anyway. On September 5, please vote
for BJP.'' The man at the back raised his hand to ask another question but
the BJP workers had had enough. ``We have no time'', said one. ``Let us have
a vote of thanks for Poornimaji.''

War and the dharma of a journalist

7 August 1999
The Times of India

War and the Dharma of a Journalist

By Siddharth Varadarajan

What does a journalist do when his dharma as a journalist comes into conflict with what the State holds to be his dharma as a patriot? Such a moral dilemma -- which could arise at any time -- is especially acute during war.

Even though the conflict in Kargil was not one which jeopardised the very existence of the country, the fact that young soldiers were fighting and dying placed a heavy moral burden on the rest of society. In the interests of national solidarity, virtually everyone compromised on their svabhava and svadharma. The businessman curbed his natural urge for maximum profits and donated a small part of his earnings for the welfare of war widows. The mothers of slain soldiers held back their tears whenever TV cameras intruded into their private moments of grief and bravely declared that they would send all their sons to die at Kargil. In such a situation, it was inevitable that journalists would also be affected by the national mood.

Had the journalists confined themselves to donating a day's salary, the question of conflicting dharmas might never have arisen. However, as purveyors of information, the media soon got
caught up in what the State called `infowar'. Journalists had to grapple with a moral dilemma as intractable as any: Was it justified to compromise one's fidelity to the truth in order to further what the State defined as the `war effort'?

Two weeks into the conflict, the country was appalled to learn that the bodies of six Indian soldiers had been returned by Pakistan in a severely mutilated condition. Virtually every
newspaper carried the gory details -- as supplied by the Army to UNI -- without waiting for independent or even official confirmation. Strangely, such confirmation never arrived. The
details revealed by the foreign minister, though horrific, fell far short of what was originally alleged. Today, in fact, even though the government has stopped referring to the case as one of
`mutilation' and chooses instead to call it `torture', the allegation of brutal mutilation has stuck. During the war, at least two newspapers received information that the allegation had been
highly exaggerated; it was said that only one of the six bodies had shown signs of mutilation. Yet, the journalists who received this information chose to remain silent.

As the battle progressed, at least one newspaper and one magazine also received reports from correspondents at the front of incidents where Indian soldiers had mutilated the dead bodies
of Pakistani soldiers. After a heated editorial debate, the decision was taken to `kill' these stories, at least till after the fighting was over.

In the Mahabharata, there are several instances where the imperative of truth-telling clashes with other obligations. In once incident, Arjuna decides that he must obey his vow to kill anyone who insults Gandiva, his bow, even though this means he must slay his elder brother Yudhisthira. Fortunately, Krishna intervenes and counsels Arjuna that his duty to avoid
fratricide must take precedence over his duty to be true to his word. Promise-keeping and truth-telling could be compromised, said Krishna, if lives could be saved as a result. He narrated the story of Kaushika, a hermit who always spoke the truth. One day, some merchants passed by. Soon thereafter, a gang of robbers arrived and asked Kaushika where the merchants had
gone. Kaushika truthfully gave them the information they needed, with the result that the merchants were robbed and killed. Since his act of truth-telling led to the loss of innocent lives, Kaushika was punished by the gods and denied heaven after death.

As the late philosopher B K Matilal argued in an essay on moral dilemmas in the Mahabharata, Krishna believed that ``under situational constraints, there might be stronger grounds for rejecting truth-telling as a duty and accepting the stronger duty of saving an innocent life.'' Acknowledging that dharma cannot be known by us as universally fixed, he nevertheless adds: ``But the acknowledgement of possible flexibility does not mean that the fixity and universality of ethical laws will be entirely negotiable...Krishna allows for flexibility of dharma but this
flexibility never means the `anything goes' kind of morality.''

Does Krishna offer the Indian journalist a way out of his moral dilemma during war? He certainly does. The journalist must abide by his dharma so long as nothing he does leads to the loss of an innocent life. To reveal crucial details of strategy when the war is being fought would be an act of moral stupidity equal to that of Kaushika. But the suppression of the truth about certain unpleasant incidents and the dissemination of half-truths and innuendoes alluded to above did not save lives. All it did was to undermine the reputation of the Indian media.