Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram   

Media should keep a leash on power: Tejpal

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM Dec. 8. The chief editor of the Tehelka Web portal, Tarun Tejpal, has said it is the prime mandate of the media to keep a leash on power and to fight for the rights of individuals.

Inaugurating a three-day media camp organised by the Kerala University Union here on Saturday, Mr. Tejpal said the State would first try to seduce the media and then try to terrorise it. Journalists should no longer be just information disseminators. They should be crusaders who will ask the difficult questions and fight the big battles. For this, their moral centre should be above reproach. Integrity is priceless. All the other qualities desirable in a journalist can be had cheaply these days, he said.

For a vibrant, active, virile democracy, we need a vibrant, active and virile media and vice versa. India needs a `mediasaur' of sorts; an entity that has strong financial legs and the teeth to bite. Those who have the former, do not, unfortunately, have the latter, he added. Tehelka, through Operation Westend, bit, and bit hard. But the company is in deep debt today because the Government destroyed the prime promoter of Tehelka. Before Westend, there were 120 staffers on the Tehelka payroll, now there are only two people trying to keep things afloat, Mr. Tejpal said.

Communalism is the biggest threat that India faces today, a demon, a cultural fault line that has the power to tear the country apart. "I have found that it is always young journalists, unencumbered by relationships, who has come up with the best of stories. At my level, almost everybody is a friend. The toughest hour of the Indian media is at hand. In the next three years, the Indian media will either dig its heels in and fight back against the State's power, or it will fall in line with those in power. My experience with the media shows that the former is the most likely thing to happen,'' Mr. Tejpal said.

Operation Westend had no motives, did not go into the private lives of those in power, only wanted to see how far things can go in defence procurement just by offering bribes. The sting, which is a legitimate method to expose corruption, showed that the holy cow called Indian defence is no better off than any other corrupt Government department in India, he said. In retaliation, those in power react with such vehemence that they wanted to make anybody seeking such an expose, think 10 times before doing so, Mr. Tejpal pointed out.

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