Commentary/T V R Shenoy

The AGP government is acting like the classic bully -- after being yelled at in the street, he goes to beat his wife!

"Give us money and advanced medical care, or we’ll ensure you can’t work!” Is that blackmail?

Well, that depends on who makes the demand. If the inefficient, overstuffed bureaucracy threatens the wobbling Gujral government, it isn’t blackmail. And ministers pay Rs 1,850 billion with a smile.

But it is another story when ULFA militants make similar demands of helpless Tata Tea executives. Since the Asom Gana Parishad can’t do anything to curb terrorism, it promptly targets the victims of terrorism!

For the record, Tata Tea executives insist they didn’t give money as such. Instead, the Tatas are said to have provided medical care and installed a technical school in Assam. (Maybe there should be a militant movement in Bengal too -- where the education minister cheerfully confess that his department hasn’t put up a single primary school in the last 10 years!)

So the AGP government prudently altered the angle of attack. The focus now isn’t the alleged pay-off, but harbouring a wanted man -- the precise count on which Kalpnath Rai and East West airlines executives were jailed. Happily for the Tatas, the draconian TADA isn’t on the books any longer.

The proof of the AGP government’s charge seems to lie in the well-publicised Tata tapes. Incidentally, why are the transcripts of the tapped conversations called the ‘Tata’ tapes? Shouldn’t they be described as the ‘Wadia’ tapes, since it was Bombay Dyeing chief Nusli Wadia whose phones were illegally bugged? Now to the more substantive points...

First, the conversations do seem to indicate top men in the Tata empire lied to the authorities in Assam. This, however, is a matter for the judiciary to resolve.

Second, though the tapes themselves, or select portions, have received immense publicity, nobody has come forward to claim credit for the tapping. Both the Union government and the Maharasthra authorities have publicly denied responsibility. So who bugged Nusli Wadia’s phones?

Two possibilities come to mind immediately. First, it is possible the government agencies are lying. Or, alternatively, the dirty work was carried out by some well-equipped private firm. To my mind, however, the question of who did the actual work isn’t as fascinating as wondering who ordered it to be done. Paying off blackmailing militants may be a crime, but illegal tapping is several degrees worse. It is nothing less than an assault on a citizen’s privacy and his right to express himself freely.

Unhappily, bugging telephones happens quite frequently in India. And Nusli Wadia can have the mournful consolation of knowing he is in excellent company. Even the office in the land is not immune.

A little over 10 years ago, a friend of mine called up to find out whether he could come over. (In India people tend to drop in without such formalities!) He arrived with a thick file -- transcripts of conversations with Giani Zail Singh (then President of India)!

This monstrosity was the Intelligence Bureau’s work (acting on the orders of a paranoid Rajiv Gandhi). Interestingly, I believe the IB may have a role in the ongoing drama as well.

No, I am not saying the agency tapped Wadia’s conversations. But I have every reason to believe the Tatas were in contact with the Bureau, keeping senior officers in the know about what was going on.

This makes for an interesting situation. The AGP government is accusing the Tatas of keeping vital information to itself. Now it seems this information was always available to a wing of the central government. And the IB, for reasons best known to itself, said nothing to the Assam government.

The current rulers in Delhi are the United Front, of which the Asom Gana Parishad is a part. Effectively, there was a total breakdown in communications between two ministries run by the UFconstituents.

All this, of course, is fascinating. But in the debate over Tata Tea, the AGP vendetta, and UF incompetence, please don’t forget the central issue -- the abdication of the AGP where the ULFA is concerned.

A menacing militant movement is squeezing businessmen. Yet the Assam government prefers running after the Tatas to tackling terrorism. (Very sensible -- attacking the ULFA is bad for the health of AGP ministers!)

In other words, the AGP government is acting like the classic bully -- after being yelled at in the street, he goes to beat his wife!

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