Establishing a pure journalistic motive is an important part of any investigation. In case of Operation Duryodhana it began, innocuously, with a column I wrote for The Hindustan Times on March 20, 2005 where I argued that using intrusive gadgetry like hidden cameras for stories could only be justified if the contours of the story were such that tremendous public interest would be served if the story got some technicolour buoyancy. Essentially, the burden of proof required would be of such magnitude that cinematic splendour would be almost like a legal imperative. I went onto express consternation at the “Casting Couch” series of India TV arguing that voyeuristic exercises like that would blur the public interest element and, amongst other things, give the Government “an excuse to step in and frame some guidelines” and even dilute “the ability of many journalists to pursue serious stories using hidden camera gear” where public interest was unquestionable. Thereafter, I went on to suggest some story ideas for India TV to pursue the first of which I produce, below:
If there is a
dearth of ideas let me suggest some for India TV even at the risk of alerting
potential subjects. I think, coming from the chatter that I hear, an undercover
investigation into how questions really get asked in Parliament would yield
rich dividends. It would be reminiscent of the mid-’90s The Sunday Times
“Commons-cash-for-questions” sting in the UK. If it were upto me I would float
a dummy company and approach MPs across party lines requesting them to ask
questions regarding purported and maybe non-existent business rivals and get it
all on tape. Apart from the seriousness of the matter it would generate a lot
of humour. Imagine the comic spectacle of an MP asking something like: “Why was
the Gorilla International Pvt Ltd blacklisted by the Railway Ministry in spite
of having bid the lowest for Tsu-tsu diesel engines?”
By the time the Railway Ministry went out of whack figuring out the truth from its files you could perhaps get in ten more questions. I was alarmed when somebody told me recently that the going rate could be as low as Rs 5,000 for some MPs for asking questions. Now, I would have some real fun with something like that and only a moron would call it not in public interest.
On March 23, 2005 three days after the column appeared, I received a notice from the Lok Sabha Secretariat (Privileges and Ethics Branch) asking me to respond immediately to the allegation I had made (above) which, according to the member, who had raised the issue with the speaker, was “derogatory and scandalous in nature with the purported intent of lowering the image and esteem of the House as well as the honourable members. It is a serious breach of privilege, amounting to contempt of the House.”
In my response to the notice I sent a letter to Speaker Somnath Chatterjee stating that I have “not commented upon actual happenings inside Parliament or suggested that any particular Member of Parliament was involved in any particular misdeed. A story idea on its own cannot perhaps be equated with an actual event.”
Thereafter, apprehensive of some sort of parliamentary contempt probe I thought it might be a good idea to go to the speaker (if so summoned) with a few cases of the malaise that I had talked about in my column. That is, in case I was served a breach of privilege notice. Thus began Operation Duryodhana, an undercover operation to show MPs taking cash for asking questions in the Indian Parliament. It began in quite a panic initially then, but as the threat of any probe diminished (I never heard from the speaker’s office again, which is not to say that I won’t in the future) Operation Duryodhana developed longevity that stretched from April to December. It burnt more than 56 video and 70 audio tapes and consumed many hundred phone calls. And eventually ended up converting what was just hearsay and rumour into pixellated truth of Dumbledore proportions.