BANGALORE: The Tehelka webzine was a revolutionary act in the field of Indian journalism and it gave investigative reportage a whole new direction.
For any average Indian, the crux of the matter was the sensational footage of 2001 — money exchanging hands pf both the Indian government and the Army, Army officers caught with women and our country being sold off for paltry sums of money and fictitious gadgets. It caused a tremor, added the necessary masala for discussions, left many appalled and then made way for another story.
But the exposé was not just about those trapped on camera; in the aftermath it became an exposé of India and how the country, and the system, function.
Madhu Trehan’s Prism Me a Lie Tell Me a Truth: Tehelka as Metaphor, which was recently launched in the city at Oxford Bookstore, explores just that.
Trehan has indeed written a closeto- 600-pages metaphor. Metaphor for the Indian subconscious. For politics, human and social psyche, for the ever evasive truth and for life in new India.
Through an extensive and detailed research and forensic analysis of what really happened, Trehan tries to identify where the truth actually lies. Over forty interviews, cross-checks on everyone’s version of one of the biggest undercover news stories and years taken to unearth facts have finally translated into this book, looking at the heroes, the villains and the victims.
Trehan writes, “Is there a clear conclusion in the book? Yes, there is, but it is only my conclusion. Readers must come to their own.” The book may be broken into two threads, albeit intertwined. One is the human, more individual side. From the very first chapter ‘Grate Expectations’, as Madhu Trehan builds up the euphoria, the excitement that was slowly growing in the Tarun Tejpal’s mind in anticipation of the ‘breaking’ news, one can sense the imminent danger and the tension builds up. Journalist Mathew Samuel and his boss Aniruddha Bahal, who was also the head of the investigation cell, hardly got time to feel the joy of being the ‘good guys’ of Operation West End.
Their lives were overturned overnight.
Caught in a mesh of false allegations, they were crushed by the corruption- ridden system. Even investors Shankar Sharma and Devina Mehra were shown no mercy. All this while, people like Jaya Jaitley and Bangaru Laxman were constructing a cover-up.
The other side is the more macro picture of how the instruments of democracy are misused and power so easily manhandles the society according to its needs in modern India. In an interview transcript in the book that Madhu conducted with Arun Shourie, she mentions that Shourie had said, “The proposition that man is not an effective agent for changing the manmade world strengthens the inertia of the oppressed and rationalizes the callousness of the rulers.” Tehelka tried to effect change, but the rulers proved too strong, and it is almost as if the society, past and present. colluded with the wrong-doers.
The book is a post-mortem in easy language and also an insight into and guide to modern journalism. A touch lengthy with ‘ray of hope’ that Trehan claims it has somewhat elusive, it is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the workings of the society we are a part of.
shatarupa@epmltd.com