By Nalini Ranjan Mohanty
When N. Ram, editor of The Hindu, was relentlessly exposing the Bofors scam with facts, figures and documents in the late 1980s, he had virtually sent the ruling Congress to the doghouse then. The opposition BJP had that time hailed Ram as the doyen of intrepid, investigative journalism.
The ruling Congress had charged Ram and the BJP of compromising India’s national security by raising questions on the Bofors deal. The BJP’s retort then was that by exposing the Bofors scam, Ram was serving the larger interest of national security. Leader after leader of the BJP described Ram as an emblem of nationalist pride.
Now things have turned a full circle. The BJP is the ruling party today and the Congress the main opposition. But Ram remains the unchanged factor in this power play — he continues to be the fearless journalist to expose corruption in the defence deals. The only difference is that he is wielding his pen this time to highlight corruption in the Rafale deal.
The BJP is in the doghouse today because Ram is using facts, figures and documents to show to the world as to how all rules, procedures and safeguards were systematically undermined to benefit a foreign manufacturer and a domestic business house.The BJP is livid; it is baying for the blood of the same N. Ram whom the party had described as the shining star of the Indian media when he helped make Bofors a byword for corruption.
Now that Ram’s series of expose in The Hindu are telling us that corruption in Rafale deal has an eerie resemblance to that of the Bofors deal, the BJP has reasons to be unnerved.
Mind you, the BJP has not said even once that the facts that Ram is putting out in the public domain are lies, or even half-truths. All that it is, in effect, saying – as it said in front of the Supreme Court – is that it would frame Ram on the charge of stealing government documents. The government is virtually telling Ram: Tell us your sources who gave you these documents or we will send you to jail on theft charges.
It is nothing but sheer blackmail. But Ram is not the kind to cow down before such threats; like a true journalist, he has said that he would protect his sources come what may.
Such assertion makes Ram an “anti-national” in BJP’s strident vocabulary.
Can you find a more shameless doublespeak on the part of the BJP and its legions of supporters? Ram was an ardent nationalist when he unravelled the shenanigans of Bofors. But the same Ram becomes a traitor to the nation when he succeeds in decoding the script of the multi-layered Rafale scam!
(Mohanty is a veteran journalist based in New Delhi)
