Monday, December 13, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
The low cost of high celebrity
The low cost of high celebrity
P. SAINATH
You can organise a Salman Khan meeting for Rs. 4,300 going by Ashok Chavan's poll expenditure account.
Deprived of chief ministership, Mr. Ashok Chavan has other problems to contend with near at hand. Soon after the October 2009 assembly elections in Maharashtra, Mr. Chavan was embroiled in the ‘paid news' scandal (The Hindu,November 30, 2009). That was about dozens of full pages of ‘news' eulogising the Chief Minister which appeared in major dailies during the poll campaign. Hearings are still on in the Election Commission of India (ECI) on a notice issued to him on the subject. The last one was held as recently as October 29. Had these multiple pages featuring Mr. Chavan been marked as advertisements, they would have cost crores of rupees and been way above the election expenditure limit of Rs. 10 lakh. Mr. Chavan's poll expenditure account states he spent less than Rs. 7 lakh on his entire campaign and a mere Rs. 5,379 on newspaper advertisements. But there have been developments since then, which throw new light on last year's election costs.
Rally expenses
Only last month, Maharashtra handed the Congress at the Centre another embarrassment. The television channel Star Majha aired clips of a conversation between MPCC President Manikrao Thakre and a former State minister. This got recorded after a press conference had concluded and the speakers did not realise that the channel's mike was still on. The channel reported that every minister in the state had been asked to raise Rs. 10 lakh each for Mrs. Sonia Gandhi's rally in Wardha on October 15 this year. Mr. Ashok Chavan himself, so the conversation went, had apparently raised Rs. 2 crore for the rally. The spending of crores of rupees on a public meeting held close to Mahatma Gandhi's ashram in Sewagram — a symbol of simple living — drew a lot of flak.
The claimed expenditure on the rally, though, is curious. The Sewagram event, going by the recorded conversation of the Congress leaders, cost between Rs. 3 and Rs. 5 crores. In comparison, the 2009 election rallies cost next to nothing. Mr. Chavan's election expenditure account of 2009 — and those of his fellow MLAs from Nanded district — tell us that Mrs. Gandhi's election rally in Chavan's home base on October 6 last year cost a mere Rs. 7.44 lakh. That is, less than 2.5 per cent of what this year's Sewagram rally cost. Even that relatively small sum was shared by six Congress candidates.
No less curious, an election meeting in Mr. Chavan's Bhokar constituency in Nanded around the same time, with Bollywood icon Salman Khan as its star attraction, cost almost nothing. According to Mr. Chavan's election expenditure account, Mr. Khan's first meeting in the then Chief Minister's constituency, cost Rs. 4,440. The second even less, Rs. 4,300. In each case, over a third of this expense, Rs. 1,500, was spent on just the “loud speaker” or public address system. Three days after these entries were made in Mr. Chavan's account, a further item was added: “rent of the meeting place” — Rs. 500.
Nanded (and Bhokar in particular) seem to defy rising prices elsewhere. Thepandal top cost just Rs. 200. The setting up of the stage itself, in the first meeting, took no more than Rs. 1,000. And the cloth covering the stage was rented for only Rs. 40. Sofas for the meeting were hired for a mere Rs. 200.
The total cost of all of Salman Khan's meetings and “roadshow” in three constituencies together came to less than Rs. 20,000. This means, all Mr. Khan's events there cost less than three per cent of what Mrs. Gandhi's election rally the same week did. And less than 0.05 per cent of what this October's Sewagram rally cost. That is, if we go by the accounts of three Congress candidates Mr. Ashok Chavan, Mr. D.P. Sawant and Mr. Om Prakash Pokharna.The Hindu has a copy of each of their election accounts. Mr. Khan's meetings and roadshow in the district were also well publicised in newspaper frontpage reports and in advertisements in Nanded. However, some of these ads taken out in the district dailies do not figure in the election accounts of these candidates. The accounts, however, do helpfully mention that Mr. Khan charged no fee or honorarium.
They also account, jointly, for a transportation cost of close to Rs. 1 lakh for the star. That is, for meetings that cost less than Rs. 20,000 totally. This sum was divided equally amongst those three candidates. Mr. Ashok Chavan's poll account, for instance, records a travel expenditure of Rs. 33,000 in connection with Mr. Khan's October 10 meeting. The two other Congress candidates Mr. Sawant and Mr. Pokharna also record almost identical amounts for the same reason. An RTI filed by Nanded journalist Anand S. Kulkarni of Nanded drew the information that Mr. Khan flew into Nanded for the campaign in a private aircraft on October 10, 2009. Which likely accounts for the cost. There were no regular flights of commercial airlines operating that day at Nanded's small airport.
Difference in campaigns
There was a further significant difference between Mrs. Gandhi's campaign and that of Mr. Khan. Mrs. Gandhi is the No. 1 campaigner of the Congress and the expenses on her meetings could be legitimately borne by her party. A national party can submit up to 40 names to the Election Commission (a State-level party, 20 names) of people who will be star campaigners for it. That is, a list of top leaders who would campaign for the party during the particular election. Most of the expenses of these leaders would be borne by the party and not added to the accounts of the individual candidates whose constituencies they visit. Mr. Salman Khan's name does not figure in the list of 40 campaigners submitted by the Congress. A copy of the official list is with The Hindu. However, a senior officer involved in the conduct of those elections told The Hindu: “It sometimes happens that celebrities are shown as ‘accompanying' one of the star campaigners on the list. So then their expenses would not be fully recorded. Indeed, a few non-entities are placed on the star list just to enable this.”
These amazingly low costs have received scant attention. And pose a challenge to an Election Commission keen on cleaning up the game. However, the advertisements that are not accounted for, are part of the complaint and hearings underway at the Election Commission of India. The ECI's own instructions of March 2007 to chief electoral officers on such advertisements demand a full accounting. The next ECI hearing in the ‘paid news' case is on November 12. Mr. Chavan's troubles may continue.
Is the ‘Era of Ashok’ a new era for ‘news’?
Is the ‘Era of Ashok’ a new era for ‘news’?
P. SAINATH
The frontpage of the Ashok Parv (Era of Ashok) supplement, which must have cost a fortune. Photo: Vivek Bendre
Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan spent a mere Rs. 5,379 on newspaper advertisements during the recent State Assembly election, by his own claim. And he spent another Rs.6,000 on cable television ads. These figures are clearly at odds with the unprecedented media coverage the Chief Minister got during the election campaign. The Hindu has gathered 47 full newspaper pages, many of them in colour, focused exclusively on Mr. Chavan, his leadership, his party and government. These appeared in large newspapers, including one ranking amongst India’s highest circulation dailies. However, they were not marked as advertisements.
By his own account, candidate Chavan spent less than Rs. 7 lakh on his election campaign overall during the Assembly polls. The spending limit imposed on contestants is Rs. 10 lakh. Section 77 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 stipulates that candidates must submit their campaign expenses accounts to the district election officer within 30 days of the declaration of results. Apart from a signed statement and summary, the candidate must submit the accounts in the format of “Register for Maintenance of Day to Day Accounts of Election Expenditures by Contesting Candidates.”
The Chief Minister won the Bhokar Assembly seat of Maharashtra’s Nanded district against an independent candidate by a margin of over one lakh votes.
The Hindu has a copy of Mr. Chavan’s account. Two RTI applications were filed by the newspaper’s correspondents in Delhi and Mumbai. Two more were filed by Mr. Shivaji Gaikwad of the Kisan Sabha in Bhokar (Mr. Chavan’s constituency) and by Mr. Gangadhar Gaikwad of the DYFI in Nanded. The Nanded district election officer responded most promptly and Mr. Gangadhar Gaikwad received the statement on Thursday. This is a significant step. Unlike the affidavits declaring their assets, the expenditure sheets of candidates do not mandatorily appear on the ECI’s website.
Perhaps they should. Mr. Chavan received astonishing media coverage during the campaign. The newspapers carrying those many full pages on him nowhere marked them as advertising. In other words, this material ran as ‘news.’ Had it been advertising, it would have cost crores of rupees.
Mr. Chavan states that he placed six newspaper advertisements with that Rs. 5,379. All these were in a minor Marathi daily, Satyaprabha, in Nanded district. However, the flood of full pages on Mr. Chavan and his party, hailing this as the “Era of Ashok,” and the “Era of Development,” ran in Marathi newspapers like Lokmat. If advertising, this would have cost lakhs of rupees. Lokmat is the fourth largest daily in the country and the top-circulated one in Maharashtra (NRS 2006).
The huge mismatch between the account’s stated Rs. 5,379 and the dozens of full pages of ‘news’ in The Hindu’s possession will surely re-stoke the debate over what has now come to be called ‘paid news.’
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Paid news for dummies
Paid news for dummies
SEVANTI NINAN
| A primer to help you understand the finer nuances of media financing… |
Bottom line: the age of innocence is over. Learn to live with it.
Photo: P.V. Sivakumar 
Hard times? Too many media companies, too few ads...
I s it a sign of the times that there is a media-ethics related discussion in the capital city every week? Having been to three in as many weeks, one now feels equipped to come up with a handy primer to help you understand all the delicate new nuances of media financing. In all the brouhaha over paid news, a lot of different categories are getting lumped together. So to begin with folks, let's sort them out.
Paid news is what everybody is talking about. This is coverage that is paid for, but not labelled as advertising. Meaning, it kind of looks like a normal newspaper story, except that everybody at some time or the other carries the same story in roughly the same language. There is political and general paid news. In the political genre, this not-so-smart practice had a major outing in the Lok Sabha elections of 2009, though it started much earlier. It became full blown with the Maharashtra elections last year, as this newspaper has told you, several times over. What does it cost, at its maximum? According to the leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj, citing her personal experience in Madhya Pradesh last year, figuring in a positive light in all the papers that matter is ensured for a rough total of Rs. one crore. Another venerable MP from her party in a private conversation cited exactly the same figure for another state, Jharkhand. Does it win you an election? Not necessarily because your opponent is being offered and probably accepting, exactly the same deal.
General paid news is when you see a distinctly non newsy individual or event getting a splash on the front page of the city supplement of your morning paper or on a channel like Zoom. This began a long time ago, and nobody bats an eyelid any more when the practice persists. The Bennett Coleman media group began the practice through a company called MediaNet, some years ago. Initially it indicated which items were paid for. Now it does not.
Advertising clout
Then there is advertising, which is the life blood of the media industry, and which enters the realm of media ethics when it is used as a pressuring tool. Write nicely about us, and we will give you advertising. If your pesky reporters write not-so-nice things, we will withdraw ads. This particular aspect of using money to influence news is rather old but becomes potent when there is lots of media chasing fewer ads, particularly in a recession year. It also impacts entire segments of reporting. As Outlook editor-in-chief Vinod Mehta said at one of the discussions mentioned above, corporate life in India goes unexamined with the same kind of zeal and enthusiasm with which we take on political honchos. Why? Because they are the big advertisers.
The third category is public relations, which is described in lots of civilised ways by those who practise it. “We don't do spin-doctoring. There is a new generation of highly under pressure, under-researched individuals becoming journalists. We have to hand-hold clients through this.” Meaning through interviews with them. “PR is looking for the right chinks through which the client wants to push his or her message through. Chose the right story, right vehicle, right time — seven in the evening.” “PR is something through which different kinds of voiceless, can get a voice. It is about providing opportunities to people.” All this from my friend Dilip Cherian who describes himself as an image guru. Put like this, it means there is nothing cheap like paid news involved in this brand of persuasion-for-a-fee.
But the fact remains that PR is also instrumental in getting not-always-newsworthy people and events coverage, and if you are wondering where money comes in, here is where it does . Public Relations professional Anshu Khanna says that when you find a page three item not naming an individual or an event, but writing about it without names, you should know that the paper or magazine is signalling that the needful has not been done. Or when the opening of an artist's show or a book launch is covered like an ordinary party with no focus on the paintings or on the book.
Then there is underwritten news, which is simply a matter of picking up the tab for coverage on location. Pick up Harpers or Vogue, or Marie Claire and look at the wonderful locations shoots for jewellery or clothes. If there are lavish layouts running into several pages, rest assured that the magazine has not been splurging out of its coffers for the love of its readers. But nowhere does it say ‘advert' or anything like that. The brand being showcased pays for everything: the shoot costs, and giving the writer and photographer a very comfortable trip to the location. Plus, in some cases, for the story's publication, at a per page rate. So you have glossies where it is impossible to tell where the ads end and where the text begins. The latest entrant in this genre is a fashion glossy called Flamante, which the Times of India group has just launched.
Similarly, some lifestyle TV channels may be particular about paying for trips to spas and holiday destinations that their reporters cover, but the Indian ones are not. And as for covering soft news events at locations abroad, news channels like NDTV 24x7 are quite clear that the organisers must pick up the tab for the entire crew.
Changed times
So what are the honchos in charge saying about all this? “We live in hard times,” said Vinod Mehta, adding that paid advertorial in Outlook was called Spotlight, and he played very little role in what went in there. At a meeting on election-related paid news organised by four media bodies including the Editors Guild, the wisdom was that the best you can hope for is disclosure. We will take money for coverage, but we will indicate that it is paid coverage. We have to do it, said Rajdeep Sardesai, the current president of the Editors Guild. “We are listed quarter by quarter. We have to show profits.” “Editors find it difficult to stand up to proprietors who want to charge for election coverage,” said Mrinal Pande, former editor of Hindustan.
“You cannot run a media company without money,” said Pankaj Pachauri of NDTV. “But there are editors who stand up to media marketers. I have 150 advertisers. You spread your risk.”
Bottom line: the age of innocence is over. Learn to live with it.
Friday, April 23, 2010
It is shameful to misguide people
It is shameful to misguide people
Well-known PR firms, professional designers, and ad agencies served the richer parties and candidates. They made up 'news' items in the standard fonts and sizes of the desired newspapers and even 'customised' the items to make them seem exclusive in different publications. P Sainath reports.
This happened mostly during the last days before voting as desperate candidates poured in money to buy "news." As one senior journalist explained it: "On television, the number of bulletins shot up. In print, the number of pages. The demand had to be met. Often the extra package stuff came in at the last minute and had to be accommodated. Why turn them away?"
In Marathi, Hindi, English, and Urdu newspapers across the State, you can find many fascinating things during the election period that were not turned away. Sometimes the same puff item appeared as 'news' in one newspaper and as an advertisement in another. "It is shameful to misguide people," reads the headline of an item paid for by Umakant (Babloo) Deotale, an independent candidate from Nagpur South West. This appears inLokmat (Oct. 6) with a tiny 'ADVT' (advertisement) at the bottom. It appears the same day inThe Hitavada (Nagpur's leading English language daily) with no mention at all of its being an advertisement. Mr. Deotale got one thing right: it is shameful to misguide people.
In newspapers across the state, sometimes the same puff item appeared as 'news' in one newspaper and as an advertisement in another
Both these devices enabled the government, big parties, and rich candidates to spend huge sums of money that would not figure in poll expenditure accounts. Yet another device, widely used during the actual campaign, is absent in almost all candidate expenditure accounts: the massive use of SMS and voice mail messages. Also, the setting up of campaign-related websites. The amounts involved were significant. Their reflection in candidate accounts is nil.
"News" reports after August 30 and September 18 were fascinating in many ways. For one thing, there is not a single critical or negative line in any of them. Across hundreds of pages, the "news" consists solely of how wonderful particular candidates were, their achievements, and the progress of their campaigns. Nothing about the issues. Their rivals, people of fewer resources, did not exist in these newspaper pages except, perhaps, as fall guys.
Further, if you struck the right deal, the same "news" could appear in print, on television, and online. This was "package journalism" at its most advanced, that was truly multi-media. The shift to this kind of "news" was so large that real advertising at election time - when it should have been highest - actually fell in some influential newspapers.
Sadly, a few senior journalists had their bylines on some of the paid stuff. Some of them had the rank of chief reporter or even chief of bureau. A few may have done so willingly. But there were those who told me: "In the days when this was about petty corruption of individual journalists, we had a choice. To be or not to be corrupt. Now when this is an organised industry run by our employers, what choice do we have?"
Several newspapers published in Maharashtra between October 1 and 10, 2009 make fun reading. Sometimes, you find a page of mysteriously fixed item sizes, say 125-150 words plus a double column photo. The "fixed size" items are curious. News seldom unfolds in such rigid terms. (Advertisements do.) Elsewhere, you can see multiple fonts and drop case styles in the same page of a single newspaper. This was so because everything - layouts, fonts, and printouts came from the candidate seeking a slot. Even the bad pictures sullying the pages of organised papers came from candidates. There was no way a daily with two or three photographers could cope with the frenzy and demand of the first ten days of October.
Sometimes you got a more organised page or two - on which every single "news item" was on one political party only. No one else was found newsworthy on those pages. Page 3 ofPudhari (Oct. 6) worked for the Congress this way. Pages 3 and 4 of Sakaal's Ranadhumali("Tumult of the Battlefield") supplement (Oct. 10) found only MNS-related items relevant. Other major parties too, those with ample resources, got such treatment elsewhere. There were pages where only the NCP made "news" (Deshonnati Oct.11). Deshonnati'sSeptember 15 edition had four pages on Chief Minister Ashok Chavan. Nothing else appeared in those pages. There were similarly 12 pages of Mr. Chavan in the Hindi daily Nav Bharat between Sept. 30 and Oct. 13 (which brings our tally of Chavan-centric full pages to 89). On the other hand, as D-day approached, you got crowded pages, some with as many as 12 items and 15 photographs.
Since candidates or their political parties mostly delivered the "news" in the poll-period, most papers did not edit or change a thing. How do we explain otherwise why the items and their "bylines" violate the papers' own style or practice? At the very least, this raises troubling questions.
For instance, Sakaal normally credits reports from its own staffers as "Batmidar" (reporter). Or else as being from Sakaal Vruttaseva (News Service) or from the Sakaal News Network. Or it uses the reporter's name in the story. But what are obviously Congress handouts (masquerading as news) come signed as Pratinidhi (correspondent). So you found the newspaper carrying items marked Pratinidhi against its own run of professional play. One of these party plugs signed Pratinidhi (Sakaal, October 4) bears the headline "State's leadership will return to Congress!" Sakaal places "Batmidar" at the top of its stories, the Congress handouts place "Pratinidhi" at the bottom. The two make odd bedfellows in the issues of October 4 and 9. Was this news? Was it advertising? Was it a bird or a plane?
Well-known PR firms, professional designers, and ad agencies served the richer parties and candidates, making up their items in the standard fonts and sizes of the concerned newspapers. They also "customised" the "news" to make it seem exclusive in different publications.
A handful of candidates, many of them builders, made more "news" than others. Conversely, smaller parties and less well-endowed candidates tended to get blacked out of any coverage in several newspapers across the State. Some of them have written to me, telling their stories. One, Shakil Ahmed, a lawyer and independent candidate in Sion-Koliwada in Mumbai, said the very newspapers that had earlier given him space as a social activist "demanded money to write about me as a candidate. Since I refused to pay, nobody wrote about me." Mr. Ahmed is eager to depose before the Election Commission of India as well as the Press Council of India.
Journalists and activists from the districts sent us over a hundred issues of 21 different newspapers in the State. These ranged from high-circulation big names to small local dailies. All had their pages crowded with such "news." In television channels, the same items making the rounds sometimes arrived as news on one channel and as advertisements on another. One such item appeared on two channels with the voice of a reporter from a third. And with the boom mike of the third channel showing up on rival screens.
As polling day approached, some journalists were besieged by desperate candidates with limited resources who risked being drowned in the flood. They needed professionals, they pleaded, to write their "paid news" items and were willing to shell out the modest amounts they could afford. The last days of the campaign actually saw some of these tiny items -reflecting the candidate's financial status - find their way on to newspapers pages.
And these were elections, the news media told us, that had "no issues" at all. ⊕
P Sainath
25 Dec 2009
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Paid news undermining democracy: Press Council report
The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : Paid news undermining democracy: Press Council report
Paid news undermining democracy: Press Council report
P. Sainath
| It explicitly names newspapers and channels — including some of the biggest groups in the country — seen as having indulged in the “paid news” practice. |
The report traces the emergence of the paid news phenomenon over years and phases
Seeks a pro-active role from the Election Commission in initiating action against offenders
“The phenomenon of ‘paid news' goes beyond the corruption of individual journalists and media companies. It has become pervasive, structured and highly organised and in the process, is undermining democracy in India.” So finds the draft report of inquiry conducted into the phenomenon by the Press Council of India to be discussed by the full Council on April 26 in Delhi. The Hindu has obtained a copy of the report to be put up at that meeting.
The report is titled “Paid News: How corruption in the Indian media undermines Indian democracy.” It marshals a vast amount of material on the issue and is a compendium of media malpractice. It explicitly names newspapers and channels — including some of the biggest groups in the country — seen as having indulged in the “paid news” practice. The report could run into rough weather for that reason, with a few Council members reluctant about naming names. (Though it gives space and weightage to the denials of the media groups under the scanner.)
The “lack of consensus” over naming names also extends to the report's reflection of the views of journalists' unions which have called for strengthening the Working Journalists Act. The unions assert that the contract system of employment now in vogue undermines the independence of the journalist and the primacy of the editor. The Delhi Union of Journalists even informed the Council that “selected journalists had been targeted by managements of media companies for not acquiescing with such malpractices”.
Interestingly, many prominent politicians and public figures either deposed before the inquiry panel or made written submissions to it. Others also handed the panel their statements on the subject elsewhere. Across the spectrum, points out the report, even politicians normally loath to antagonise the media have complained bitterly about what many of them see as little more than extortion. A Sub-Committee of the Press Council, comprising Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and K. Srinivas Reddy, conducted the inquiry. Their report quotes opposition leader Sushma Swaraj's statement that the “paid news” menace had “started out as an aberration, went on to become a disease and is now an epidemic”.
The report speaks of the “deception or fraud” that paid news entails as having three levels. First: “the reader of the publication or the viewer of the television programme is deceived into believing that what is essentially an advertisement is in fact, independently produced news content.” Second: “By not officially declaring the expenditure incurred on planting “paid news” items, the candidate standing for election violates the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, which are meant to be enforced by the Election Commission of India under the Representation of the People Act, 1951.” And third: “by not accounting for the money received from candidates, the concerned media company or its representatives are violating the provisions of the Companies Act, 1956 as well as the Income Tax Act, 1961, among other laws.”
The report notes the “huge amount of circumstantial evidence that has been painstakingly gathered by a few well-meaning journalists, unions of journalists, other individuals and organisations together with the testimonies of the politicians and journalists who have deposed before the Press Council of India.” And says this “goes a very long way in establishing the fact that the pernicious practice of paid news has become widespread across media (both print and electronic, English and non-English languages) in different parts of the country. Interestingly, this phenomenon appears to be less pervasive in states (such as Kerala or Tamil Nadu) where the media is clearly divided along political lines.”
The report traces the emergence of the paid news phenomenon over years and phases including such forms of space selling as MediaNet and Private Treaties. “In pursuing its quest for profits,” it says, “it can be argued that certain media organizations have sacrificed good journalistic practices and ethical norms”. What began as individual or one one-off transgressions, it points out, became institutionalised over the years. “Private Treaties” involve deals where corporates pay media companies in shares for advertising, plus other, favourable treatment. The “Private Treaties” have also disturbed the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) which, as early as July 2009, wrote to the Chairman of the Press Council of India, Justice G.N. Ray, that such strategies “may give rise to conflict of interest and may, therefore, result in dilution of the independence of [the] press vis-à-vis the nature and content of the news/editorials relating to such companies”. SEBI “felt that such brand building strategies of media groups, without appropriate and adequate disclosures, may not be in the interest of investors and financial markets as the same would impede in them taking a fair and well-informed decision”.
The “Private Treaties” structure lost its sheen when the stock market crash of 2008 saw those shares acquired from corporates plummet in value. However, the media companies were still to be assessed for tax purposes at the old values prevailing at the time of such contracts. “Paid news” was one way out of this trouble. Since all the transactions were illegal and off the account books, it benefitted both media owners and politicians.
The report explores several ways to curb the menace of “paid news”. It seeks a far more pro-active role from the Election Commission for instance. It calls on the ECI to set up “a special cell to receive complaints about ‘paid news' in the run up to the polls. Where a prima facie case is established, it calls on the ECI to initiate action against offenders.
It asks that the ECI nominate independent journalists or public figures to help monitor the phenomenon during elections. It calls upon media organisations to desist from having their correspondents “double up as agents collecting advertisements for their organisations and receiving a commission on that revenue”, instead of regular salaries, retainers or stipends.
The report also calls for giving regulatory bodies like the Press Council more teeth. It further appeals to media organisations to adopt a number of principles that would curb “paid news”. However, it recognises that self-regulation and civil society oversight, while welcome and useful, can tackle the problem “only to an extent”. There would have to be effective use of existing laws to “apprehend those indulging in practices that are tantamount to committing a fraud on the public”.
Towards positive change
Towards positive change
The the machinery and conduct of elections, is robust and intact. But the 'software' of democracy, the processes by which we are governed in-between elections, is corrupt and corroded, writes Ramachandra Guha.
Nor the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, whose journal, the Organiser, was certain that Jawaharlal Nehru "would live to confess the failure of universal adult franchise in India". Sceptical about this "leap in the dark", this "precipitate dose of democracy", the Organisercomplained that Nehru, "who has all along lived by slogans and stunts, would not listen".
As it happens, Nehru's faith was shared by millions of ordinary Indians. They chose to disregard the warnings of Hindu reactionaries, Oxford scholars, and English-speaking editors. A staggering 107 million Indians cast their franchise in the 1952 elections, this by far the greatest exercise of democratic will in human history. The record set then has been beaten 13 times - each time by Indians. And in the summer of 2009 the record will be superseded once more.
Before India, no society steeped in poverty and illiteracy had ever experimented with electoral democracy. Before India, no polity, large or small, had granted adults of both genders the vote at one fell swoop. In older democracies such as France, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, the privilege was first extended to rich men, later to educated men, then to all men, and finally, after a very long struggle, to women as well. Even a supposedly 'advanced' country such as Switzerland permitted its women citizens to vote only as late as 1971.
On the other hand, in independent India the franchise was immediately granted to all adults, regardless of education, wealth, gender or caste. The American constitution was adopted in 1787, but people of colour have effectively had the right to vote only since the 1960s. However, Dalits in India voted, and Dalit candidates were elected to Parliament, within two years of the writing of our own Constitution.
Electoral democracy in India was an act of faith, a challenge to logic and the received wisdom, perhaps even the biggest gamble in history. That it has now gone through so many iterations should be a matter of pride for Indians. Not least because our elections are free and fair. The Election Commission of India enjoys an enviable reputation for efficiency and neutrality. As recently as 2000, an American presidential election was decided by faulty balloting and biased judges. But we can be certain that the 2009 general election in India will more reliably reflect the will of the people.
Who will this verdict favour? Even the most trained psephologist (or astrologer) will not, I think, go so far as to offer an unambiguous answer to this question, to thus make himself hostage to a prediction that may go horribly wrong. For all one can safely say about the next general elections is that, like the six that immediately preceded it, no single party will get a majority in Parliament. Three options present themselves - first, that the Congress and its allies will somehow cobble together a majority; second, that the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies shall beat them to the magic figure of 272; third, that neither alliance will achieve its aim, thus making room for a minority 'third front' government propped up by either the BJP or the Congress.
The rise of coalition governments is a product of the deepening of Indian democracy. Our country is too large and too diverse to be adequately represented by a single party, or to be ruled in turn by two rival 'national' parties either. Thus communities that claim disadvantage on the basis of region, language or caste have articulated their grievances through political parties set up to represent their interests. At the local level, these identity-based parties have sometimes promoted a more inclusive politics, by giving space to groups previously left out of governance and administration.
However, when aggregated at the level of the nation, these regional diversities lead to irrational and excessively short-term outcomes. Despite their grand-sounding names, neither the United Progressive Alliance nor the National Democratic Alliance has a coherent ideology that serves to bind the alliance's partners. Smaller parties join the BJP or the Congress on a purely opportunistic basis, seeking to extract profitable ministerships or subsidies to vote banks in exchange for political support.
Our country is too large and too diverse to be adequately represented by a single party, or to be ruled in turn by two rival 'national' parties either.
What might be done to redeem this? How might the political process be made more efficient and more sensitive to the needs of the citizens? Here are a few concrete suggestions for how we may improve Indian politics in the year 2009 and beyond:
First, promote bipartisanship on issues of national security and foreign policy. The Congress and the BJP are equally guilty here. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited Srinagar, as the first prime minister to do so in more than a decade, Sonia Gandhi asked the Congress ministers in the state government to boycott his speech. More recently, when several years of peace were threatened by the Amarnath controversy, L K Advani worked to intensify the conflicts between Jammu and the Kashmir valley, when he could have instead chosen to collaborate with the government to resolve them. On the question of terrorism, too, the BJP and the Congress seek to wound the other party rather than to make common cause in the national interest. When the idea of India is itself in peril, there must be no place for the politics of vindictive opposition.
Second, promote lateral entry into government. One reason Western states are better run than ours is that top jobs are not a monopoly of party apparatchiks and civil servants. Rather, qualified technologists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and journalists are encouraged to enter government in posts suited to their skills. Why should a successful businessman not be eligible to be made commerce secretary, or a brilliant scientist education secretary?
Third, restore Parliament as a theatre for reasoned debate, which it indeed was for the first quarter-century of its existence. The first few Lok Sabhas met for some 150 times a year; now, we are lucky if Parliament convenes for 80 days a year. And when they are not on holiday, the members of parliament seek not to speak themselves but to stop others from speaking.
Fourth, put pressure on political parties to voluntarily adopt a retirement age. No one more than 70 years of age should be permitted by their party to contest elections or hold office. In a young country and fast-moving world, to have octogenerians running state governments or seeking to be prime minister simply won't do.
Fifth, act on the EC's suggestion and include, on the ballot paper, the category "None of the above", to be inserted after the list of candidates for each constituency. The right not to vote, and to make it known that an individual will not vote , is a natural extension of the democratic right to choose a particular candidate or party to represent oneself.
As the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks has underlined, the disenchantment with politicians runs deep in India. However, the slogans that currently express this disgust - "Jail all corrupt politicians", "Do not pay your taxes", and so on - are either wholly negative, or wholly impractical, or both. On the other hand, the proposals outlined above are both positive as well as realistic. They are intended to make Indian democracy something more than the periodic exercise of the popular right to vote.
That right is, of course, indispensable - and we should be thankful that, unlike some other countries in our neighbourhood, we can exercise it yet again in 2009. But we cannot be content with this. And so, in the interval between the 15th and the 16th general elections, let us promote bipartisanship in foreign policy, encourage talented professionals to enter government, restore the integrity of Parliament, send old politicians into a dignified retirement, and add, to the right to vote, the right not to vote as well. ⊕
Ramachandra Guha
04 Feb 2009
Ramachandra Guha is a historian, and a regular columnist with The Telegraph of Calcutta.
Elite activism: can't vote, can vet
Elite activism: can't vote, can vet
The Beautiful People whose next-door neighbours never vote are back, teaching the masses - who do vote - how to go about it in the civic elections in Mumbai. This is the upper middle class trying to preen itself in the one process where they matter less, writes P Sainath.
All wards reserved for backward classes and Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes/women will have "candidates of poor calibre." So 'asserts' one of Mumbai's most high profile 'citizen activists' in a daily newspaper in the city. This statement - from a 'civil' society leader - escaped comment or response. Both in that paper and at large. A sign of how easily caste and other visceral prejudices pass off as analysis in the aggressive anti-reservation mood gripping the upper classes.
That isn't all, though. His group is "trying to working out a system of grading candidates." Elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's 227 wards will be held next month. And the rotation of reserved wards is causing heartburn. More so amongst the elite. Some of Mumbai's swankiest neighbourhoods find their wards reserved for SCs and OBCs. (It could hurt property values, you know.) And the bile is out.
Besides, it's that time of year. "Citizens' groups," mostly headed by the very elite, are hogging media time and space. The Beautiful People whose next-door neighbours never vote are back, teaching the masses - who do vote - how to go about it. One group wants a corporate agency to do candidate 'ratings.' (This has rich possibilities. A Candidate Sensitive Index? Call it CANSEX?) Others are running their own aspirants.
Now all this, up to a point, is good clean fun. It is part of the charm of elections in our society that so many feel encouraged to stand. (Including one astonishing BMC hopeful who got just the one vote the last time. And two more who secured two votes each.) It speaks well, too, of the urge to participate in the democratic process. And different groups do so in many ways. Political parties contest wards they know they will lose. Where they might at best get a few hundred votes. Maybe a thousand. They see that as a way of measuring their core vote there. And believe this will help consolidate a nascent base that might otherwise drift towards other parties.
There are also other, truly interesting groups this time. Like one that will contest each of the six wards in Dharavi, Asia's biggest slum. Win or lose they will force a debate on some of the most vital issues of urban development. Including the future of lakhs of families like their own. Maharashtra's scheme for Dharavi sells out residents' interests to real estate sharks. Fearing the destruction of their livelihoods, some locals have formed this group to contest the BMC polls.
And, of course, there are the mainstream political parties involved in the battle for control of a corporation whose Rs.9,000 crore budget outstrips those of some States in the Northeast. This time, Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena will be a spoiler for the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance. Those refused a ticket by the latter now have more ponds to fish in. The Congress-Natiionalist Congress Party's who-will-blink-first alliance bargaining is entertaining. And the re-delineation of wards can make things dicey for some hopefuls.
It's happened before. The newspapers of 1971 were over the moon with Naval Tata running for the Lok Sabha from Bombay South. In the event, he was trounced by a Congress candidate little heard of at the time, and unheard of since.
During the 2004 national polls, and the Assembly elections later, the same elite Mumbai crowd hogged hours of television time. They existed wholly in the media, both print and visual. Malabar Hill socialites became 'noted activists.' They played a central role in television debates. And were always accepted at their own valuation. That is, the people the anchor turned to with deep respect as independent, impartial forces without a bias. But with a 'cause' - the cleansing of a corrupt electoral process. Which only they, of course, were capable of. All this tanked horribly at the hustings. As the results rolled out, not a byte was sought, nor a quote supplied, from the previous month's wholesale dealers in profound thought.
This is so across the country. Any outfit launched by ex-IITians, for instance, is a sure-fire media hit. No matter that these sink without a trace at the polls. The last one commanded front page treatment in the press. The highlights included such thoughtful quotes from its founders: "Giving up handsome pay packages, comfort of family and support of friends wasn't that easy." And "My inner voice told me I should invest my efforts in my country... " "People think we are crazy so much so that our families have also failed to understand our motto... " (You'd think that if even your own family failed to understand, you might have a communication problem. One that could hurt you in the campaign.) Some of these were likely sincere, well-meaning people. But you could also have got these same quotes from thousands of others candidates.
However, it was the 'brand' that mattered. At least to the media if not the voter. As one young journalist covering the present round of BMC polls puts it: our approach is simple. Anything that has an 'I' a double 'II' or 'IT' in it makes front page. That is, if you have an IT, IIT or IIM tag. Then the force is with you. Candidates of these brands are covered with near reverence.
It happened in the 2006 polls in Tamilnadu when one of the chosen few "took on Karunanidhi" in Chepauk. Newspapers ran stories on this brave new world battle. It didn't matter that Mr. Karunanidhi had likely never heard of his rival and probably never will. This was an IIT man. Again, of course, he had a right to be in the fray. And to take on Mr. Karunanidhi, if he saw it that way. And it does not matter that he got under 1 per cent of the votes cast and less than two per cent of those notched up by the DMK leader. It does matter that the space the media gave this was misleading to their audiences, cruel to a cub candidate, and harmful to their own credibility.
But with each new election we go through the whole drama again. The media love it when someone they see as 'middle class' gives those ugly politicians "a run for their money." (Usually, the heroes are mostly upper middle class in the Indian hierarchy.) Another big daily in Mumbai has front-paged the decision of three ex-IITians to run in the BMC elections. It goes on.
One tabloid has front-paged several stories of heroic 'citizens activist' groups. These reports carry a symbol - the clenched fist. Not a symbol most of the upper classes would care to have in their own homes. But it's the thought that counts, I guess.
Margins and upsets
One argument the groups now make is that in 83 BMC wards, the victory margin was less than 100 votes the last time. So in theory, if you can get 100 votes, you can cause an upset. The margins may have been narrow. But the top candidates got votes in the thousands. Raj Thackeray's MNS candidates could cause several such upsets. But only on the basis of getting quite a few votes themselves. Even being a spoiler requires some clout.
Meanwhile, the papers though are full of 'tips' and 'ideas' from the groups on how we should vote. These range from the embarrassing to the absurd. And have little to do with the issues that motivate far more conscious voters and citizens than themselves.
It's happened before. The newspapers of 1971 were over the moon with Naval Tata running for the Lok Sabha from Bombay South. They saw this as the best thing ever to happen for the 'middle class.' Good, clean candidates were all that people wanted. For some, the race was a no-contest. Tata would win hands down. In the event, he was trounced by a Congress candidate little heard of at the time, and unheard of since. After that, many good, clean industrialists have settled for buying their way into the Rajya Sabha.
The lovely bit is where the newspaper or channel tells you: "this time it's different." A group of idealistic young whatever have "banded together" to do whichever. The current crop are fighting 'vote bank politics.' 'Vote bank' means those who support someone you can't stand. But something is different this time. And it's appalling. Open jibes at SC, ST, and OBC candidates and voters. Attacks on 'slum appeasement' by politicians. Some members of these elite outfits are closely linked to corporate cabals whose thinking they mirror. Some have also been party to a petition seeking to take away the voting rights of slum dwellers whose huts have been demolished. (Aha! They have no address now. How can they vote?) Even the eccentric charm of the two-vote wannabes is missing in this lot. And they are completely without humour. This is the upper middle class trying to preen itself in the one process where they matter less. They seem not satisfied with the fact that their raj will mostly be restored once it is over. ⊕
P Sainath
14 Jan 2007
Courtesy: The Hindu
SC keeps door open on negative voting
SC keeps door open on negative voting
A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court has referred the question of whether voters should have the option to declare their lack of confidence in all the candidates on a ballot to a Constitution bench. Kannan Kasturi reports.
09 March 2009 - It is election summer, and the leaders of the major political parties are busy nominating candidates whose most important qualification will be the ability to take advantage of the local caste or community arithmetic in their respective constituencies. In these pre-election games, neither those who do the everyday work of parties nor those who vote them in and out of power have anything to do with selecting candidates. Naturally, then, one is led to ask - on Election Day, should the voter have the choice to reject all candidates - by selecting a 'None of the above' option on the electronic voting machines - if he finds them all unsuitable?
The proposal for allowing what is commonly termed the 'negative vote' was debated for many years before it reached the doors of the Supreme Court as the substance of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in 2004. A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court, disposing this petition on 23 February 2009, found sufficient merit in it to recommend its consideration by a larger Constitution Bench; the Government of India, opposing the petition, had argued for its outright dismissal.
This proposal for electoral reform is just one example of the many that have been languishing for years for want of action on the part of the Government. The history of these attempts at electoral reforms provides valuable insights into the forces ranged for and against them. But first, it will be useful to consider the problems of the elector today, and the arguments advanced for and against the negative vote.
Lack of interest or disapproval?
What are the choices before an elector today if s/he is presented with an undesirable set of candidates? There is an obscure provision in the current election rules that allows a voter to merely register his presence at the booth with the polling officials without voting for any candidate. But this option is not secret, and as a result one can expect it to be rarely used, and that indeed that is the case.
The major political parties, notwithstanding their differences, share a strong common vested interest in denying greater rights and freedoms to the electors, and have closely co-operated in Parliament to defend the status quo in electoral law.
There are other ways of expressing dissatisfaction with the slate of candidates. Voting for the least unacceptable candidate is another option, but this is only possible when at least one candidate meets the minimum threshold of acceptance for a voter. The more common practice, among those who aren't particularly enamoured of any of their potential representatives, is to stay away from the polling booth altogether, and over 280 million electors did just that during the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. But abstaining electors inevitably invite the charge of being uninterested in the affairs of the nation, and of failing to be good citizens. The recent Tata Tea/Janaagraha-led jaago re campaign epitomises this view in the lines "On election day, if you are not voting, you are in slumber...".
Against this backdrop, the introduction of a 'None of the above' option in the ballot is expected to give the elector a legitimate way of expressing disapproval of candidates in an election without appearing to boycott the proceedings as a whole. As a positive side effect to this, incidences of bogus voting through impersonation of absent voters should come down. There is also perhaps an optimistic view that negative voting will lead eventually to better candidates. The Law Commission in its 170th report on Reform of Electoral Laws, while recommending the negative vote, explained its benefit: "the negative vote is intended to put moral pressure on political parties not to put forward candidates with undesirable record i.e., criminals, corrupt elements and persons with unsavoury background".
However, it has been pointed out that such pressure would be more likely to work, if, the negative vote also carries weight in determining the outcome of an election. For example, the election rules could provide for a re-election in case 'None of the above' option receives more votes than any candidate, and also bar the original candidates from contesting again.
Critics of the negative vote option do not find anything wrong in principle with the measure. Rather, their criticism is that it may be impractical to implement, that it is unlikely to change voting patterns, and hence unnecessary. Examples are cited of countries with the negative vote where it has not made a great difference. The State of Nevada in the United States has a 'None of these candidates' option in its ballots and votes gathered under this option are reported, though the 'first-past-the-post' candidate is always declared elected. In the recent presidential elections in the US, only 0.65 per cent of the voters of Nevada voted against all the candidates.
Still, the negative vote option - even if it is unlikely to change voting patterns - is unlikely to cause harm, and may in fact help to improve the quality of candidates. The opposition to it, therefore, should be seen in light of the stumbling blocks that have been placed before other equally innocuous measures for electoral reforms by the major political parties. It is also noteworthy that the recent history of attempts at electoral reforms shows the major political parties, notwithstanding their differences, sharing a strong common vested interest in denying greater rights and freedoms to the electors and closely co-operating in Parliament to defend the status quo in electoral law. As a result, the burden of championing the interests of the elector has been left to civil society.
The elector's right to know
In 1999, the Association of Democratic Reforms filed a PIL in the Delhi High Court requesting the court to direct the Election Commission (EC) to collect and make available to the public, details of pending criminal cases, if any, from candidates in their nomination forms by amending the Conduct of Election Rules and obtained a favorable ruling in 2000. The Government of India immediately appealed against this ruling to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, upholding the High Courts judgment in 2002 explained its reasoning:
"Under our Constitution, Article 19(1)(a) provides for freedom of speech and expression. Voter's speech or expression in case of election would include casting of votes, that is to say, voter speaks out or expresses by casting vote. For this purpose, information about the candidate to be selected is a must. Voter's (little man-citizens') right to know antecedents including criminal past of his candidate contesting election for MP or MLA is much more fundamental and basic for survival of democracy. The little man may think over before making his choice of electing law-breakers as law-makers."
The Court also determined that while the Election Commission was bound to act in conformity with laws made by Parliament or State Legislatures relating to elections, it was empowered by Article 324 of the constitution to take the necessary steps for conducting free and fair elections where the law was silent. The Court directed the EC to use these powers to collect information from candidates in an affidavit about criminal convictions, pending cases, assets & liabilities and educational qualifications. The EC complied by issuing an order in June, 2002 to implement this decision.
The political establishment was extremely uncomfortable at this turn of events. An all-party meeting in July 2002, presided over by the Law Minister with the then Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani in attendance, decided to introduce a bill in Parliament to amend the Representation of the People Act, 1951 to define the scope of disclosures to be made by candidates. The bill, passed as an ordinance by Government and later approved by Parliament in December 2002 limited the disclosures that could be sought from candidates by the EC. The Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) challenged the constitutionality of sections of the amended Law. In March 2003, the Supreme Court declared some of the modifications to the Representation of People Act, 1951 carried out by Parliament to be unconstitutional and restored the disclosures from candidates sought by the EC.
Through these court battles, a small concession had been wrested in favor of the elector's right to know about candidates who seek to represent him (see India Together's earlier coverage of this struggle at this link).
The elector's right to reject
Way back in 2001, the Election Commission approached the then National Democratic Alliance government with the proposal of introducing negative voting. There was no response from the government. In July 2004, after the UPA was voted to power, the EC again approached the government with a set of "urgent proposals for electoral reforms" including the negative voting proposal. On the question of negative voting, the EC had this to say: "The Commission has received proposals from a very large number of individuals and organizations that there should be a provision enabling a voter to reject all the candidates in the constituency if he does not find them suitable ... The Commission recommends that the law should be amended to specifically provide for negative / neutral voting."
Yet again, there was no response from the Government. With the experience of the struggle to establish the elector's right to know, and seeking to push through this reform in the face of an intransigent government, the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties approached the Supreme Court in 2004 seeking directions to the EC to provide for negative voting in full secrecy. Incidentally, around this time, the BJP spokesman and former Law Minister, when contacted about the PIL, remarked that "it is a debatable issue and there should be a thorough debate among the cross-section of people..." (The Tribune, Chandigarh, 25 January, 2005). But the debate had been already on for a mere 7 years or so!
With the recent ruling of the Supreme Court this year on this PIL, it will be left to a Constitution bench to decide whether the right to vote in secrecy and the right to reject all candidates flow from fundamental rights guaranteed in the constitution and if the scope of the powers of the Election Commission can extend to implementing mechanisms for negative voting. If the right of the voter to positively reject bad candidates is recognised, it will be another step, albeit small, along the difficult road of electoral reforms. ⊕
Kannan Kasturi
09 Mar 2009
Kannan Kasturi is an independent researcher and writer on law, policy and governance.
Big money seeks common man's blessing
Big money seeks common
man's blessing
It was once hoped that curbing election expenses would keep the process fairer. Today, the opposite is true, and neither the UPA nor the NDA wants to disturb this comfortable arrangement. Kannan Kasturi reports.
25 April 2009 - Fighting elections in India has become extremely expensive. According to an Election Commission (EC) representative, while an estimated Rs.4500 crores was spent for the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, this time around, the expenditure will cross Rs.10,000 crores. Though a huge sum, even this is in all probability a conservative estimate. About 20 per cent of this constitutes government expense; the remaining will be spent by political parties and their candidates.
The high election expenditure is not a reflection of the basic cost of the campaign but rather an indication of the permissive environment that has evolved over time where there is no limit for the amount of money that political parties can collect and spend on elections. Political parties are neither accountable nor transparent about their finances. The state machinery is unwilling or unable to curb illegal expenditure by political parties, allowing the elections to become an outlet for huge quantities of black money. Such an environment encourages political parties to outdo each other in spending in the quest for political advantage. Politicians across the country have chartered as many as 60 helicopters costing between Rs.75,000 and 2 lakhs per hour for use over a month (Hindustan Times, 21 April 2009). Profligate spending is no longer frowned upon. But this was not always so.
The law on election expenses
The election-related laws framed in 1950s had the objective that money should not be allowed to influence the outcome of elections. The Representation of People Act, 1951 required every candidate to keep an account of all election expenditure incurred or authorized by him. The expenditure was to be kept within prescribed limits and subject to inspection by EC representatives. Violating the limit was deemed a corrupt practice, punishable by disqualification from contesting elections for a period up to 6 years.
While limits of the candidates' spending were established, the law did not set limits on the expense of political parties themselves, and there was a reason for this. The Constitution of India did not recognise the 'Political Party' as a formal entity at that time; political parties had no defined role to play, either in the elections or in the formation of government. The law to limit expenses therefore only dealt with the expenditure by the candidate; this was considered sufficient to curb overall expenses on the elections. In time, political parties started exploiting this loophole.
While limits of the candidates' spending were established, the law did not set limits on the expense of political parties themselves.
Did expense incurred by the sponsoring political party or by the friends and supporters of a candidate towards his election in excess of prescribed limits constitute a corrupt practice? This issue came up before the Supreme Court in the case of Kanwarlal Gupta vs. Amar Nath Chawla (1974). Using the occasion to expound on the objectives of the ceiling on spending by candidates, the Supreme Court observed:
"It should be open to any individual or to any political party, however small, to be able to contest an election on a footing of equality with any other individual or political party, however rich and well financed it may be, and no individual or political party should be able to secure an advantage over others by reason of its superior financial strength."
"The other objective of limiting expenditure" the Supreme Court added, "is to eliminate, as far as possible, the influence of big money in electoral process. If there were no limit on expenditure, political parties would go all out for collecting contributions and obviously the largest contributions would be from the rich and the affluent who constitute but a fraction of the electorate ... The small man's chance is the essence of Indian democracy and that would be stultified if large contributions from rich and affluent individuals or groups are not divorced from the electoral process."
After outlining these objectives, the Supreme Court argued that "if a candidate were to be subject to the limitation of the ceiling, but the political party sponsoring him or his friends and supporters were to be free to spend as much as they like in connection with his election, the object of imposing the ceiling would be completely frustrated and the beneficial provision enacted in the interest of purity and genuineness of the democratic process would be wholly emasculated." The Supreme Court thus answered the original question in the affirmative.
This judgment met with the negative reaction of the government of the day. The Representation of People Act, 1951 was amended by the Congress government in 1975 and an infamous "explanation" added to the election expense provision. The explanation ran thus:
"Notwithstanding any judgment, order or decision of any Court to the contrary, any expenditure incurred or authorized in connection with the election of a candidate by a political party or by any other association or body of persons or by any individual (other than the candidate or his election agent) shall not be deemed to be, and shall not ever be deemed to have been, expenditure in connection with the election incurred or authorized by the candidate or by his election agent."
Not only the sponsoring political party but also friends, relatives and supporters of a candidate were freed from any limits on spending for their candidate. The objectives of the original provisions in law limiting election expenses of candidates had been completely frustrated!
Financial transparency of political parties
The Income Tax Act was amended in 1979 requiring political parties to file income tax returns every year. The tax law allowed a political party to claim full exemption from income tax for a variety of sources of income including voluntary contributions received from any person provided the party maintained books of accounts, recorded details of all voluntary contributions above Rs.10,000 and got their books audited. However, most parties including the Congress and the BJP did not comply with the law and file returns. This fact only came to public notice after a Public Interest Litigation filed by Common Cause came up before the Supreme Court in 1995. The Supreme Court ordered the Government to investigate and prosecute the erring political parties, but it is not clear if anything came of this. The Law Commission of India in its 170th report, Reform of the Election Laws in 1999, made this scathing comment on the issue:
"While a small income-tax payer who fails to file his return is prosecuted and penalized, the political parties which are in receipt of huge funds which they spend on elections and other occasions are not being touched. The parties too do not appear to have realized that if they themselves do not follow the law, not only it sets a bad example to others, they will not have the face to tell others to abide by law."
The Commission followed a comprehensive analysis of the problem of election expenses with the recommendation that political parties must be required by law to keep accounts, have them audited and publish them for the general public and strong penalties should follow including de-recognition of the party by the EC for non compliance. The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution also expressed similar views in 2002.
The Election Commission suggested to the UPA government in 2004 that political parties must be required to publish their accounts. Their plea fell on deaf ears. The UPA was as comfortable with the status quo as the NDA. With lawmakers showing no interest in curbing the free spend, it has now fallen to private initiatives to point to the growing influence of money (see links below).
The election expense laws were finally amended in 2003, but not on the lines suggested by the Law Commission. The Election and Other Related Laws (Amendment) Act, 2003 was passed by the NDA Government with the support of almost all parties including the Congress. While the infamous 1975 "explanation" to the election expense clause was finally deleted, this change made no difference any longer. The election laws and rules were amended to allow political parties to "accept any amount of contribution voluntarily offered to it by any person or company". Only contributions to parties over Rs 20,000 (earlier Rs 10,000) were to be recorded and reported. The punishment for not submitting returns was that income tax exemptions could not be claimed! The income tax laws were also amended to give 100 per cent tax exemptions to companies and individuals for contributions to political parties.
The NDA government claimed that these changes would bring about more political accountability. But many questions remained unanswered. Would companies, for example - solely in business for profit - contribute a part of their profit to party funds without any expectation of return favors when/if the party came to power?
The idea of limiting election expenses had been buried once and for all by codifying in the Representation of People Act, 1951 the right of political parties to accept (and consequently spend) any amount. Enacting strict penalties to ensure transparency and accountability in finances of political parties had been given the go by, even though it was clear that the laws would not be respected otherwise.
The Election Commission suggested to the UPA government in 2004 that "political parties must be required to publish their accounts (at least abridged version) annually for information and scrutiny of the general public and all concerned, for which purpose the maintenance of such accounts and their auditing to ensure their accuracy is a pre-requisite" Their plea fell on deaf ears. The UPA was as comfortable with the status quo as the NDA.
Who will fund the parties?
The escalating cost of elections puts pressure on parties to mobilize funds whichever way they can. Most political parties do not collect money for party activities and elections by building a broad membership and collecting regular dues. The funds collected using legal channels from companies and individuals are only a fraction of what they 'need', given the possibilities of unlimited expenditure. During the 2004 elections, for example, all the political parties put together showed expenditure less than Rs.230 crores, according to figures made public by the EC. Sources of unaccounted wealth need to be tapped; this is probably what makes parties shy of making their 'real' books open to the public.
Seen against this context, the recent action of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Delhi in nominating extremely wealthy businessmen is understandable. The BSP candidates for four of the seven Delhi constituencies have declared assets of Rs.622, 155, 14.5 and 19 crore rupees respectively! The President of its Delhi unit admits that as the party does not fund its candidate's election expenses, it expects them to have deep pockets if they should have a fair chance to win. And the original argument against huge money in political campaigns has come full circle - wealth, once seen as distorting the playing field, is now seen as necessary to keep it level. ⊕
Kannan Kasturi
25 Apr 2009
The medium, message and money
The medium, message and money
The Assembly elections saw the culture of 'coverage packages' explode across Maharashtra. In many cases, a candidate just had to pay for almost any coverage at all. P Sainath reports.
29 October 2009 - C Ram Pandit can now resume his weekly column. Dr. Pandit (name changed) had long been writing for a well-known Indian language newspaper in Maharashtra. On the last day for the withdrawal of nominations to the recent State Assembly elections, he found himself sidelined. An editor at the paper apologised to him saying: "Panditji, your columns will resume after October 13. Till then, every page in this paper is sold." The editor, himself an honest man, was simply speaking the truth.
In the financial orgy that marked the Maharashtra elections, the media were never far behind the moneybags. Not all sections of the media were in this mode, but quite a few. Not just small local outlets, but powerful newspapers and television channels, too. Many candidates complained of "extortion" but were not willing to make an issue of it for fear of drawing media fire.
Some senior journalists and editors found themselves profoundly embarrassed by their managements. "The media have been the biggest winners in these polls," says one ruefully. "In this period alone," says another, "they've more than bounced back from the blows of the 'slowdown' and done so in style." Their poll-period take is estimated to be in hundreds of millions of rupees. Quite a bit of this did not come as direct advertising but in packaging a candidate's propaganda as "news."
The Assembly elections saw the culture of "coverage packages" explode across the State. In many cases, a candidate just had to pay for almost any coverage at all. Issues didn't come into it. No money, no news. This effectively shut out smaller parties and independent voices with low assets and resources. It also misled viewers and readers by denying them any mention of the real issues some of these smaller forces raised. The Hindu reported on this (April 7, 2009) during the Lok Sabha elections, where sections of the media were offering low-end "coverage packages" for Rs.15 lakh to Rs.20 lakh. "High-end" ones cost a lot more. The State polls saw this go much further.
None of this, as some editors point out, is new. However, the scale is new and stunning. The brazenness of it (both ways) quite alarming. And the game has moved from the petty personal corruption of a handful of journalists to the structured extraction of huge sums of money by media outfits. One rebel candidate in western Maharashtra, calculates that an editor from that region, spent Rs.1 crore "on just local media alone." And, points out the editor, "he won, defeating the official candidate of his party."
The deals were many and varied. A candidate had to pay different rates for 'profiles,' interviews, a list of 'achievements,' or even a trashing of his rival in some cases. (With the channels, it was "live" coverage, a 'special focus,' or even a team tracking you for hours in a day.) Let alone bad-mouthing your rival, this "pay-per" culture also ensures that the paper or channel will not tell its audiences that you have a criminal record. Over 50 per cent of the MLAs just elected in Maharashtra have criminal charges pending against them. Some of them featured in adulatory "news items" which made no mention of this while tracing their track record.
The Election Commission's interventions have curbed rigging, booth capturing and ballot stuffing. On the money power front, though, it is hard to find a single significant instance of rigorous or deterrent action. (Picture credit: IANS)
At the top end of the spectrum, "special supplements" cost a bomb. One put out by one of the State's most important politicians - celebrating his "era" - cost an estimated Rs.1.5 crore. That is, just this single media insertion cost 15 times what he is totally allowed to spend as a candidate. He has won more than the election, by the way.
One common low-end package: Your profile and "four news items of your choice" to be carried for between Rs.4 lakh or more depending on which page you seek. There is something chilling about those words "news items of your choice." Here is news on order. Paid for. (Throw in a little extra and a writer from the paper will help you draft your material.)
It also lent a curious appearance to some newspaper pages. For instance, you could find several "news items" of exactly the same size in the same newspaper on the same day, saying very different things. Because they were really paid-for propaganda or disguised advertisements. A typical size was four columns by ten centimetres. When a pro-saffron alliance paper carries "news items" of this size extolling the Congress-NCP, you know strange things are happening. (And, oh yes, if you bought "four news items of your choice" many times, a fifth one might be thrown in gratis.)
There were a few significant exceptions to the rule. A couple of editors tried hard to bring balance to their coverage and even ran a "news audit" to ensure that. And journalists who, as one of them put it, "simply stopped meeting top contacts in embarrassment." Because, often, journalists with access to politicians were expected to make the approach. That information came from a reporter whose paper sent out an email detailing "targets" for each branch and edition during the elections. The bright exceptions were drowned in the flood of lucre. And the huge sums pulled in by that paper have not stopped it from sacking droves of staffers. Even from editions that met their 'targets.'
There are the standard arguments in defence of the whole process. Advertising packages are the bread and butter of the industry. What's wrong with that? "We have packages for the festive season. Diwali packages, or for the Ganesh puja days." Only, the falsehoods often disguised as "news" affect an exercise central to India's electoral democracy. And are outrageously unfair to candidates with less or no money. They also amount to exerting undue influence on the electorate.
There is another poorly assessed - media-related - dimension to this. Many celebrities may have come out in May to exhort people to vote. This time, several of them appear to have been hired by campaign managers to drum up crowds for their candidate. Rates unknown.
The rise of money power
All of this goes hand in hand with the stunning rise of money power among candidates. More so among those who made it the last time and have amassed huge amounts of wealth since 2004. With the media and money power wrapped like two peas in a pod, this completely shuts out smaller, or less expensive, voices. It just prices the aam aadmi out of the polls. Never mind they are contested in his name.
Your chances of winning an election to the Maharashtra Assembly, if you are worth over Rs.100 million, are 48 times greater than if you were worth just Rs.1 million or less. Far greater still, if that other person is worth only half-a-million rupees or less. Just six out of 288 MLAs in Maharashtra who won their seats declared assets of less than half-a-million rupees. Nor should challenges from garden variety multi-millionaires (those worth between Rs.1 million-10 million) worry you much. Your chances of winning are six times greater than theirs, says the National Election Watch (NEW).
The number of 'crorepati' MLAs (those in the Rs.10 million-plus category) in the State Assembly has gone up by over 70 per cent in the just concluded elections. There were 108 elected in 2004. This time, there are 184. Nearly two-thirds of the MLAs just elected in Maharashtra and close to three-fourths of those in Haryana, are crorepatis. These and other startling facts fill the reports put out by NEW, a coalition of over 1,200 civil society groups across the country that also brought out excellent reports on these issues during the Lok Sabha polls in April-May. Its effort to inform the voting public is spearheaded by the NGO, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
Each MLA in Maharashtra, on average, is worth over Rs.40 million. That is, if we treat their own poll affidavit declarations as genuine. That average is boosted by Congress and BJP MLAs who seem richer than the others, being well above that mark. The NCP and the Shiv Sena MLAs are not too far behind, though, the average worth of each of their legislators being in the Rs.30 million-plus bracket.
Each time a giant poll exercise is gone through in this most complex of electoral democracies, we congratulate the Election Commission on a fine job. Rightly so, in most cases. For, many times, its interventions and activism have curbed rigging, booth capturing and ballot stuffing. On the money power front, though - and the media's packaging of big money interests as "news" - it is hard to find a single significant instance of rigorous or deterrent action. These too, after all, are serious threats. More structured, much more insidious than crude ballot stuffing. Far more threatening to the basics of not just elections, but democracy itself. ⊕
P Sainath
29 Oct 2009
Mass media: masses of money?
Mass media: masses of money?
The same exclusive report, with different bylines, in three rival dailies. Swathes of advertising dolled up as news stories. Is 'paid news' getting institutionalised, asks P Sainath.
25 December 2009 - "Young dynamic leadership: Ashokrao Chavan," read the headline of a prominent news item in the Marathi daily Lokmat (October 10). That was 72 hours before the people of Maharashtra went to vote in the State Assembly polls. The item was attributed to the newspaper's "Special Correspondent," making it clear this was a news story. The story showered praise on the Chief Minister of Maharashtra for having achieved so much for so many in so few months. The same story also appeared word for word the same day in the Maharashtra Times, a leading and rival Marathi daily. Two minds with but a single thought? Two hearts that beat as one?
A cute and comforting thought. Except that the very same story (again word for word, only with a different headline) had appeared three days earlier in the Marathi daily Pudhari(October 7). In that case, with a reporter's name at the bottom of the item.
In the Maharashtra Times, the piece ran without a byline. But again, as a news story. There is no mention of the word advertisement or sponsored feature next to the item in any of the newspapers. And unless the bylined reporter of Pudhari moonlights as" Special Correspondent" for Lokmat, while also being a ghost-writer for the Maharashtra Times, the appearance of the same piece verbatim in the three rival newspapers does seem odd. But maybe not so odd? Mr.Chavan seems to have gained greatly from what is now called 'package journalism' or 'coverage packages.'
A limited check by The Hindu turned up around 47 full pages of 'news' (quite a few of them in colour) centred on Mr. Chavan and his fine qualities as a leader. These mostly appeared between October 1 and 12 in more than one paper but mainly in multiple editions ofLokmat. (These 47 pages are barely a third of those actually published in that period.) The pattern seems to have been set with a launch on September 12 of a four-page colour supplement titled Ashok parv (The Era of Ashok). And then followed up with a full page almost every day in October till voting day (October 13) titled Vikas parv or The Era of Development. The Vikas parv pages, too, are centred on Mr. Chavan. And, of course, the achievements of Maharashtra under the Congress.
This flood of 'news' did not harm Mr. Chavan's prospects. He won the Bhokar Assembly seat of Maharashtra's Nanded district by defeating independent candidate Madhavrao Kinhalkar by a margin of over one lakh (120,849 against 13,346) votes.
In strict terms, the unprecedented coverage the Chief Minister received during the poll campaign cannot be called advertising. None of those full pages bears that word. And his "day to day accounts of election expenditures" do not reflect any real spending on ads. All candidates are required by law to submit their campaign expenses accounts to the district election officer within 30 days of the declaration of results. Mr. Chavan's accounts, which are in The Hindu's possession thanks to an RTI application to which the appropriate authorities responded with commendable speed, claim a total expenditure of just Rs. 11,379 on advertising.
Indeed, he had a mere six advertisements in print and these cost a trifling Rs. 5,379. (The rest was spent on slots on cable television.) Moreover, all his print ads went to a single newspaper, Satyaprabha. That is a small daily in the district of Nanded. Yet Mr. Chavan was the focus of scores of full pages in very major dailies. If those had been ads, they would have cost crores of rupees. More so given the large newspapers they featured in.
Lokmat is a very popular Marathi daily newspaper. It ranks as the 4th largest circulated daily in India while being numero uno in Maharashtra, with more than ten million readers (NRS 2006). The Maharashtra Times is no small-town sheet either. It too has millions of readers and is part of India's largest newspaper group. (Our limited check turned up 'news' of this kind in many other dailies. However, in some we were able to get through most of the issues between Oct. 1 and 12. Piles of the rest, from 18 other newspapers across the state, lie with us for scrutiny.) If Indian-language papers ran most of such 'news,' that was mainly because they were the preferred platform to reach voters during election time.
At market rates, say industry insiders, placing a four-page colour supplement in all 13 editions of a newspaper like Lokmat could cost an advertiser between Rs.1.5 crores and 2 crores. "Also," says an executive who has worked in this field, "this was election time. It comes once in five years. Forget about discounts, the rates climb higher in a seller's market." But never mind the supplements. The pages titled Vikas parv ran very frequently in Lokmat in October till almost voting day. (We have 35 such pages that ran between Oct. 1 and 12).
The cost of these alone, if they were advertising, would have been hugely above the election expenditure limit. Of course there could have been, as the executive concedes, special deals struck between the advertiser and the newspaper. (Incidentally, a member of the family owning Lokmat, Congress MLA Rajendra Darda, has joined the Ashok Chavan Ministry with full cabinet rank. He was a Minister of State in the earlier government. His website describes him as Vice Chairman and Joint Managing Director. It also calls him "a driving force behind Lokmat's success for the last 35 years.")
Two enterprising dailies handled their 'paid news' differently. They required each 'advertiser' to buy thousands of copies of the paper. That way, they made their money, while showing higher sale numbers. Crucially, not a single newspaper carrying this kind of material runs the word advertisement with such 'news' items. The post-poll period has seen some debate in the State over what is now called the 'paid news' industry. Many believe that this time the news media went further than ever before in passing off advertising as news. And that the practice has moved from petty corruption of a few journalists to a media-run game worth hundreds of millions of rupees.
The ECI knows better than anyone else that the overwhelming majority of submitted expense accounts are false.
• The medium, message and money
• Masses of money
• It's shameful to misguide people
Govind Talwalkar, a distinguished leader of Marathi journalism, now retired, is amongst those deeply upset. He wrote in anguish from the United States to The Hindu saying "this is a perfect case for a CBI inquiry ... Never in such a long career have I found journalism reduced to such a degrading and reprehensible state." Mr. Talwalkar was active in the profession for over 50 years. For 27 of those, he served as editor of the Maharashtra Times.
Many others are disturbed. "But will those running the new 'industry' give it a name upfront?" asks one editor. How do we calculate in ad rates the value of what is nowhere marked as advertising? Even if a 30-40 per cent premium was tagged on for elections? When countless other 'news stories' like these often appear besides genuine news reports? This reporter, aided by journalists from different parts of Maharashtra, has acquired an impressive collection of such 'news items.' Besides, poll-time 'coverage packages' now include multiple exposure in print, on television - and online.
What can be done about this fairly new trend in electoral campaigning and media coverage of candidates?
The constitutional jurisdiction of the Election Commission, which has been elaborated in several judicial decisions, is the "superintendence, direction and control" of elections. This means its authority to act directly on the rights and wrongs of an election ceases once the results are declared. However, during the election process, it could do much more than it has done so far. It can be at least as tough on big time overspending, which makes a mockery of legal spending limits, as it is on relatively minor things, for instance wall writing, graffiti, and pamphlets. The ECI knows better than anyone else that the overwhelming majority of submitted expense accounts are false.
The ECI can of course conduct a study of, or hold a workshop on, the misuse of media in various States during the 2009 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. So can the Press Council of India.
But under the electoral law, an election can be "called in question" only by an election petition filed by a candidate or elector in a High Court within 45 days of the election of the returned candidate. Section 123(6) of The Representation of the People Act, 1951 makes it clear that "the incurring or authorising of expenditure in contravention of section 77" is a corrupt practice, which can form the matter of an election petition. If that happens, with the necessary evidence on the alleged corrupt practice, things could get rough. Mr. Chavan and several newspaper and television groups could find themselves between a rock and a very hard place. No matter which way you cut it.
If it was advertising, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra is in a spot. Pleas of 'well-wishers' fêting their hero in print won't wash. The Rs.10-lakh-expenditure limit stands breached. If the defence were that the party did this on the Chief Minister's behalf, it would mean the Congress party in the State would have to own up to faking advertising as news to mislead voters.
If the 'coverage packages' were sponsored, it would still leave open the question of who paid how much to whom. Was it 'news,' then? If it was 'news,' the reports we have compiled must rank amongst the most remarkable 'news' judgments ever. With different papers publishing the same stuff with differing bylines. With the content reeking of sycophancy.
If this was advertising, many candidates - not only Mr. Chavan - would be found way beyond the election expense limit. If it was not advertising, then it was 'paid news,' a term now firmly embedded in the media lexicon. If it was advertising, why was it not clearly marked as such? That's a question media owners and journalists would have to answer. For dressing it up it as news was to bring wrongful and undue influence to bear on the voters.
If it was advertising, were the 'advertisers' properly billed for their ads? If not, we could be looking at illegal cash transactions and tax evasion that runs to millions of rupees. If it was 'paid news,' then both media outlets and politicians are guilty of much more than financial wrongdoing. They would have to answer for the profound damage done to the democratic process. ⊕
P Sainath
25 Dec 2009
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