In a recent interview to The Telegraph, Calcutta, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi has suggested that “the attack” on him by the press began with the start of the raids on business houses. He has not quite committed himself to the proposition that there is a “close nexus between the private sector and the media”; indeed he has even said that “the timing seems to be… maybe it is just a coincidence”. Despite this qualification, one point is, however, obvious. Which is that the Prime Minister feels that he has been under attack by the press and this attack began, by coincidence or otherwise, with the raids on business houses. But even a casual research should suffice to prove that neither of these propositions is in fact true. For one thing, Mr. Gandhi has not been under attack by the press; if anything much of the press remains uncritically fond of him; even if the word “attack” is loosely interpreted to make it a synonym for criticism, this can be said to date back to only the Congress centenary celebrations; some voices of dissent could, of course, be heard earlier; these related to the Punjab and Assam accords which were concluded last July and August when the raids on business houses had not acquired the “scorched earth” character they did later in the year; as far as we can find out, the Prime Minister paid little attention to them till last January when the weaknesses of the Punjab accord and of India’s Sri Lanka policy became evident. For another, newspapers and newspapermen who have spoken out in favour of leading industrial houses and against raids on them can be counted on one’s fingers. Whoever may own newspapers, they are as a rule extremely reluctant to be seen to be espousing the cause of business because this is not a poplar cause among their readers. And who has not heard of bitter rivalries among business houses? How bitter these rivalries are should be known to anyone who knows anything about Indian business.
That apart, what about the criticism of the raids themselves whoever may have made it with whatever motive and under whatever inspiration or pressure? Has it been legitimate or not? Mr. Gandhi has provided the answer. Asked whether he approved of the raids, he said: “Well, yes and no… I do not think we can have a system where there are no raids. The problem is not the raids themselves but the manner of the raids, the way they are done, the level of the people who are doing the raids and the people whom they are raiding… So this has to be looked into… We are trying to change certain basic ways of functioning for the average individual… We have done so with income tax. We must have a similar system for excise as well and all the indirect taxes where there is some opportunity given to come clean … We have had a number of discussions with the finance minister and other ministers. I believe that the finance minister is coming out with composite package on this”. Can anyone read this reply and not conclude that on the Prime Minister’s own statement the criticism of the raids has been at once justified and effective? Or are we to believe that Mr. Gandhi and Mr. V.P. Singh, who have not met a single victim of the raids, came to realize the horror of what has been happening on their own? Or that their own officials have briefed them properly?
We also do not agree with the Prime Minister when he equates raids with investigation. Tax officials, of course, treat a raid as an instrument of investigation. But that cannot be admissible in a civilized country where the rule of law is supposed to prevail. The authorities can resort to a raid in an extreme case in search of confirmatory evidence in support of what they have already collected; they cannot resort to this harsh and cruel method in search of preliminary evidence which is exactly what has been happening. Indeed, the situation is much worse than the Prime Minister might wish to believe. The raiders are often as ignorant of well-known facts as they are crude. For example, those who recently raided a leading automobile manufacturer did not even know that the manufacturer’s quota is five per cent and not 25 per cent which is in fact the government’s quota. Since we have already commented on the arbitrary manner in which excise duty is calculated and industrialists and managers are harassed on the charge of alleged evasion and non-payment, we do not wish to go into that. But we must say that all in all, newspapers have been too indulgent towards the government and not too critical of it.