Dangerous intolerance (Opinion)

http://www.thehindu.com/2006/12/23/stories/2006122305191200.htm

Opinion - Editorials

Dangerous intolerance

A nasty situation has developed for media freedom in South India's
largest State — with the dominant Eenadu group targeted by a State
Government that is at the receiving end of aggressive investigative
journalism. The modus operandi of the Rajasekhara Reddy Government has
an element of ingenuity: it is to attack the financial base of the
media group, ostensibly targeting the owners' HUF financial
institution, Margadarsi Financiers, while claiming that no attempt has
been made to curb either the daily newspaper or the television
channels of the group. At a time when the Reserve Bank of India is
looking into a Congress MP's complaint relating to Margadarsi's
alleged lack of compliance with section 45S, an amended provision of
the RBI Act of 1934, two extraordinary Government Orders, dated
December 19, 2006 — one appointing a State Government advisor and the
other an Inspector General of the Criminal Investigation Department to
pursue the matter — are shockingly out of jurisdiction as well as mala
fide. RBI sources, speaking to The Hindu, have certified Margadarsi's
"impeccable track record, with good assets to back it up," with no
complaint of default from a single depositor. They have indicated that
independent of the motive and politicised circumstances of the
complaint forwarded to it, the central bank has acted professionally
and pursued a "non-disruptive enforcement path." On its part,
Margadarsi has taken a number of responsible steps, notably
discontinuance of all kinds of deposits, including renewals, and
opening an escrow account to facilitate repayment of all the matured
deposits. Under the circumstances, asking a State Government advisor
to "examine all the relevant papers and other material" and determine
"if there is any reason to believe that this financial establishment
is acting in a manner prejudicial to the interests of the depositors
and whether the financial establishment is not likely to return the
deposits collected from the public" is clearly designed to be
disruptive. Unleashing the police on Margadarsi is crude confirmation
that the idea is to trigger a run on Ramoji Rao's financial base. If
that were not the intention, would not a responsible State Government
leave it to the RBI to find a non-disruptive solution in the interest
of hundreds of thousands of depositors?

Eenadu, with a circulation of 1.15 million and a readership estimated
by NRS 2006 at 13.81 million, has taken on the Congress regime in
Andhra Pradesh in full campaign mode. It has gone all out to
investigate and expose the land surrender controversy involving Chief
Minister Rajasekhara Reddy. The opposition parties have alleged a
major impropriety in the sudden surrender of over 300 acres of land by
the Chief Minister's family, when, in the first place, they should not
have possessed this land in violation of ceiling and other laws.
Eenadu has been running a series of investigative stories to bring to
light the still unsurrendered land with the first family. As the
Leader of the Opposition and Telugu Desam leader N. Chandrababu Naidu
has noted, the intention is to "financially cripple" the opponent. As
if this were not enough, a special public prosecutor has been
appointed to prosecute Eenadu's Editor-in-Chief for alleged criminal
defamation relating to material published on the Home Minister in July
2006! The Government and the dominant media player in Andhra Pradesh
can be said to be at war — and the fragility of media freedom in
India, in the face of political intolerance, stands exposed
disturbingly. The party of Jawaharlal Nehru, a great defender of press
freedom, should be ashamed of what its government is doing in Andhra
Pradesh.


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