The IPL Should Sue The Times of India

The IPL has an open and shut case of defamation and material damage against the Times of India.

On the basis of nothing more than unsourced reports of so-called "Police investigations" (read fishing trip) about spot fixing, the TOI and its television arm TimesNow, have carried on the most reckless campaign of malign speculation.

An IPL lawsuit would not even have to prove it has suffered damage from the relentless media campaign by our "elite" media.

TOI was dumb enough to carry a front page report on 24 May 2013 on the loss of the IPL brand value. It said,  according to "well placed sources," that major sponsors were reconsidering their support. In a highly improbable assessment, it said that Pepsi, the IPL's primary sponsor, "may stay till the end of this season but will reconsider its association with the League after that."

Times Now's egregious Arnab Goswami has gone out even further on the defamatory limb, heaping abuse on the IPL its head, and his son-in-law who happens to be the CEO of the Chennai Super Kings. And all on the basis of vaporous talk emanating from "Police sources."

When the new Law Minister Kapil Sibal addresses the issue of illegal IPL betting tomorrow, he should give some time to reviewing the responsibility of the Delhi Police Chief in precipitating the current mess. In particular, Sibal should look at the timing of what has happened.

The Delhi Police stumbled on the possibility of spot fixing in the IPL during its investigation of a gangster. That worthy seems to have been the primary source of information about the three Rajasthan Royals players.

Now, consider that sports betting is dominated by gangsters, and that Dawood Ibrahim in Pakistan is widely reported to be a key figure. How difficult is it to imagine that the Delhi Police were fed the tip about match-fixing, and that Dawood had a hand in it, acting, as usual, on behalf of the ISI-Brit combine that has been green with envy at the success of the IPL?

Sibal should examine what exactly the Delhi Police had on Sreesanth when they arrested him. If it was no more than a dicey tape recording of a phone conversation in which the cricketer might or might not figure, there should be severe action against those responsible for his humiliation. In the absence of any real evidence, the Police are now traipsing around shops where Sreesanth might have spent any ill gotten gains.

Another aspect of the timing of the "scandal" is significant. It came just in time to find mention in international coverage of the the Cannes Film Festival observance of 100 Years of Indian Cinema. It is not just the IPL that our "elite" media have smeared but the entire country.

Something has to be done to bring our television dadas to a realization of their responsibilities. An IPL lawsuit demanding heavy punitive and compensatory damages might help in that direction.
 

Corruption in India -2

The confused controversies surrounding Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev have made clear the low level of public understanding of corruption.

Ramdev’s fatuous proposal to force Indian “black money” to return from foreign banks should have won him instant expulsion from serious public discourse but that came only after his comic descent into infamy. “Team Hazare’s” proposal for a new supra-investigative body seems more sophisticated but its premise – that government malfeasance is central to corruption – does not bear close examination.

Corrupt politicians/judges/bureaucrats are indeed a key element of one aspect of the problem but they are more symptom than cause. Subjecting them to an independent public watchdog is unlikely to have much effect because the social dementia of which they are victims remains undiagnosed. To find a remedy we must identify the common denominators in the multiplicity of corruptions afflicting India (see list in the last posting).

The most obvious common denominator is the sense of impunity shared by the corrupt: the belief they can get away with crime. However, the reasons they think so fall into three categories.

Underlying the criminal manifestations of male and caste dominance, the use of child labour and the abortion of female fetuses, is the belief that State mechanisms will not or cannot implement the law. In contrast, gangsters and other low-life know very well that the State will actively pursue and punish them; their sense of impunity reflects the learned lessons of harsh predatory lives in which violence and bribery buy security. The calculus of the third category -- which now dominates our attentions -- is  altogether different: top politicians, bureaucrats and business figures believe their power and privilege will insulate them from detection and punishment. Their corruptions spring from cold-blooded decisions to betray the collective interest in pursuit of private profit. In key sectors such as energy, policing and defence, the injury they inflict is not primarily financial or social; they strike at the safety and security of the State.

These very different sources of impunity underlie different genres of corruption and a Lokpal would be largely ineffective in dealing with two of them, the massive social crimes that flow out of our history and modern organized crime. Even in dealing with crimes within the structure of government, the Lokpal cannot be, in that popular expression, a “watchdog;” for a dog can prevent crime and is immune from corruption itself.

The only preventive element in Team Hazare’s version of the Lokpal Bill is the severity of punishment: initially it required the death penalty for high-level offenders, now toned down to life imprisonment. (The government draft calls for a 7-year prison term.) Both versions of the Bill deal with corruption as individual malfeasance; they ignore its existence as a systemic disease with social, economic and political dimensions.

The next post will take up the social aspect, focusing especially on the genesis and coruptions of the caste system.