The biggest danger to a democracy comes not from external forces but from internal institutions. In my opinion there is nothing more chilling and worrying to a democratic setup than a compromised media.

Those were the golden words uttered by Carl Bernstein, the journalistic icon of my generation. I remember Carl for his brilliant investigative work exposing the Watergate burglary. It was Carl along with his colleague at the Washington Post, Bob Woodward and their very supportive editor, Ben Bradlee who dominated the exposure of the biggest political scandal in the history of the United States of America. It was Carl who ultimately found the laundered cheque that linked Richard Nixon to the burglary. And he was a rookie journalist – all of 27 years of age.

Thanks to the unqualified support he received from Ben Bradlee, Carl was able to bring about a sea-change in US political ethos. And the reverberations still continue to haunt politics, not just in the US but worldwide. Ben was also gracious enough to allow his junior journalists to claim the entire credit and made no attempt at all to promote himself. I know of many editors who would not have been able to resist the temptation.

Following the Watergate exposure, we witnessed the resignation of senior Whitehouse figures such as Charles Colson, Haldeman, Ehrlichman and John Dean. All of them had to spend time in jail. Richard Nixon resigned when it became abundantly clear that he was going to be impeached. His successor, Gerry Ford, otherwise known for his uncompromising integrity, blotted his copybook by pardoning his predecessor- and handed over the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter.

The point here is that this change was brought about by the sincere efforts of a journalist with no previous credentials of note. This goes on to underline the importance of a ‘free’ and ‘objective’ media or the Fourth Estate.

Despite not having earned a single university degree, Carl became a professor of journalism and inspired an entire generation to opt for journalism as a career. He was decorated with many honorary doctorates and at least 10 doctoral dissertations resulted from his work.

Let us move on to 1988. A young, 28-year-old pregnant reporter through her brilliant investigative work discovered that bribes were being paid for the facilitation of defence deals in India. She came up with incontrovertible proof that among the beneficiaries were some uneasily close to the then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. While there was no direct evidence linking Rajiv with the bribes, Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman known to be very close to his family was discovered to have received vast sums of money from the people involved in this deal. Quattrocchi was not known to have any expertise in defence deals and it does not require much imagination to work out why he would have received the money. There were other businessmen who collaborated with Quattrocchi, none of whom had any defence expertise.

The young reporter was Chitra Subramaniam. She had succeeded in setting into momentum the same revolution that was effected by Carl nearly 13 years before her. Rajiv’s image was dented and he lost the 1989 elections.

But that is where the analogy ends. To start with, Chitra never received the same support from her editors as Carl did. The political class in India had its own agenda to pursue. Not a single politician worth his salt was interested in carrying out the necessary steps to eliminate corruption from the Indian polity. I need to state that in the US politicians of all shades – even Republicans- were intent on making sure that sleaze was eliminated from the US polity. Over here, those opposed to Rajiv were interested in simply linking Rajiv to this scandal and not interested in any real investigation for reasons that are not difficult to understand. In contrast, those close to Rajiv were intent on subverting the evidence and evading any investigative or judicial scrutiny.

We witnessed the revolting spectacle of our Foreign Minister approaching a minister from another country simply to ask him to scuttle the investigations into this matter. When this matter was exposed, all this unworthy politician had to face was resignation from the Cabinet – no prosecution for his criminal action. We were also witnesses to a PM making sure that Quattrocchi escaped from India a day before his passport was going to be impounded. We witnessed a Director of CBI being sacked when he was getting too close to the truth. And then we witnessed two actions which bring eternal infamy to the justice system of India. A Red Corner notice by the Interpol enabled Argentina to nab Quattrocchi. They asked the Indian government to takeover. The Indian government sent two CBI sleuths – and if the journalist Sunetra Chaudhry is to be believed – who were more interested in sight seeing rather than working on the case. The Indian case was dismissed not because it had no merit but because India could not get a Spanish translation of the documents it submitted as required by the Court.

The then Congress(I) government made sure that that the case was not pursued, and applied for dismissal. Meanwhile, the UK government – under the mistaken belief that India was serious about pursuing Quattrocchi – had frozen his account. No sooner had the court ruled on the matter because of non-availability of Quattrocchi, Law Minister Bharadwaj did something that should put every Indian to shame. He sent his senior officers to UK to plead with the court to release Quattrocchi’s money – entirely on public expense and even before the ruling could be challenged in higher courts. He said it was only a small sum of a few millions – and brazenly defended his action. To my knowledge, Quattrocchi’s son, Massimo is a regular guest at 10 Janpath even today – and was in fact with Sonia when the Argentine arrest took place. Hansraj Bharadwaj is being touted in political circles as the next Vice Presidential candidate.

Chitra to the best of my knowledge was never conferred any Honorary doctorate which she richly deserved. And as far as I know there has been no doctoral dissertation on this remarkable journalist who provided a yeoman service to her country and the entire journalistic profession.

Most of this is already known to everyone. So why am I repeating it?

It is because I have begun to wonder whether we actually want a truly free Fourth Estate. The Indian media had disgraced itself during the dark days of the Emergency – and it needed the likes of Chitra to rehabilitate it. But we are sinking into the quagmire again – at least that is what it appears to me.

We are in midst of presidential elections and the front-runner is Pranab Mukherjee. For those, like me, who have witnessed the Emergency and immediate post-Emergency times, Pranab remains tainted. And it is not just me who says that. The Shah Commission in its report severely indicted him. All the copies of the report were burned as soon as India came to power. To the best of my knowledge, one copy survives in the Australian National Library. Pranab also played a very unsavoury role in hounding Taslima out of the country and favouring the Ambanis in the Bombay Dyeing dispute.

My discomfiture results from all the Pranab interviews I have watched ever since he became a candidate. To be honest, I have never been as disappointed with Arnab as I was when I saw him interview Pranab. He never raised any of the controversies Pranab has been involved in – instead we saw the very aggressive interviewer being reduced to a cheerleader. The only new fact I came to know was that Pranab was very friendly with Arnab’s uncle. For a confessed admirer of Arnab it was painful.

Barkha’s interview was another exercise in the politician-journalist networking endeavour. The only new information divulged was that he has a daughter who is a dancer.

But the most disconcerting was Rajdeep’s interview. He came closest to interrogating Pranab on his role during the Emergency. When Pranab made the ridiculous and patently false statement that no president has ever acted partially, Rajdeep quipped,“Except Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed”. To which Pranab retorted,“I do not think so”. And Rajdeep left it at that. I began to visualise how the likes of Sam Donaldson, Walter Cronkite, Knowlton Nash and Robin Day would have dealt with this. Even Brian Walden with his professed admiration for Maggie Thatcher would not have allowed this to pass. At the very least, Rajdeep should have asked Pranab to explain his statement. He did not!

I believe I am not the only Indian who wishes my presidential candidate to come clean on controversies that have bedeviled him. And the only vehicle that most of us have is the media. I ruefully note that the media has failed us once again.

Reverting back to Carl, I recall him describing how the US had put 400 journalists on its payrolls. Not for a moment would I suggest that our journalists are as compromised as that.

But their proximity to the politicians does portend trouble.

To conclude, I shall quote one of the leading historians of this century, Alan John Percival Taylor: “There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the Establishment – and nothing more corrupting”.