The Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) episode centered on the resignation of editor Paranjoy Guha Thakurta has been made out to be yet another instance of the media cowering before the right-wing Narendra Modi government. The denouement of events does point that way. The resignation followed the Sameeksha Trust members telling the editor to pull down the article on the Adani Group seems to point to the fact that there was unease, and even apprehension, with regard to the legal notice served by the Adanis with regard to the story pointing to the group claiming tax exemption for its Special Economic Zone (SEZ) purchases in spite of the fact that it did not pay any customs duties in the first place. This point is clearly established in the story.

On the face of it, it appears that the Trust members were irritated by the editor’s decision to formulate a legal reply without taking the Trust into confidence, a ‘procedural lapse’ that Guha Thakurta himself acknowledges, and therefore they wanted to bring in an associate editor as a counterweight to Guha Thakurta. Evidently, Guha Thakurta recognised that his wings are being clipped and he offered to resign. The Trust members accepted the resignation without much ado. This is the kind of tussle that happens between owners and editors in many news organisations.

Of course, the question to be asked is whether the Trust members succumbed to some kind of pressure from the government. The high-strung liberal and secular elite, who have been battling the Hindutva ideology of the present central government had no hesitation in seeing saffron in the resignation of Guha Thakurta, and the action of the Trust has been described as a shameful betrayal. This is but a speculative inference and there is no hard evidence to prove the fact. It could be the case that there was pressure from the government, but it is quite unlikely that there would be no documentary trail to establish the ‘crime’.

It may, however, be necessary to think of the other possibility that there was a genuine difference of opinion between the editor and the Trust members, and that the Trust had exercised its prerogative. The difference could have been over what EPW should be doing. Guha Thakurta wanted to bring it into the newspaper/news magazine format because that has been his professional background. He is more into investigative journalism of the serious and deeper kind. And his biases are well-known. Like a true left-liberal, he is keen to expose the indulgences and wrongdoings of the corporate houses. It is the most legitimate thing for a journalist to do. Guha Thakurta seems to have assumed that he could combine the traditional strengths of EPW of serious research and gravitas with his own panache for digging up facts as a journalist. What might have perplexed the Trust members is whether EPW should go that slippery road of daily journalism and abandon its relatively Olympian heights of research-oriented journal, with its own left-liberal bias.

It is not the case in the present instance that the Trust has turned rightist and pro-establishment overnight, and Guha Thakurta remains the knight-errant only too eager to slay the dragon of crony capitalism. Guha Thakurta has no doubt been a knight-errant in his own way which is evident in his hard-hitting articles, documentaries. But here he was not really facing right-wing greybeards as it were on the other side. The commitment on both sides to liberal values is not in question.

This leads to the difficult and even sticky question about the identity of EPW. Is it an academic journal? Quite frankly, it is not despite the fact the longish article are well-researched, well-argued ad adequately foot-noted. It is not an academic journal for two solid reasons. It is not ideology-neutral with regard to research articles it publishes. Secondly, it does not have a peer-review system in place which is the hall-mark of an academic journal. This is not to take away from its worth which is quite high. The EPW has also been actively engaged in political developments in the newsy sense. Over the years it has commented in its editorials and through its reports from its correspondents about developments in the political situation and in the making of policy. And it did not ever hesitate to be critical. As a matter of fact, it has generally been critical of policy which conflicted with its left-liberal credo. So, it is not even the case that the Trust disapproved of political news coverage under Guha Thakurta. But there is a difference. Its political critique through the reports of its correspondents has avoided the protagonists, especially the politicians, and when it came to economic news it was never about particular corporations or businessmen or businesswomen. It was always about trends and policies. The archives of EPW give enough evidence of the journal following news development quite closely and commenting upon them critically.

One can only hazard the guess that Guha Thakurta broke with the tradition of EPW by focusing on a particular wrongdoing of a particular corporation. Even Guha Thakurta et al’s report on the Adanis does not establish a definite wrongdoing as much as it draws the rational inference that government tweaked the law which would benefit the Adanis, apart from the real wrongdoing in the making – Adanis claiming benefits of a tax exemption when they had not paid the customs duties in the first place. The story as a news report is unexceptionable, but the members of the Trust might have felt was that it was not what EPW should be doing.

Guha Thakurta has given his version, and the Trust members have not clarified their position in the matter. That leaves room for speculation that the Trust members did not support a news report which was critical of a business group that was seen to be close to the Modi government, and ore particularly with Prime Minister Modi. There are enough instances of showing some sort of favours being shown to the Adani Group by this government, which was evident in the case of State Bank of India being told to consider lending money to the group for acquiring a coal mine in Australia. But it is still not based on strictly speaking forensic proof. What can be reasonable for a journalist cannot be so for a publication that wants to remain a little above the fray in matters of news.

The author can be reached at parsa69@hotmail.co.in.

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