tripleC 8(2): 143-148, 2010 ISSN 1726-670X http://www.triple-c.at 3rd ICTs and Society Meeting; Paper Session - Inequalities: social, economic and political; Paper 2: Media conver- gence and blogging in exposing corruption and fraud in India C.S.H.N. Murthy Department of Communication and Journalism, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tezpur Univer- sity, Napam, Tezpur Assam India 784 028; E-mail: [email protected] Abstract: The divide between the poor and the rich in India is getting wider and deeper day by day in the post globalization and privatization. It also sounds paradoxical to hear that the development whatever is happening in India is preceded by large scale corruption where the politicians and the bureaucrats in tandem and in perfect collusion are siphoning off billions of rupees meant for the rural development. But, none of these projects could escape the brunt of corruption in India. The paper deals with a few such stories of corruption as case studies that came to limelight and are placed in ‘convergent’ me- dia either in the blogs of television channels or print media or on line web-portals such as face-book/twitter or on You Tube. The paper hypothesizes that the current level of exposure of corruption in 24x7 ‘convergent’ media is not adequate and would like to explore the ways and means of utilizing it (convergent media) more ‘socially effectively’ to totally curb/eliminate the corruption from the top to the lower level in the governance in India. This study therefore follows multiple methods of in- quiry, besides the case studies, including surfing the existing web-portals/blogs for the mobilized public views on exposure of corruption through the ‘convergent’ media and conducting interviews with the convenience sample of media experts in the field as also analyzing the secondary documents (for case studies). The study is therefore a descriptive and qualitative communication research. Keywords: Corruption, Convergent Media, blogs, television channels, web-portals, face-book, twitter The divide between the poor and the rich ‘sting operation’ to expose the corrupt officials in India is getting wider and deeper day by and their nexus with the politicians. Terming it day in the post globalization and privatization as an ‘Operation West End’, the Editor-in- (since 1990s). It also sounds paradoxical to Chief wrote: hear that the development whatever is hap- pening in India is preceded by large scale cor- Operation West End is the ultimate indictment of ruption where the politicians and the bureau- Indian governance and ethics. It is the ugly fable of crats in tandem and in perfect collusion are a poor country that has been completely sold off by siphoning off billions of rupees meant for the its rich and powerful. We spent eleven lakhs on the rural development which is a broad term and story. If we had a little more money we could have includes –rural projects taken up under the ripped open the entire system end to end. We were just a group of amateurs, a leanly funded media Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yojana (Prime organization with limited resources. (Tejpal, 2001) Minister’s Road Laying Scheme for Villages in India) and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Earlier, Tehelka.com has also brought out a Employment Guarantee Scheme. But, none of story entitled Fallen Heroes which brought out these projects could escape the brunt of cor- the ugly side of the much hyped Indian cricket ruption in India. in which the cricket players happily engaged The first ever ‘convergent’ media use for themselves for ‘match fixing’ for sleaze and the expose of corruption in India came from money. This was of course the beginning of Thelka.com a web portal, which used the CC: Creative Commons License, 2010. 144 C.S.H.N. Murthy use of ‘convergent’ media by the online web been spreading like cancer across the coun- portals for exposing the corruption. Ever since try." (Kumar & Sen ,2007) there were thousands of stories of corruption involving the highest officials and the politi- 1.2. Mahatma Gandhi National Employ- cians but none took a serious view of the es- ment Guarantee Scheme calating corruption and bureaucrat-politicians Under National Employment Guarantee nexus though country’s economy is seriously Scheme, which came into existence under affected and the poor farmers/weavers have NREG Act (Feb 2, 2006), the Government of been committing suicides. India intended to generate an assured em- Strangely the revelations of IPL corruption ployment for a minimum of 100 days in all dis- were carried out by both Mr.Shashi Tharoor tricts and rural areas of India so that migration and Mr.Lalit Modi through twitter and e-mail of labour to the urban centres can be stopped only. Today You Tube contains the interviews in the first instance. Further, it would provide given by both Mr. Shashi Tharoor and Mr.Lalit payment of remuneration at the rates pre- Modi on their respective stands/contentions scribed by the government and the local gov- with regard to the involvement of many more ernment officials would have to disburse the Indian politicians and officials of Board of payments. All the eligible unemployed would Cricket Control of India (BCCI). But, at the be provided identity cards which would enable same time, both Mr.Shashi Tharoor and them to get employed by the local govern- Mr.Lalit Modi exposed their own darkside of ments to construct short term projects, roads, the faces by virtue of their exposing their tanks, school and hospital buildings, etc. Un- clandestine relationships with their girl friends fortunately, the government officials at the lo- too. cal government level began to produce false The paper deals with a few such stories of records and swindled the amount meant for corruption as case studies that came to lime- the generation of employment. (see Bhattach- light and are placed in ‘convergent’ media ei- arya, 2008) ther in the blogs of television channels or print A journalist, namely K. Sudhakar Patnaik, media channels or on line web-portals such who covered the areas Koraput, Bolangir and as face-book/twitter or on You Tube. Kalahandi, where the scheme has been put The purpose of choosing most of the case up, has written in an online webportal as fol- studies from the ‘convergent’ media is to show lows: that internet both as a ‘convergent’ media in the form of ‘face-book’ and ‘twitter’, and as a As a journalist, with an experience of over 25 source of quick transmission through ‘e-mail’ years, I found the NREGA, the biggest and noblest or ‘chatting’ is an efficient medium to report anti-poverty scheme in the post-independence In- the corruption. dia. However, the biggest noble scheme seems de- feated in KBK districts. The officers looted, and are still looting, the poor men’s money in an organised 1. Case Studies of Corruption way by taking advantage of their innocence and il- literacy. A visit to some villages under the Kaberi- 1.1. Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yojana badi and the Pedalada panchayats under the Strangely the Prime Minister of India Mr. Bandhugaon block in Koraput district reveals the pathetic condition of the Kondh tribe. The govern- Manmohan Singh himself has admitted to the ment, the local elected representatives and the large scale corruption taking place in the pro- government officials ignore all the 23 villages, jects run in the Prime Minister’s name in India. which are on the other side of the river Jhanjabati. Delivering a memorial lecture in recognition of The tribals living there do not know any other lan- guag, apart from their own dialect Koya, Telugu the fight waged by an IIT graduated engineer and a bit of Oriya language. (Patnaik, 2008) Mr. Satyendra Nath Duby who was murdered for exposing the corruption in laying the Golden Quadrangle Road, Manmohan Singh 1.3. Scandal in the Public distribution made candid admission that “A major reason (PDS) for poor quality roads is corruption that has The public distribution system in India, es- tablished in 1997 by the government of India 144 CC: Creative Commons License, 2010. tripleC 8(2): 143-148, 2010 145 to provide food security to the need and poor, the Ministers and the Members of Legislative one of the largest public relief systems in the bodies by the contractors who were favoured world, has been worst hit when it came to lime with the large scale tenders for the construc- light that there was a scandal of diverting the tion of these projects. An online web-portal public food meant for the distribution for the www.zimbo.com has reported the findings of people below the poverty life (BPL) which the Public Affairs Committee, headed by Dr. amounted to 3000 billions of rupees of fraud. Nagam Janardhana Reddy and other mem- Commenting on how corruption has led to bers of the Legislative Assembly, which stated the miserable failure of the best intentions of that about 11 billion rupees have been paid the government to provide food security to the just for a design of a project which has not yet people who are affected by the unemploy- been launched so far (see Rashmi, 2010). ment, poverty and malnourishment, the Asian The finding was shocking not only to the Leg- Legal Resource Centre Internet site has islators of both the ruling and the opposition posted on May 31 2007 the following note. party but also to the people of the State per se. India is a country of contradictions. A country that While exploring the causes of Satyam (an has a projected 9% development index performs internationally reputed software solutions ex- worse than some Sub-Saharan countries with re- porting company) fraud, Raghuvir Srinivasan gard to addressing starvation and malnourishment wrote in the web portal www.ghotala.in that within its territory.