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News? No washed in Lux!

There was a time when manipulating media was not easy. In fact, it was impossible. Let me give you five examples from, say, politics to prove what I am saying. That news was once sacrosanct. No one could whitewash dirty images. No one could clean up what was seen as clearly wrong.

A R Antulay

Antulay tried very hard, harder than most people I know, to get Arun Shourie off his back. But he did not succeed. Shourie had very high credibility and investigative journalism in India had just come of age. Antulay lost his powerful job as chief minister of Maharashtra and became a political pariah for years because of the cement scam that Shourie unearthed (with some help from the Hindujas) and, all his protestations notwithstanding, Antulay was tried and found guilty by the people. The courts eventually gave him a clean chit. But that was so many years later that it could no longer salvage his political career.

Sanjay Gandhi

Sanjay adopted exactly the opposite strategy from Antulay. He did not try to woo the press. He bullied and browbeat it. But even that did not work. An amazing blend of fact and fiction killed off his initial image as an ambitious, go-getting, earnest young man in a desperate hurry to put India on the growth track. He finally emerged in the media as a ruthless, power hungry, if somewhat despicable political villain who ruled without authority and will remain in our contemporary history as a dirty, rotten scoundrel. No not even the Congress is ready to whitewash his memory today.

Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv had an identical problem with Bofors. Try as hard as he could, he and his hotshot media manipulators, who were actually a loathsome bunch of crooks themselves, did not manage to successfully roll back public opinion. He lost the elections, saw his jaani dushman V P Singh ascend the throne of Hindustan, and (for a while) almost looked as if he would lose his control over the party he had inherited from his mother. Even his assassination could not cleanse his sullied image and, today, his widow (however strong she may be politically) still lives under the shadow of the Rs 640 million howitzer deal.

Arun Nehru

During Indira Gandhi's last years, Nehru was the most powerful man in the Congress. Then, when Rajiv and he fell out over the spoils of office, he switched loyalty to V P Singh and became an equally powerful minister in the Janata Dal Cabinet. But the media pursued him doggedly over Bofors and the Czech pistols case and, much as he tried, he could not shake off allegations of bribery and fiddle faddle. He bullied the media, browbeat journalists, intimidated investigators and adopted a tough, unyielding line. But nothing helped. He was straitjacketed and sent off, shouting and screaming, to Siberia and has not been heard of since.

Om Parkash Chautala

Devi Lal's eldest son was all set to emerge as a key figure in national politics. But his run in with the press over Meham finished all that. He was painted as a villainous, lying chief minister who resorted to unprovoked violence and barbaric booth capturing to perpetuate his hold over Haryana and ensure that no one can upstage him. Now, even after he has made a quiet comeback in politics, as an ally of the BJP, he is forced to lie low simply because no one is willing to openly associate with him. So filthy is his image that even electoral victory cannot cleanse it.

There are many more examples. Of leaders who went into oblivion, businessmen who vanished from the public eye, godmen who sulked in dark corners when the media spotlight caught up with them and exposed their frailties. I have just named five to show how tough and otherwise successful politicians failed to fight back the relentless onslaught of news. They showed themselves up for what they were: Humpty Dumptys. All the king's horses and all the king's men could not put them together again.

But times have changed. Our leaders and businessmen have discovered the incredible power of teflon. Better known as media manipulation. That's why our villains no longer look as black (and irredeemable) as they used to be. The Dr Dangs and Mogambos of Indian politics have now become the Khalnayaks. Sexy villains like Sanjay Dutt and Shah Rukh Khan. Role models for those who are not unduly concerned about right and wrong in an increasingly amoral universe.

Image detergents are also readily available. So are spin doctors, a dime a dozen. Each spin doctor has his own bunch of dhobis in the media, who are ready (for a fee) to get into the cleaning act.

Here are five examples of people who would have, in another time, another era, never survived their past. But the new breed of news managers have actually succeeded in restoring them back in public life. Recreated refurbished and, in some cases, you could say almost repositioned like a failed brand.

Sukh Ram

Sukh Ram was caught with his hand in the till. Unexplained millions were recovered from his official bungalow. His cronies in the bureaucracy were picked up by the CBI. His businessmen friends were raided. Even his party (the Congress) booted him out. Yet, through some fancy footwork in the media, Sukh Ram managed to get his story off the front page. Within months of being caught and put behind bars, he won an assembly seat in Himachal and re-imaged himself as the man who looted India to help his constituency!

Harshad Mehta

He was called the biggest scamster of all time. Stories after stories were written about his phenomenal wealth, his amazing influence in the corridors of power. Then he fell with a huge thud and no one was even ready to acknowledge the fact that he knew him. Even though Mehta had helped scores of businessmen rig their share prices and make neat fortunes on the bourse. Now, as the court cases against him continue outside the glare of media attention, Mehta is back doing what he is best at. Insider trading. And the very newspapers who called him the conman of the century are publishing his columns on the front page!

Chandra Swami

Everyone always knew what he was. A philanderer, a crook. An influence peddler. A front man for many politicians. A fixer for countless dubious businessmen. But, then, the law suddenly caught up with the man who no one thought could ever be jailed. Simply because he was seen as all powerful. For months, he stayed locked up and every newspaper called him every name under the sun. But the moment he got bail and came out into the sunshine, he was back in business. Proving that governments may come and go, but crooks and tantriks go on forever!

Jayalalitha

She was described as our own Imelda Marcos. Tough, ruthless, amazingly corrupt. Nothing ever got done in Tamil Nadu, they said, unless Amma got her cut. As a result of a steady string of such stories, Amma also got her comeuppance. She lost the election, went to prison, and is still defending herself in countless indefensible corruption cases. But savvy media management and clever manipulation of the gender vote has brought her back into the forefront of national and Tamil Nadu politics. Most people believe that Vajpayee changed India's nuclear policy only to get her off the headlines.

Laloo Prasad Yadav

The fodder scam almost nailed him. Laloo went behind bars. His cronies were picked up. His officers were jailed. But the indefatigable Yadav, one of the great survivors of heartland politics, turned the table on his tormenters by unabashedly naming his illiterate wife as chief minister of Bihar. He then went about repositioning in the media his own fight against the CBI as a battle for the backwards and a vote against communalism. As a result, the man whom everyone should have shunned is now being wooed by all the mainstream parties. As a smart, canny political ally.

I could give you many more examples. Arun Gawli, hood turned neta. Veerappan, smuggler turned Robin Hood. Phoolan Devi, dacoit turned Nobel Prize nominee. Charles Sobhraj, murderer turned romantic rebel. Dawood Ibrahim, gangster turned headline snatcher. Sanjay Singh, bigamist turned MP. Satish Sharma, bootlicker and crook turned Sonia loyalist. Buta Singh, scamster turned scheduled caste neta. Narasimha Rao, disgraced prime minister now a sexy novelist.

That's the point. News still has the power to destroy reputations, true. But the new gem detergents wash so well that we may soon find it impossible to distinguish between the good guys and the bad, the netas and the crooks, the thugs and the newly empowered castes. If you have the right imagist, the right media connections, the right spin doctors all you need is plastic surgery and you can be back in business. In a new role.

No problem!

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Pritish Nandy