One Monday morning in Delhi, the best spirit of journalism played from the front in an eight-month old investigation by the The Indian Express with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and Suddeutsche Zeitung, Munich. This resulted in a massive leak of over 11 million secret documents from a Panama law firm featuring more than 500 Indians illegally linked to offshore firms. It was surely something based on a bigger sin than that revealed through last year’s Swiss leak of a global list of over 1,100 Indians with secret bank accounts in HSBC Geneva, which triggered a serious debate on black money parked overseas. This time around, among the big names on the first list are Amitabh Bachchan, KP Singh, Sameer Gehlaut and some top lawyers.

No real havens

Criminality is a way of life for some affluent Indians, and a myth has been in the making that journalism has lost its shine before the mix of technology, corruption and a dwindling tribe of loyal readers. But a myth is a myth, how it can be reality? Ramnath Goenka, the founder of the Express Group, ventured into the media business not only to earn riches but to limit and remove the endemic ills of the establishment. It carried out its pledge after its white paper’s historic anti-establishment stand during the emergency years which was totally an attack on the core of Indian democracy. And it did so again when it was most needed. The angry masses saluted it, and the lost esteem of journalists returned. The government responded within a few hours by forming a multi-agency team to look seriously into the matter. Not a mean feat in the present abnormal times when the serving government is hell-bent on doing ‘man ki baat’ instead of ‘harvesting its soul’—doing anything except setting the stage for a fun-filled mockery of Akhand Bharat. Due to its obsession with the Congress, cow, universities and foreign locations, it has lost mass appeal. 

The tax havens are not real havens. The concept is as simple as reading something written clearly on a wall. It says, “A tax haven is a state, country or territory where, on a national level, certain taxes are levied at a very low rate or not at all; it also refers to countries which have a system of financial secrecy in place.” Post-Panama Paper Trail, there may be an extra number of intelligent readers who will read the last line more carefully than the sluggish beginning to understand better why havens are made for ‘secrecy’. As this is not going to be riskier than not always recalling Bharat Mata or following the rule of law, despite infuriating Ramdev to negotiate in blood, it is going to be the tipping point. 

Cleaner public life

The investigation has helped to give Indian journalism a spine, which has been very troubled in the last few years. Now that it is back, the chances are greater for sanity to prevail. Not long ago in 2011, the country was in the grip of the UPA-II’s unwavering adventurism with scams and uninspiring acts of the ruling leaders. Yet it was unclear whether the masses wanted a shift in mainstream politics or a crowd based in different pockets of Delhi/NCR, supported by rabble-rousers of different types. The movement against corruption was packaged into the Anna Hazare Movement and it was later hijacked by a still not-so-defamed showman named Arvind Kejriwal. That confusing phase altered the course of views on every prestigious edit and oped page, sans a few notable exceptions including The Indian Express. 

Primetime TV shows attract 700,000-800,000 viewers with shifting eyeballs, which undermine the people and their suffering. As managing two square meals daily is still a big deal for more than 400 million Indians living on their land, it really creates a dangerous situation when the world’s fastest growing economy shows no generous gesture to those who are left behind in the blind race of resource plundering and corporate fraud. This investigation has set the right tone to clean the dirt from the havens and lowlands; but to sustain it, there is a need to keep the right to expression safe. The current regime is just too wary with ideas and thinking minds. This is alarming and must be chased away for playing wrongly with the system. Public life in India deserves to be cleaner, no less than the tax evaders and tax havens! 

Thakur is a New Delhi-based journalist