So convinced are we of political venality that we have bought, hook line and sinker, all the serious claims of corruption against the government on the basis of the revelations made by WikiLeaks about votes being bought by the Congress during the parliamentary vote on the Indo-US nuclear deal in July 2008. The allegations are based on confidential cables sent by an American diplomat during those days.

These are not original investigations by WikiLeaks or any particular journalist; the website got the cables from whistleblowers and has published them with little or no independent editorial cross-checking.
It is newspaper convention to attach the word “allegedly” before any allegation to show that these are not proven charges and also to absolve the publication itself of any libel suit. Those conventions have been long discarded by the media itself; certainly WikiLeaks feels no obligation to stick to media practices. Thus, without any qualification, we are to believe that a confidential report a diplomat may or may not have sent based on a conversation he may or may not have had and which has now found its way, unauthorisedly, to a website, is gospel.
Immediately after the revelations appeared, the media, on cue, has gone into an overdrive about these claims and the Opposition parties have demanded that the Prime Minister quit. While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has deployed its most-favoured weapon — morality — in its argument (as in, “It is the Prime Minister’s moral duty to resign”), the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has willingly bought every word, notwithstanding the fact that the cable in question was sent by an American diplomat. At any other time, this would have invoked their favourite phrase “imperialist disinformation”.
Unhappily for the BJP, another cable also reportedly revealed that one of its leaders, Seshadri Chari, was assuring the Americans that the party’s opposition to the nuclear deal was little more than political grandstanding. This time it was the Congress’ turn to crow.
Some of those with longer memories will recall the sensation caused by the 2005 publication of the Mitrokhin archives. In a book based on the disclosures made by the Russian defector Vasili Mitrokhin, it was claimed that the USSR had bribed Left (and Congress) leaders for information during the height of the Indo-Soviet partnership. The Left had then strongly denied any such thing.
In each of these instances, no one except for the dramatic personae can say for sure what exactly happened. However, some circumstantial evidence should be considered before passing judgment. For example, the claim in one of the cables that four members of Parliament (MPs) of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) were paid large sums of money to vote with the government has demonstrably been proved wrong. For one thing, the RLD had three MPs and, more important, it voted against the bill. Again, one might also legitimately ask whether a Congress operator would show actual bags of cash to a diplomat to boast about what he is about to do. It strains our credulity.
But credulity is the one thing which is in great abundance all around. No room for healthy scepticism here. We are so ready to believe the worst of politicians, especially of the Congress, that we will not stop to ask any questions. The claims allegedly made by the diplomat and then published on the website must be true; everyone knows that politicians are corrupt and this government is the most corrupt of them all. Now even Julian Assange is implying that the Prime Minister of India is being economical with the truth. No guesses whom we trust more, our own Prime Minister or an Australian activist.
For all we know, many, if not most, of the statements made in the WikiLeaks disclosures may be true. Only an independent enquiry will reveal the truth.
But till the facts are revealed, the media and the citizenry at large cannot hyperventilate every time some revelation is made. Some sense of proportion is required. It is the job of the Opposition to make outrageous statements and to undermine the government; but it is also incumbent on the media to be a bit more sober and interpret the issues correctly for the society. Somewhere along the way that rational approach has disappeared and we have become a nation that is in perpetual outrage mode.
The Opposition’s game plan is clear — attack the Prime Minister directly for his sins of omission and commission. This weakens the government and also covers up the failures and misdeeds of the Opposition (the tactics over the 2G spectrum scam is a good example). But the rest of us cannot fall into the same trap. Let the Prime Minister answer all the allegations that are hurled at him, demand that an impartial inquiry be conducted into all the charges that have emerged in the WikiLeaks revelations, but do not be so cynical that you disbelieve him before he has opened his mouth.

The writer is a senior journalist and commentator on current affairs based in Mumbai