2½ cheers for Radia

The more one listens to the recorded conversations of Niira Radia talking to a variety of people, the more one realises her consummate skills in public relations, corporate communications, image management, persuasive marketing, lobbying… call it what you like. Whereas she emerges as a smart and super-efficient practitioner of the fine art of winning friends and influencing people in these phone conversations (that she obviously presumed were confidential), those whom she spoke to don’t exactly come out smelling of roses, be these politicians, industrialists, bureaucrats, fellow fixers and, above all, senior journalists/television anchors.
The Radia conversations should become part of the curriculum of educational institutions that teach students PR or “corp-comm”. There are important reasons why one is thankful that these conversations are in the public domain and these have absolutely nothing to do with issues relating to invasion of privacy and intrusion by the media into the private lives of public personalities. No one likes her or his personal conversations to be recorded and then splashed across the pages of magazines or embedded in websites, particularly if she or he was indulging in not-so-polite chit-chat peppered with generous helpings of unsubstantiated gossip. The significance of the Radia recordings lies elsewhere.
Contrary to what Union home secretary Gopal K. Pillai reportedly remarked, much of the recorded conversations disclosed so far go way beyond “titillating” trivia. The conversations relate to subjects that are deadly serious and significant in the way these throw light on the working of the country’s political economy. One cannot lightly dismiss discussions relating to Cabinet formation and the constitution of the council of ministers that some may naively have believed was the prerogative of the Prime Minister. Nor should one ignore issues pertaining to changes in official policies — relating to, for instance, allocation of scarce and precious natural resources such as natural gas found in the Krishna-Godavari basin or electromagnetic spectrum used by mobile telecommunications companies — where a change in a single sentence could translate into profits or losses running into thousands of crores of rupees for particular firms.
What the Radia conversations have done is bring out into the public domain what many of us knew and understood, but could only discuss during private interactions: that is, the nexus between big business and politics. We were all also aware that the services of lobbyists are deployed to provide a spin to a story that is lapped up (unknowingly?) by gullible or corrupt journalists.
We now also know for sure that journalists air opinions that are dictated to them by interested parties — don’t we all love the phrase “vested interests”. It was hardly a secret that certain not-so-esteemed members of the fourth estate double up as agents and informers — we are no longer left in doubt about their extra-curricular activities.
Why have sections of the media painted Ms Radia in rather lurid colours? Is it just jealousy about a lady who represents two of the wealthiest men in India and the world, Mukesh Ambani and Ratan Tata, and the interests of their respective corporate conglomerates? Or is it that many of us (including this correspondent) are amazed at how she quickly changes colour and acquires new avatars depending on the individual she is speaking with, as any person who has heard her (and not just read the transcripts of the recordings) will realise?
She is urbane and sophisticated when talking to Mr Tata, brash and brassy when conversing with Prabhu Chawla or Ranjan Bhattacharya and dripping honey while seeking the support of Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi. With Tarun Das, chief mentor of the Confederation of Indian Industry, she becomes familiar to a point where she offers astrological advice for his son who wants to set up a soccer academy for the underprivileged youth of Haryana. She berates society columnist Shobhaa De to one of her junior colleagues, talks shop with bureaucrat-turned-politician Nand Kishore (“Nandu”) Singh and convinces Tamil Nadu chief minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi and the now-disgraced former Union minister for communications and information technology Andimuthu Raja that she is indeed in the loop and in complete control of the situation at hand.
Right through her conversations, Ms Radia is cool, composed and unflapabble. One can’t help but admire her networking skills, her command over the fine-print of spectrum allocation and the nitty-gritty of policies pertaining to natural gas. By way of contrast, those at the other end of the line often sound rather pompous and all-knowing, self-seeking and arrogant. Many sound as if they were eager to convince her how well-connected they were. As senior journalist Mark Tully wondered during an interaction: how often can a person get away “stringing” a source? If one keeps on making hypocritical claims about helping a source, will the latter continue to repose faith in the former.
One should thank not Ms Radia but those who recorded her conversations for laying bare the manner in which the corporate sector influences not just government policies but ministerial appointments as well. Thanks to Wikileaks and the Radia recordings, our notion of what is private or confidential and what is public or transparent has undergone important changes. All of which, in my opinion, is good for society at large.
Before concluding, a disclaimer is required. This correspondent has never ever met Ms Radia and is especially thankful that he was not sufficiently important to receive a phone call from her. If indeed she has violated the laws of the land, by evading taxes, by laundering black money, by acquiring assets disproportionate to known sources of income or by jeopardising the country’s security interests — allegations which are yet to be established in a court of law — she should indeed be punished. Till that happens, two-and-a-half-cheers for Ms Radia!

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is an educator and commentator