The elastic limit of honesty

I wanted to write something on this ever since the ‘sting operation’ struck the nation. The nation’s hundreds of crores of viewers and readers bored from the staple diet of 70 plus Leftists protesting over the invasion of multinationals immediately latched on to what looked like a sneak preview into the bedrooms of people we iconised.

India TV deserves credit for that. Apart from the fact that they managed to skyrocket their TRPs in a single day. And, last but, definitely not the activating the thought process in fellow journalists that the Fourth Estate was still responsible for investigative journalism and not just for publishing a glorified corporate brochure.

India TV made me proud for that reason. It made me repose my faith in investigative journalism – something that is practiced by few newspapers in the country today.

Unfortunately, I belong to the old school of journalism which thinks there is much more to it than just working for a salary. It is a social responsibility that you are carrying on your shoulders. It is a passion you were fulfilling. How else can you justify 16-hour workdays for a pittance?

My allegiance notwithstanding, I do have my reservations on the way the whole sting operation was executed. Six months, you continue calling a person, forcing him to fall into the trap and be infidel. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that the casting couch doesn’t exist. Forget Bollywood, the couch perhaps exists in every industry in its own veiled and hush-hush fashion. It’s just that Bollywood is always under the public scanner and thus we come to know and love to read about such scandals. I am just questioning the manner in which India TV did it.

I remember a similar incident that happened during my journalistic days. The local metro page was running out of stories on that day. The crime beat and police control room failed to produce anything and the political correspondent was the last hope. So what does our man do? He calls up top leaders of two factions of the same political party. Talks to the first one and coaxes him into making a statement against the other leader. And once the correspondent gets that, he calls up the other leader and tells her about the kind of statements being made against her by the other faction leader! And, in return gets another quotable quote. The result? A Page 1 story on two factions of the same political party fighting with each other.

Now would you call that investigative journalism? I wouldn’t.

You might ask, what has that got to do with the sting operations? I feel, like in the above example, in the sting operation too, the desired end result was sensationalism. But that’s not what I want to write in this blog.

Correct me if I am wrong, but for the last few weeks I am constantly having this feeling that we humans are like elastic strings. The moment you cross the elastic limit, the string breaks. Perhaps, our conscience has an elastic limit. And, probably, our honesty too.

Take the example of the traffic constable we all love to make fun about. Violate a traffic rule, and you can get away with a 50 buck bribe. If you are caught by an officer, 50 won’t do. You would probably require a 100 rupee note. And the elastic limit increases proportionately with the rank.

If you commit a larger crime, you would probably require hundreds, thousands, lakhs or even crores. The fact of the matter is that everything has a price tag attached to it. Be it in our country or any Western model country.

The point I am trying to make is that all of us have probably become elastic. The limit is what changes from person to person and distinguishes an honest person from a dishonest one. A loyal human being from an infidel one.

Aman Verma and Shakti Kapoor succumbed of six months of seduction. Probably a die-hard loyal guy would need six years. But eventually he too would succumb.

What do you think?