Letter to Hoot: Remaining above the fray

IN Opinion | 27/05/2005

Election observers drawn from different departments with varied background are also average citizens and there was nothing wrong if they, out of curiosity, made certain informal exchanges with voters to know the reasons for their preferences. There was nothing official about it. It does not amount to campaigning against the Left. Since all the political parties, whether the Hindu Right (a new expression coined by The Hindu for BJP) or the Left are very touchy about the Election Commission since the time of T N Seshan, the Left smelt a rat over this innocuous exchange of the Observers with the voters and made a complaint to the Commission. Neither there was any game plan behind this nor was it an official survey ordered by the Commission, as has been clarified by the Commission in response to the editorial. The Commission said: "…it has neither carried out any exercise nor conducted any probe at any time in any part of the country to find out as to why people vote for any particular party or candidate at any election. The Commission is conscious of the fact that any such exercise or probe would be an infringement on the constitutional right of the people to exercise their franchise in a free and fair manner."

In the first instance, the newspaper should not have formed an opinion based on the political parties’ complaints which are dime a dozen on the eve of elections. Having done that, when an authentic version is received from the Commission, the newspaper should have the decency to admit the mistake and take recourse to "Self-correction" rather than quoting extensively from the complaint of the Left parties and offering gratuitous advice that "the Election Commission should not give scope for any such complaints in future". Secondly, did the newspaper refer to former CEC JM Lyngdoh’s unseemly outburst in public against the senior officials of the Gujarat government.

The problem with the editors is that they think they are infallible and "Self-correction" is only for others. They are content with the publication of rejoinders, corrigendum, etc, which in any way do not reflect on their editorial opinion or flaws in their argument. While the editor-in-chief of the newspaper appears on the small screen with a "testimonial byte" in favour of Prakash Karat when he took over as the General Secretary of the CPI-M, one may say what is wrong with it and that is what press freedom is all about. May be. But, is there something called "ethics" for the editors?

S R Ramanujan,

Hyderabad