The only advice I ever followed as a journalist is what Deep Throat told the two intrepid Washington Post reporters trying to track down Watergate. It was simple but has never failed me: Follow the money.
In the Shashi Tharoor, Lalit Modi imbroglio, the media unfortunately ignored this sage advice. What began as a cheeky tweet ended up as a bloody political battle with the media turning from war correspondent to head hunter. Some hated Tharoor because they believed he did no work, was constantly on twitter. Others hated him because he had ignored political etiquette and flaunted his girlfriend openly. In any case, Tharoor’s not a typical Indian politician. He’s well educated, has spent many years abroad, is clever, articulate, well spoken and ambitious, having built a successful career in the UN which he gave up to pitch for the top job and lost. This means he’s a gambler too. He is young, by our political standards, which explains why despite his first rate credentials, he got a third rate junior minister’s job. The man who Manmohan Singh backed for the top UN job only got a rather lowly, sinecure position in his cabinet when he returned to India and joined politics. It’s a bit like Indira Nooyi being hired as Deputy General Manager in BSNL.
Lalit Modi, on the other hand, has lived with scandal all his life. No, he was not arrested for drugs while studying in the US. He was arrested for criminal assault, if that’s any better. No, he was not the super CM of Rajasthan during Vasundhara Raje’s time, taking all the key business decisions. He was only her friend. No, he had no stake in the IPL apart from being its very successful Commissioner. If his friends and family had acquired stakes in various teams and highly profitable commercial rights, that was coincidental. That he’s brash, arrogant, full of himself for having built the biggest, richest, sleaziest, and most successful sports property of our time has made him an urban hero for the media which falls all over itself in singing paeans to him. One more year, and like Chatwal, he would have possibly got the Padma Bhushan. (Who knows, he still might.) No, not for bringing cricket into the new century, as his acolytes claim, but for reducing it to a farce and building a huge commercial edifice over it that he controls with an iron fist. Rumours of the IPL having its own betting syndicates and fixed matches are emerging. When you have a stake in three out of the eight teams playing the league, that’s not exactly tough to do.
Lalit Modi is not just the IPL Commissioner. He is the IPL. Whether he works for himself or a political syndicate, no one knows as yet. No wonder he was furious when Tharoor gatecrashed his party and grabbed the Kochi franchise and, worse, took a leaf out of Modi’s own book and made his girlfriend a co-owner. There was only one problem. Modi’s a private businessman who reports to the BCCI, even though he behaves as if he owns Indian cricket. Tharoor is a public servant accountable to Parliament. The war between the two gave the Opposition a handle, threatened to bring the Government down. It was stoked by the media who have their own informers planted on every social networking site whose job is to keep a watch on what could become breaking news. Tharoor and Modi made it to the headlines in one shot. The rest is history. Channel TRPs soared. The IPL went trending on twitter while newspapers dug deeper and deeper into the story to keep it frontpage. By the end of it, Tharoor’s fate was sealed.
It’s not a question of who’s right, who’s wrong. Public opinion’s against both. One for his indiscretions, his foolishness. The other for his hubris, his greed. Tharoor has already resigned. Sunanda has returned her sweat equity to team Kochi. Modi’s being investigated by income tax for his IPL deals and no longer looks as cocky as he once did. A forty fold increase in his income over one year has been tracked down. He paid Rs 32 lakh tax last year. This year he has paid Rs 11 crore advance tax, which makes his income well over Rs 40 crore. They are also zeroing in on some big deposits in Mauritius say newspapers and two union ministers who have invested in IPL teams benami. Both belong to the ruling alliance.
This is where I return to Deep Throat’s advice: Follow the money. Indiscretions, tweets, girlfriends getting sweat equity may be improper. But they are not criminal. Now that Tharoor’s out, maybe we should stop equating Modi’s wrongdoings with his foolishness and instead track down the real crimes. That can be only done when we follow the money, not the fool. There’s no cash trail that leads to Pushkar or Tharoor. Those were only promises of gain. The actual cash trail leads to others. Let’s find out who they are.
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