Tarun Tejpal - 20 Years Of Operation West End – Has Anything Changed?

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20 Years Of Operation West End Has Anything
Changed?
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Tarun Tejpal - It seems like both public and mass
media's memory limits itself to the worlds of
sport and cinema. While two decades of Lagaan
trended for days on social media a couple of
months ago, and reams of airtime was devoted to
it on prime time, a landmark some might call it
defining moment in politics and in Indian
journalism also hit its 20 year anniversary
recently. You might remember it as Operation
West End. Or you might remember it as the massive
defence deals scam unearthed by Tarun Tejpal's
magazine Tehelka in its now legendary first sting
operation, something for which the magazine and
Tejpal were placed firmly in the crosshairs of
the BJP for times to come. As conversations
about the Rafaele deal a global web of secrecy,
contradictory statements from different
governments, and an incomprehensible amount of
citizen money bubble and fade under the watch
of a compromised press and an indifferent, even
reverent public, one thing is clear.
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To anyone who has been paying attention, or who
can trace the arc from journalists Tarun J Tejpal
and Aniruddha Bahal's shape-shifting
investigation into the BJPs defence deal in 2001,
the writing is on the wall. Defence scams in
India aren't new, nor are they limited to the
BJP Bofors casts a long shadow even today. What
is astonishing, though, is the BJP's ability to
have resurrected itself not only as the ruling
dispensation but with an image they brazenly
claim as uncorrupt and entirely clean, despite
the catastrophic episode in which the then leader
of the party was caught on camera accepting a
bribe for his role in a massive defence deal.
If the details are hazy, here's a quick primer
on what went down.
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The year was 2001. Tehelka.com was a newsmagazine
founded by journalist and editor Tarun Tejpal,
that conducted its first of many sting operations
in the country, each revealing not just episodes
of horrific corruption or genocidal violence
Gujarat 2002 but also pioneered an absolutely
new form of gonzo public-interest journalism to
India. It's only fealty? To the facts, and to the
reader. Over the course of seven months,
tracing a complex and nefarious web of fixers and
arms dealers, politicians and influential middle
men, Tehelka conducted a quiet, thorough and
sustained investigation into a massive defence
arms deal underway, one that led them to the late
Bangaru Laxman, the then President of the BJP.
In the sting operation, that later came to be
known as Operation West End, Bangaru was caught
on camera taking a bribe from a fake arms dealer
to recommend to the defence ministry for the
awarding of a contract to supply thermal
binoculars to the Army.
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In speaking of their strategy later, Tarun J
Tejpal and Aniruddha Bahal highlighted that they
decided to start with the person who was at the
lowest point in the defence chain and then move
upwards to higher officials of the network, to
see how high the chain of corruption would go. As
history was made and showed that it went right to
the top, to the sitting President of the ruling
party in government, it shook the very
foundations of both politics and journalism in
India. Bangaru Laxman went on to be convicted by
a special CBI court under the Prevention of
Corruption Act in 2012 and sentenced to four
years rigorous imprisonment, but went on to
receive bail very soon and two years later, in
2014, passed away of a respiratory illness. The
investigative team started its operation by
forming a fictitious Arms Manufacturing Company
that was based in London and named it West End
International.
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They then patiently seeded their operation with
senior section officer P. Sashi, who was posted
in the Ministry of Defence. Using P. Sashi's
desire to make money from dealers as bait, they
offered him a monetary incentive to lead them to
the more senior members of this corruption
network up the chain. P. Sashi then took the fake
arms dealers the investigative journalists to
the home of the then DOGS, Anil Sehgal. Having
acquired all necessary information from the two
of them about what products are required by the
Indian Army and how they can enter the reckoning,
they set in motion the next part of their
plan. After taking a bribe of Rs 2 lakh, Sehgal
agreed to share the documents required to sell
armaments etc to the Indian Army to the
Investigative officers.On 26th November 2000, the
sting operation team was introduced to Deepak
Gupta who was the son of RSS trustee RK Gupta.
Deepak gave an assurance to the team for bagging
their project and told the team that he wielded
some influence in the government and that he
worked from the PMO.
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When the team later met RK Gupta, he claimed that
everything had been sorted out for them and that
they could easily get the commission. He also
openly talked about his relationship with Prime
Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna
Advani. On 1 January 2001, Laxman took the bribe
of Rs 1,00,000 to pursue the proposal by the
fictitious company. The final meeting was held on
7th January 2001 to close the deal. In the
entire sting operation, almost 15 people were
found to have taken bribes from the
representatives of the fake company. The final
CDs of the Operation were released on 13th March
2001. The report created political havoc in the
country, with a host of political leaders having
to resign. Operation West End, Aniruddh Bahal and
Tarun Tejpal, in that moment, accomplished the
unheard of in Indian media the capacity for a
small, unknown media platform breaking the most
significant political and corruption story at the
very top of the political food chain, with hard
evidence in the form of tapes and a recorded
admission of guilt by Laxman himself.
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In doing so, they demonstrated both the audacity
that journalism demands if it is to ever unearth
the truth, and demolished the BJPs claim of being
the clean, uncorrupt antidote to the
legacy-leadership of the Congress. Now, with
Rafaele being suppressed with the governments
full political might, it is more important than
ever to recall the revolution started by Tarun J
Tejpal and Aniruddh Bahal, and demand that
journalists, public watchdogs and institutions
like the CBI conduct a thorough probe into the
disquieting facts. At stake is not only an
instance of unprecedented corruption but the very
safety and security of our armed forces as well
as the country itself. And given the scale of the
deal, it is, in the words of veteran advocate
Prashant Bhushan, even more serious than Bofors
in the '80s. "This is not merely a matter of
securing the commission for a particular company,
as was the case in Bofors. This is the largest
defence scam that the country has seen."
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As Tarun Tejpal and Aniruddh Bahal can attest
decades later, the price for pursuing the truth
runs deep the government booked Tehelka under
many arbitrary accusations over the course of the
next few years, cut off all avenues for financial
growth for the company and virtually forced it to
close it was a while before the magazine could
be resurrected, and the persecution in faux court
cases continued for the next decade and more.
20 years from then, the journalist Aniruddha
Bahal, who was part of this sting operation still
believes that greed doesn't disappear. It simply
gets more clever with time. At a time when the
traditional press largely operates as the PR
department of the state, India needs more
journalists like Tarun Tejpal and Aniruddha Bahal
who follow a story to wherever and whoever it
will lead, and whose lives live to tell the story
of the price of truth.