It’s fun. It really is. When you can spew gibberish at will, and have the luxury of someone cleaning up after you. It is fairly common in India of course. You have drivers and household help routinely covering up for crimes their masters commit. So, it is hardly surprising that when Union Finance and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley, aka Mr Multitasker, lamented about a “small” incident of rape damaging India’s tourism revenues, the Press Information Bureau (PIB), a nodal agency of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, tried covering up.

It was an incredibly stupid thing to do for reasons more than one, but then reason is hardly ever a deterrent to servility.

The August 21 edition of Business Standard carried a story with the headline “Incidents of rape impacts tourism industry financially: FM”. It quoted Jaitley stating that “one small incident of rape in Delhi advertised world-over is enough to cost us billions of dollars in terms of lower tourism”. It was an agency copy, so it is difficult to say with certainty who was responsible for putting “one small incident of rape in Delhi” within quotes. But what can be said with a fair amount of surety is that Business Standard didn’t use Jaitley’s pearls of wisdom to leverage the story. The report was deadpan and was hardly, if at all, editorialised.

The story – the quote to be more precise – raised quite a storm.  Jaitley got pilloried on social media. (Yes, sometimes you have to state the obvious). Indeed #BigMinisterSmallRape and #RapeSmall4BJP trended all day today.

Dear NDA, what do you want us to take more seriously on crime against women? PM’s Red Fort speech or FM’s remarks? #BigMinisterSmallRape

— Pawan Khera (@Pawankhera) August 22, 2014

 

Most BJP leaders distanced themselves from Jaitley’s statement and didn’t try defending him. Unsurprisingly, it was PIB that came to the rescue – right on cue, it released the full text of Jaitley’s speech. At least, that’s what they claimed it was. And it was gone. No longer was it one “small” incident of rape. No prizes for guessing what happened next in the land of the little birdie. Jaitley went from villain to victim in no time at all, with many Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) supporters demanding an apology from Business Standard.

However, Jaitley’s relief turned out to be temporary. Headlines Today ran the full clip of the speech and it was clear that Jaitley had, in fact, used the word “small”. (This is one incident that reaffirms the importance of private broadcasting despite all its problems.)

Now that it is clear that Jaitley did say what the Business Standard report claimed, it is perhaps time to address a few other questions.

Since it was an agency copy, every newspaper and news channel would have had access to it, but no one ran it on August 21. Other media outlets reported it only when the issue had blown up and it was evident that PIB had omitted the word. So what could be the reason? It wasn’t newsworthy? Or are our editors simply immune to insensitive remarks made by our politicians.

It is difficult to fathom that the answers to both the questions would be in the positive since similar remarks by politicians from the Samajwadi Party (SP) – who have perfected the art of making mindless, misogynist remarks – get ample airtime, week after week. Also, when Abhijit Mukherjee made that stinker of a comment about  “dented-painted women”, he was attacked from all quarters, and justifiably so. Does that mean the standards are different for a Mulayam Singh Yadav and an Arun Jaitley? Is the media outrage contingent on political allegiance? Or is it all about pulling no punches at a soft target?

It’s no secret that Jaitley wields considerable influence over the who’s who of the media industry. Could that be the reason why there is no prime-time outrage or eloquent editorials on the issue? “Jaitley is the most well-entrenched politician in the media. Part of his prominence in Delhi’s power circle comes from his proximity with the media,” said Hartosh Singh Bal, political editor, The Caravan.

What is even more worrying than media’s selective outrage is the role of PIB in the episode. The PIB is supposed to be the interface between the government and the media – and the current government’s reluctance to directly address the media has made its role even more important. In fact, on Twitter – which seems to be the new government’s favourite means of disseminating information – most official handles of Cabinet ministers only re-tweet things from the PIB handle. And if this incident is reflective of the PIB’s integrity, then concerns about communication from the government being one-way and unaccountable are more than legitimate.

One would expect better from a senior member of a party, which went to town outraging and condemning the then ruling party’s insensitivity and lack of action, following the  December 16 gang-rape and murder. Indeed, the family of the the girl, who lost her life in the ghastly incident, has slammed Jaitley’s remark.

Arun Jaitley, to give him the benefit of doubt, perhaps didn’t mean to downplay the gravity of the December 16 rape incident and realised his mistake. But instead of the staid “misconstrued” argument, an unconditional apology should have been the way forward. Not this slimy editing trick that the PIB tried pulling off.