Tehelka

Tehelka is an Indian weekly magazine under the editorship of Tarun Tejpal. The publication started life in 2000 as a news website, Tehelka.com.

It was forced to close down temporarily due to hostile government action following Operation West End, a major expose on corruption in defense procurements. In 2003, it was relaunched as a weekly newspaper. In 2007, it once again underwent a transformation, and shifted to a regular magazine format. In September 2007, Tehelka came up with a Hindi news based web portal "Tehelka Hindi". Just after a month in October 2007, it once again captured widespread attention for an elaborate sting operation that captured on hidden camera several perpetrators of the 2002 Gujarat riots admitting to horrendous crimes, and revealing the riots to be part of a well-planned conspiracy that had state sanction.

Operation West End

Operation West End was a sting operation aimed at sensationalizing the corruption underlying India's large defence contracts. The original investigative piece by Tehelka in 2001 targeted several members of the then ruling coalition, the National Democratic Alliance, headed by Bharatiya Janata Party's Atal Behari Vajpayee. It showed several political figures, as well as army top brass, colluding to take bribes that approached 4% of orders totalling hundreds of crores in order to approve defense contracts.

The minister in charge of Defence, George Fernandes of the Samata Party, resigned after the tapes were made public, but he was reinstated later. Part of the tapes show the treasurer of his party talking about accepting bribes of 1 crore or more. However, subsequent investigation revealed that there was no evidence linking Fernandes to the impropriety in the deals. Tehelka was accused of fabricating allegations and carrying out a biased and motivated campaign carried out at the behest of the political foes of George Fernandes.

One source of corruption arises because arms dealers often hire senior armed forces personnel. For example, Admiral S. M. Nanda, ex-Chief of Naval Staff, is now associated with the arms mediating firm Crown Corporation, headed by his son, ex-Naval officer Lt-Cmdr Suresh Nanda. Clearly such people have access to internal processes at the Indian Ministry of Defence.

In the Tehelka tapes, the reporter (usually Aniruddha Bahal) is posing as a representative of the fictitious large arms supplier West End.

Armoured Recovery Vehicles

At one point, the Samata Party national treasurer RK Jain is trying to convince Tehelka about his prowess in swinging deals. He mentions how in the first defence deal that he was involved in as the party treasurer, Suresh Nanda of Crown Corporation had paid Samata Party Rs 1 crore to swing the Rs 250-crore (USD 60 million) order for Armoured Recovery Vehicles (ARV) in favour of a Slovakian company.

Samata Party treasurer R.K. Jain: "Nanda approached me. Czechoslovakia's price was the lowest, second Slovakian, third was the Poland."

Tehelka: "Haan, Haan."

R.K. Jain: "He said, 'I will give you one crore rupees in advance'."

Tehelka: "Okay."

R.K. Jain: "You get disapproved the last one. Czechoslovakia because they are so lower that we cannot match their price."

Tehelka: "Okay."

R.K. Jain: "If you can push him out. Delegation is going on to the... delegation has been ordered to go to Czechoslovakia. Stop this delegation, and technically reject this company. Here are the documents."

Tehelka: "Hmm."

R.K.Jain: "By which it's proved that this company is closed for the last two years. They will start only after getting this order."

Tehelka: "Yeah, yeah."

R.K. Jain: "I will give one crore rupees. And I will give you... if they are technically disapproved, then you are my agent."

Tehelka: "Yeah."

R.K. Jain: "For this particular... perks... and I will give you so much of commission."

Tehelka: "Okay."

R.K. Jain: "I said, 'Fine.' He gave me the correspondence. I took the correspondence to George."
(the then Defence minister George Fernandes was from Samata Party)
Tehelka: "Hmm."

R.K. Jain: "And he said, 'All right, I'll reject it.' He is a very intelligent man."...

Tehelka: Okay, it is manipulated.

R.K. Jain: He wrote straight away on the file himself. He never goes and orders to a Joint Secretary. He wrote it himself, and sent the file back. Nanda gave me one crore rupees. He called me, "Yes, Mr. Jain, the file has come down. Like you know George…"

Tehelka: Yeah, yeah.

Barak Missile System

At another point Jain also says that he had received another Rs 1 crore for the Samata Party from Suresh Nanda to help swing the contract for an air-to-air and surface-to-surface missile system for the Indian Navy. Nanda was an agent for the Israel Aircraft Industries who make the Barak missile.

These tapes were the result of a clandestine sting operation and are not admissible as evidence in court. However, the videos (and the media furore following it) resulted in the Central Bureau of Investigation conducting its own investigation, based on which R.K. Jain was arrested in February 2006.

The Truth: Gujarat 2002

In October 2007, Tehelka published the findings of an elaborate, 6-month long investigation into the 2002 Gujarat riots that followed the burning of a passenger train carrying Hindu pilgrims. Dubbed Operation Kalank, the sting claimed to show that the riots were not a spontaneous Hindu backlash in response to the Godhra train burning incident, but an organised pogrom carried out in full knowledge and sanction of Gujarat state government. Posing as a fanatical student who was researching a book to propagate Hindutva, Tehelka reporter Ashish Khetan caught nearly two dozen people belonging to the Sangh Parivar boasting about their misdeeds on hidden camera. The sting also netted top government officials, including the Gujarat State Counsel inadvertently revealing on camera the extent of the state's role in the pogrom. The veracity of the sting operation is disputed by members of the Sangh Parivar.