Plagiarise and be damned

An embarrassing silence has recently enveloped the Indian media regarding an act of plagiarism, probably because it’s not been committed by another journalist but by one of our most powerful media moguls, Aroon Purie. In his letter that opens the magazine India Today (but only for the Southern editions), he wrote about Rajnikanth a fortnight ago. One of the memorable lines went: “If a tiger had sex with a tornado and then their tiger-nado baby got married to an earthquake, their offspring would be Rajinikanth (sic)”. Unfortunately, this line had already been written by Grady Hendrix and published on the American website Slate. Going by the blogs, what has irritated readers more was his “apology” in the subsequent issue which seemed more like a slap in the face, and in which he blamed the plagiarism on jet-lag. Friends who have worked for Purie say he is one of the sharpest media proprietors in India; if he forsakes humility in his attempt to put the matter behind him, then that’s his business. The real issue is that of rampant plagiarism in India and how it continues to erode the already low credibility of Indian journalism in the public eye.

To be fair to Purie, he did not commit the actual act of plagiarism; it was apparently caused by the combined laziness (intellectual and otherwise) of two of his top editors. This is because the India Today Editor-in-Chief apparently only writes his column on rare occasions, and that most of the 3,000-odd “letters” that have appeared with his signature over the years have been written by staffers. Though this is sad (because someone denied himself the immense joy that comes from writing, but also because it is symptomatic of the inferiority complex that many proprietors, Express excluded, needlessly suffer vis-á-vis journalists), it is a commonplace; I have witnessed friends writing speeches for mediapersons who became members of Parliament.

Furthermore, Purie’s mistake was not as egregious as that by VN Narayanan, who lost his job as editor of the Hindustan Times a little over a decade back when he was caught having plagiarised a large part of his column, word for word, from a piece by Brian Appleyard of The Sunday Times of London. Allegations of plagiarism had periodically surfaced during Narayanan’s stint in the Chandigarh-based Tribune, which had otherwise seen a lot of excellent journalism under his editorship during the most intense period of Sikh extremism. His career came to an humorous end when, in his own defence, Narayanan cynically blamed the plagiarism on his “photographic memory”.

The buck stops at the top, however, and it will take time for Purie to live down this stupid-mistake-by-stupider-underlings. But that’s good, in a way, if it occasions some introspection and forces some self-regulation. India Today has been charged with plagiarism too many times lately; just ask Canada-based blogger Niranjana Iyer or Anshuman Rane of the UK digiterati. It’s not a coincidence that these victims were foreign-based and that their work appeared online. It seems Indian journalists think that they are immune given a blogger’s distance from an Indian court and the fact the cyber-universe is so vast that the readership of a particular online article is often limited. No apologies have ever been offered to either of these two, by the way, and the culprits roam free to plagiarise again. Similarly, the Times of India film critic, Nikhat Kazmi, lifted from the legendary Roger Ebert for her review of Shark Tale, yet she remains at work for India’s largest media company.

If journalists are not made to pay for a crime like plagiarism then on what basis can the media chase after Suresh Kalmadi and pronounce him guilty of corruption in organising the recently-concluded CWG even before he’s been investigated by competent agencies? It may turn out that Kalmadi has not taken bribes or it may turn out that he’s the fall guy for a bigger fish in the Congress party; but in the case of India Today no further investigation is required. Also, it is no argument to say that Kalmadi is a public servant while Purie represents the private sector. This is the same specious argument that has allowed parts of the Indian media to commodify the news and that among other things has led to “paid news”, which a Press Council of India report said “undermined democracy” and “tarnished the country’s reputation”. The media is called the “fourth estate” for a reason; it is called the watchdog of democracy for a reason; it is an active if indirect participant in governance in any society, democratic or totalitarian. Thus, even a private player in the media is accountable to the public in the way that a politician like Kalmadi is.

If the media is unwilling to punish its own transgressions, then is it any wonder that it has little credibility among readers? The media is already in a crisis: people still subscribe to newspapers as a habit but less are actually reading them. Many young people who want to foster the habit of reading often express dismay at how the Indian media is hostage to industrialists and upper-class frivolity. At this juncture, the media cannot afford to undermine its own professional credibility by not addressing the matter of plagiarism.

If it continues to do so, then it can expect no better than the mocking interview given by Robert Vadra (the potential Asif Ali Zardari of the Gandhi dynasty) and published recently in the Times of India. Though the interviewers did a good job of trying to probe as deeply as they could, retreating when they needed to, one cannot help but notice the utter disdain that characterised Vadra’s responses. You could argue that his is a malady that he’s caught from his in-laws who take their privileged status in India for granted. However, I would argue that Vadra’s contempt is typical of that of the Indian elite towards the media; the sneer is present in the sentences of any powerful Indian.

The media takes the moral high ground while attempting to expose those who would try to take the country for a ride. If we do not punish our own transgressions, if we do not respond to readers who complain that they’ve been ripped off, and if we do not offer sincere apologies for mistakes made, then we have ceded that high ground. Some organisations have appointed an ombudsman and others would do well to emulate that. But most of all, editors have to exercise some tough vigilance and self-regulation. Maybe some good will after all come out of a media mogul having been caught in the act.

editorchief@expressbuzz.com

About The Author; Aditya Sinha is the Editor-in-Chief of

 The New Indian Express and is based in Chennai