By Ranjona Banerji
The name Christian Michel is not a new one in relation to the Agusta Westland helicopter deal. It was there when details of possible kickbacks began. It was there in a Times of India story about some sort of shady deal with Pawan Hans by Josy Joseph in 2013. It was there in between all the details about the cousins of former Air Force chief SP “Bundle” Tyagi emerged.
Most recently, there was a story on Christian Michel’s alllegations by Josy Joseph, now with the Hindu, dated April 27, 2016 followed by an interview with Michel by Joseph and Suhasini Haider, in the Hindu of April 28, 2016. This interview was after an Italian court made observations in an ongoing case of financial irregularities in the helicopter deal.
Yet, our industrious and intrepid news channels only managed to find Michel almost a week after the Italian court’s verdict on May 4. First he was there as an “exclusive” on India Today TV. Then Barkha Dutt flew off to Dubai to meet him. And soon, undoubtedly, everyone else will follow.
And yet, Michel is not saying anything substantially different from what he said to Haider and Joseph in April, which largely trying to save his own skin. He also appears to absolving Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and AK Anthony of any wrongdoing in the deal.
But the question here is: where is the homework and hard work of the news channels? Just from the face of it, they had to wait for a political storm to brew in India before they started some kneejerk work? If the Hindu had the story last month, then what excuse is possible? Judging from what one read of Michel in the Hindu and what he said on TV, he is quite willing to talk and seems to enjoy the attention.
Not only that the questions put to Michel do not seem to go further than today’s political context. The main allegation that he made in the Hindu was that the prime minister of India recently tried to make a deal with the Italian prime minister over the case – if Italy gave India information about Sonia Gandhi’s involvement in the Agusta Westland deal then India would let the Italian marines, on trial for killing Indian fishermen, go free. There is no evidence for this allegation but it is explosive nonetheless. Yet it does not appear to be the focus of TV interviews with Michel.
This is Michel’s interview to The Hindu:
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/interview/interview-with-james-christian-michel-alleged-middleman-in-vvip-chopper-deal/article8524561.ece
For some historical context, this is commentator and strategic affairs expert Mohan Guruswamy in The Asian Age. This column refers to material too far back for our TV journalists to apparently comprehend?
http://www.asianage.com/columnists/agusta-hawala-unsigned-notes-206
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The biggest non-story on television news remains the bogey of Dawood Ibrahim. Since he left India in 1984, an enormous romantic mythology has built up around someone who is nothing more than a criminal. Almost no working journalist today has any first-hand knowledge of Ibrahim and most of what today’s crime reporters know comes third-hand from people who knew people who know or knew of Dawood and from movies and books.
The world of TV news is even more far removed from Dawood Ibrahim. But every time the political climate gets too hot to handle, we are faced with the same old stories about how Ibrahim lives in Pakistan and Pakistan won’t admit that he does. Nothing has changed here and as a result the viewer gets a re-hashed story with a mishmash of information.
Though I have to admit that it is not just TV news that is at fault here; newspapers also fall prey to this “let’s go with Dawood Ibrahim since we don’t have a story” mindset.
Everyone by now should know that Ibrahim lives in Pakistan and Pakistan lets him live there. He has also lived in Dubai and was often seen at cricket matches in Sharjah. He has links within Mumbai’s film industry. He and his gang of criminals are known to have a hand in the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Bombay. His daughter married Pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad’s son.
I for one would be interested in the Dawood story if any journalist had anything new to tell me. Otherwise, it’s the same old same old showing only lack of both news sense and imagination.