Time article triggers flap over press freedom in India

The report, including the questions surrounding Vajpayee's ability to control the nuclear arsenal, sparked a chain of events, including a tart letter from the Prime Minister's Office to Time magazine, stating: "Mr. Vajpayee has been in command for more than four years and his ability to control the country's nuclear capability has never been questioned."

Perry stands by his story and says the main source is "somebody very close to the prime minister."

The article set off a wave of small street protests, such as the burning of Time Magazines by members of the ruling BJP in the western city of Pune last week. It also set off a series of pro-Vajpayee editorials from papers sympathetic to the BJP line. One newspaper, the right-leaning Pioneer, printed Perry's residential address, prompting Time magazine to hire armed guards.

Indian officials are now investigating Perry's two British passports, especially the one listing his occupation as "teacher." According to documents obtained by the Monitor, it is clear that Perry does have two passports, but the second one was issued after the first one ran out of pages. The second passport, which is actually an additional booklet, was issued in New Delhi just days before Perry left to cover the American-led war in Afghanistan.

"Here he had mentioned his occupation as a teacher because it was safer this way to travel to Afghanistan and raise no suspicions," says his lawyer, Lalit Bhasin. The lawyer added that Perry is actively involved in educational activities such as delivering lectures and talks. "So what is wrong if he mentioned his occupation as a teacher?" Mr. Bhasin says: "He has committed no offense and there can be no legal action or arrest."

One highly placed Indian government official who requests anonymity says that Perry's "irregularities escaped the notice of visa officials, but now that this has come out, they are looking at his papers more closely."

"This is not a matter of press freedom; we have plenty of that," says the official. "This article just hits a little too close to the bone.... We are Orientals in the sense that face or dignity is important and that must be preserved. We may talk about someone's health in the Delhi gossip circuit, but to do so openly, and about the prime minister ... seems insensitive."

Yet those who know Vajpayee acknowledge that he is in "indifferent health."

"We need in the job of prime minister a man whose alertness is not in question," says Saeed Naqvi, a senior columnist for the Indian Express with close contacts to Vajpayee. "In the television era, we have a prime minister who is not telegenic. These Churchillian pauses – that was always part of Vajpayee's style, a man who thinks as he speaks. But now they are beginning to look like 40 winks."

As Perry's interrogation by immigration officials entered their third day today, Indian political observers and legal experts slammed the government's treatment of the press. "This whole tendency of the government to harass journalists, it suggests an immaturity in our leadership, that the civilization that survived three millennia of invasions from outside forces could be brought down by one article," says Tarun Tejpal, founder of Tehelka.com, which is New Delhi-based and specializes in investigative journalism. After what it calls months of harassment and character assassination by Indian officials, Tehelka will be cutting its staff of 20 to five and looking for new investors.

Not all critics of the current administration say that the recent government treatment of individual reporters or organizations equals a pattern of harassment.

"As a generalization, to say that anybody who writes anything bad about the government is going to get harassed is not borne out by the facts," says George Verghese, a veteran political observer in New Delhi. "Wait for the outcome of the case."

Page: 1 | 2