This article was first published in the print edition of Manushi Journal. (Issue-130, May-Jun 2002)
The last few issues of MANUSHI have evoked a whole range of enthusiastic, puzzled and worried responses from our friends, well wishers and critics. For the first time, most of those who responded conveyed their concern by telephone rather than through letters. The most anxious and concerned enquiries have come in response to the heavy coverage of the Tehelka sting in our last issue. Some of our friends and well wishers have expressed apprehension about what might happen to MANUSHI for taking such an active part in the campaign against corruption in Defence procurement deals. Friends ask whether we have thought through the dangers it might involve. Some of our readers think we might be jeopardising MANUSHI’S very existence by taking on the NDA government on an issue that is so sensitive and so vital to the NDA’s political survival. Given the vindictive way in which the government clamped down on the First Global couple, Shankar Sharma and Devina Mehra, who helped finance Tehelka, even the big newspapers have decided to play it safe and are for the most part dutifully serving as vehicles of the government’s misinformatio campaign. Why then is MANUSHI rushing in where others fear to tread?