The publication of Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's much-talked-about "Musings" in leading Indian newspapers in early January, and the post-publication recriminations in the national press, register quite clearly the depths that Indian journalism is plumbing at this stage. Central to the unseemly quarrel was the exclusive rights to use verbatim the prime minister's policy sermon composed in Kerala.
The stampede to publish Vajpayee's two-part contribution was followed by vehement protests and expressions of deep hurt, once the newspapers realised that they were being made to share the booty from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).
It all began when the prime minister, on a year-end southern holiday, was driven indoors by rain and security considerations. He whiled away the hours by penning his "Musings", a rambling discourse on the Babri Masjid affair, the Kashmir dispute and the nation's future, a thinly disguised attempt to cast himself as a statesman in the Nehruvian mould. The prime minister's men decided that these passing thoughts had to be brought to the people, so the PMO's PR outfit devised a strategy to distribute the contribution to more than one newspaper. Among the 'chosen' were The Times of India (TOI) Bombay edition, The Hindu Madras edition, The Hindustan Times (HT) Delhi edition, and The Tribune of Chandigarh.
The rivalry between the TOI and the HT is fierce, particularly in Delhi. After the publication of "Musings", the two papers carried follow-up stories of how they were tricked into believing that the two-part piece was given them as an exclusive. There were insinuations about the PMO's partisanship, including that of H. K Dua, media advisor to the Prime Minister (who served as editor of both the HT and the TOI) and Sudheendra Kulkarni, a bureaucrat who often writes the PM's speeches.