Media Insensitivity on Karmapa Issue

National news channels were abuzz with reports of a raid by Himachal Pradesh Police on the Gyuto Tantric Monastery at Sidhbari near Dharamsala on Friday. This monastery, as many would know, is Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorjee’s transit home in India. A “transit home” still, even though he has lived there for a decade now, because a majority in Sikkim would want him to be among them at his seat in exile at Rumtek. Following the raids, Rabgay Chojan, an accountant at the Monastery responsible for maintaining accounts of foreign donations offered to the Karmapa, was taken into custody. Today’s raid was in follow-up to the interception of two Himachali youth from Dharamsala who were caught a day earlier with Rs. One crore in cash, allegedly a hawala transaction they were transporting for a benami land deal in Dharamsala. These raids were carried out by Himachal police and the money, which unconfirmed reports mention to be between Rs. 6 to 8.5 crores, even the investigating agencies have said on record, “could” be donations offered to the Karmapa.

Anyone who has ever sought an audience with a religious leader would attest that monetary donations are the norm. The money recovered from the monastery could very well be from donations made by believers, and if that be the case, then the police in HP have overstepped their jurisdiction. There is of course the whole angle of the Rs. One crore intercepted earlier. The two incidents could be linked, just as they could have no relation to each other. This, after all, is still a case under investigation. The laws and rules governing disclosure of cash donations received by religious leaders are vague at best and non-existent in most cases. Although religious institutions and NGOs have a Foreign Currency Registration number, it is essentially for donations received from abroad through bank transactions. Individual donations made by the devout are not really required to be disclosed, and if they are, then no one has ever gone looking for these disclosures. For all one knows, the crores which Himachal police has pulled out from the monastery are actually ‘clean’ donations. This is not to say that there is definitely nothing amiss in the entire dealing, but just a counterpoint to the hyperventilation which the national media has gone into in reporting the raid.

Before proceeding further, let be clear that this is not an endorsement of financial misdealing of any kind or a suggestion that religious leaders be kept out of the purview of the law. If the Karmapa’s office has indeed indulged in such mismanagement/ financial hood-winking, then they should be adequately penalised. Penalise them for financial fraud if such a case is made out, but don’t project a treachery of which there is no proof. What is offensive in the reportage which followed the raids is the excessive speculation invested on national TV on this development. Income Tax raids of Bollywood stars who have only recently given hits have lead to cash caches as large. No one accused them of anything beyond Income Tax dodging. Yet, following the raid on the Karmapa’s monastery, which could unravel into an example of embarrassing over-zealousness in the coming days, was already being projected as recovery of a ‘Chinese funds’ to build a network of pro-China Tibetan monasteries in India. Media reports, of course quoted ‘sources’ to convey that this was what our intelligence agencies were thinking. The Radia Tapes have more than effectively proven where these sources could actually be based. This slant of speculation is journalistically wrong, ethically compromised and offensively insensitive. The illegality of the smoking gun in this case – the cash – has still not been established, and with this still being under investigation, it is befuddling and downright wrong to present this as circumstantial evidence to hint that the Karmapa is a Chinese ‘plant’. Anyone with even superficial knowledge of recent developments in the Tibetan religious affairs would know that the Dalai Lama has taken the Karmapa under his wings. To suggest that the Karmapa is a Chinese agent is to infer that the Dalai Lama is his Chinese handler in India. Conspiracy theories do not get any more preposterous than this. And yet, ‘sources’ continue to be quoted to peddle this suggestion. Such hints have never come from the central agencies in the past either, but have been thrown up often by the Karmapa’s detractors. And now, they surface on national TV. This is speculative reporting at its worst, and disturbing as much in its insensitivity to the Karmapa’s followers, as also as an example of short-cut journalism which appears to be fuelled more and more by suspect “sources”. We stick our necks out here- the Home Ministry or the intelligence agencies [what are they?] will not move any “request” to interrogate the Karmapa for his “Chinese connections”. What will one make of the ‘sources’ which are today claiming otherwise?
[Editorial published in the 29 Jan 2011 edition of Sikkim NOW!]