Opinion Expert Tease

A comforting theory that’s,alas,easily disproved. Too many TV experts are revealed,on some digging,to be comprehensively dotty. Last week,we discovered that former IT commissioner Vishwabandhu Gupta thought cloud computing was endangered by rain,and that sound waves could be recorded an hour after meetings had ended. This very man,a few months ago,was brought on as an Expert by CNN-IBN. (He went off the rails quite spectacularly,and Rajdeep Sardesai had to remind him firmly to stop making “wild allegations on a live programme”.) Of course,he’d already been on Times Now,being asked even more respectful questions by Arnab Goswami.

Indeed,we need no more than the one counter-example that was everywhere this week: Subramanian Swamy. Dr Swamy,through dint of endless letter-writing,has managed to maintain a public profile that has only been enhanced by a perception — relayed to us by TV news — that he single-handedly discovered Something Fishy about the 2G allocations. In actual fact,it’s been widely reported that he has complained about pretty much everything in letters to the PM,from faulty arrangements for the Kumbh Mela to the malign influence of Carla Bruni on India’s defence ministry. Occasionally,something he has complained about gets to be newsworthy; it is thunderingly obvious that needn’t make him an expert on that particular subject,but news TV,for reasons unknown,has him on regularly as the Expert of Experts.

Consider,for example,his recent appearance on NDTV’s Big Fight. (He had already been on Times Now and CNN-IBN.) It was supposedly a debate on clemency for Rajiv Gandhi’s killers; there were relatives of victims,lawyers for the convicted,and Subramanian Swamy. (Swamy’s expertise on the Rajiv assassination can be judged by his oft-repeated suggestion,prominent on his website,that the “Maino family” contracted with the LTTE to kill Rajiv.)

The programme made it obvious how an erroneous choice of Expert can be compounded by exaggerated respect for every statement he makes,of the sort with which he opened the show: “The Tamil Nadu Assembly has historically done stupid things. They do not reflect what the people want… there are other ways.” Such as,presumably,asking Subramanian Swamy.

But asking an erroneously-chosen Expert about the will of the people,or the deep philosophical question as to whether mercy should depend on public opinion is one thing; most viewers will be able to judge the answers and find them (very) wanting. It is when you ask an Expert for opinions on something we know nothing about that the real trouble begins.

Vikram Chandra,for example,turned to Swamy as a voice of reason,and to explain complex legal distinctions. While it is true that Swamy seems to have submitted enough petitions to the Supreme Court to be a serious contributor to its pendency problem,he has never claimed to be a lawyer,only an economist. On one occasion,he insisted that the SC overturned an earlier principle that,if a mercy petition wasn’t considered within two years,it would be commuted. In actual fact,the SC said it could not be the only consideration,not that it doesn’t matter. The defence lawyer on the programme explained the difference clearly,but Chandra didn’t care. Yup,the lawyer’s not Expert enough.

We then listened,uninterrupted,to Swamy’s narrative of events. The lawyer said politely “that is not correct” — I figured that out — but was interrupted and ignored by the moderator. In-house Experts are never called to account,or we might begin to suspect news TV’s choice of people is fallible.

If you think Indian news TV’s genuflection before self-appointed experts is unusual,you clearly missed a crucial comparative data point: Swamy’s appearance recently on America’s Fox News,where he had announced that “I have sent many ministers to jail”,and that the “trail” was “getting close” to Sonia Gandhi,and that “close to 80 per cent of India,through tweets and Facebook and letters to the editor,has supported what I’ve said”. The smarmy host said Swamy was “absolutely right” on various counts. A daunting task,to achieve Fox News’ fine judgement for expertise,but I feel sure India’s channels will manage it some day.

mihir.sharma@expressindia.com