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QUEEN Victoria cancelled her £500 subscription with a leading British wire agency for giving spurious intelligence in the Crimean War.

Kim Philby worked as a journalist both before and after becoming a spy for Britain, even as he earned part of his keep from Moscow.

In an era of embedded journalism the collusion between spies and journalists has not vanished; it has, in fact, become legitimate. An American reporter single-handedly created the much-needed mythology against Saddam Hussein to legitimise the US invasion of Iraq and of its subsequent occupation.

Assassins too have posed as journalists. Rajiv Gandhi and Ahmed Shah Masood were victims of killers who found access to their quarries with the help of accreditation cards. Iranian leader Ali Khamenei lost a hand to a bomb hidden in a journalist's tape recorder. Last week, plainclothes policemen pretending to be journalists trapped an alleged Maoist leader in West Bengal. A few have expressed anguish over this underhand method of catching a fugitive since it undermines the credibility of the media. The problem is more entrenched.

It is tempting to suspect Pakistani journalists who scream inanities about India on television and in newspapers as being influenced or at least encouraged by the espionage agency there. The same suspicion is legitimately aroused when Indian journalists rant, almost always on cue, against Pakistan. They equally quickly shut up when the prompt is given to do so.

In the Orwellian nightmare the brainwashed sheep chant 'four legs good, two legs bad' at the start of their revolution against man's exploitation of fellow animals. After the revolution dissipates and animal icons acquire the mannerisms of their foe - man - the sheep switch to chanting 'two legs good, four legs bad'. In the Murdochian nightmare of today no need is felt to change the sheep's tune. It is far easier to change the subject and the headline.

Journalists who struggle to remain upright against the daily body blows to their profession are, therefore, truly courageous. I eagerly await a matching triumph of journalism from an Indian TV channel to its Pakistani counterparts who frontally took on their state and the government recently to establish a vital fact.

The Pakistanis defied their oft-lethal establishment to prove to the world that the sole living terrorist from the Mumbai massacre was indeed their own fellow citizen. The family of Ajmal Kasab was skilfully brought into the frame to defy Islamabad's fiat, which had initially decried claims of Kasab's Pakistani citizenship.

The Tehelka exposés of shady defence deals and more recently of fascistic methods of carrying out religious massacres could be considered India's contribution to courageous journalism.

It is not easy to take on the might of the state, of course, which includes the police, the army, the judiciary and lawmakers among its key props. Increasingly, business houses are becoming important ancillaries of the state. Government officials and ministers are fired or appointed at their bidding.

American journalism has been more robust in several crucial ways than many others in exploiting the chinks in the armour of the secretive state. The CIA, the FBI and other state outfits are, wherever possible, kept accountable to the people by the legislature. They are kept subjected to incessant media scrutiny too. A healthy trend is perceptible in Pakistani journalism of late to question the ISI's role in and hold over the fate of the country. In India though institutions such as RAW and IB are still largely treated as holy cows and remain undiscussed and uncritiqued.

It is another matter that one or two former officers from these outfits chose to vent their anguish at the state of play through autobiographical books. Maloy Krishna Dhar's account of his days as the additional chief of India's Intelligence Bureau (IB) is noteworthy.

In his survey of the Mumbai bombings of 1993 he reveals a few interesting facts, which may be of particular use to journalists. He describes how he infiltrated the underworld led by Dawood Ibrahim to track people and maritime landing points involved in the act of terror.

'I kept the director (of IB) informed, without going through the official channel of the Bombay unit of the IB,' he writes in his book Open Secrets India's Intelligence Unveiled. 'I was, in fact, freelancing in Bombay at my own risk, as a journalist from a reputed English daily. I had in my possession at least three faked identity cards of the leading papers, and one identity card of a TV channel. Obviously, our boys in the technical wing of the IB had manufactured these.'

Dhar openly confessed to his sympathy with the Hindu right. He names senior RSS leaders as his personal friends whose homes he would visit for discussions and meals. He says he was opposed to the demolition of the Babri mosque, however, lest he is accused of approving an illegal act.

In this strange mélange between journalism and intelligence, laced with a particularly insidious religio-nationalist ideology, Dhar says the second person he contacted during that assignment in Mumbai was Dhirubhai Ambani, the late billionaire tycoon.

'Ambani was amazed to see a comparatively junior officer approaching him on mundane matters like opening the roadblock to my meeting with Bal Thackeray, the Shiv Sena supremo, Keshu Bhai Patel, the BJP leader from Gujarat and Chhabil Das Mehta, the chief minister of Gujarat.'

Ambani was 'acclimatised to the officials in Delhi in matters of money, business and transactions,' Dhar notes encouragingly. 'To my amazement the much adored and vilified tycoon was more than cooperative. I found him to be highly patriotic and concerned about the stability of the western region of the country where most of his major ventures were located.'

Bal Thackeray 'minus his standard behavioural peculiarities' received Dhar well. Thackeray introduced Dhar to members of 'XXX Rajan and YYY Gawli' gangs. These men drove him 'to the deeper niches of the Bombay underworld'. There he met people who knew of certain youths who had gone to Pakistan for subversive training.

It is not clear whether Dhar met the underworld in his avatar as a journalist or as a sleuth. He says he was 'impressed' by Bal Thackeray's 'firm commitment to narrow Maharashtrian cause, Hindu nationalism and his sway over sizeable sections of the underworld and organised groups of criminals. However, I did not like tinges of intolerance in him'.

Dhar may not be alone - as a sleuth or as a journalist - in his affection for the religious right. There is a certain gentleman from the Indian army intelligence being currently investigated for plotting bomb blasts to trigger communal violence. Indian journalists - once a true blue fourth pillar of its democracy - are heirs to a lofty tradition started by Gandhi and Nehru. They are best equipped to confront the fifth column within.

The writer is Dawn's correspondent in Delhi.

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