Mr Johnny Come Lately comes to UNI

With his RSS links and predatory instincts, Zee owner Subhash Chandra’s UNI takeover bid has made people sit up
Hardnews Bureau Delhi

At the far end of Rafi Marg in New Delhi is located the United News of India (UNI) office. Surrounded by government offices, UNI, inconspicuously works from a colonial style bungalow. To the chagrin of its employees, UNI is known more for its canteen that serves inexpensive south Indian food and snacks, than for what it is – a national news agency.

Here, everyone knows, legendary writers, journalists, poets, theatrepersons, actors, and editors would often get together to share the news of the day. Even famous industrialist, late Dhirubhai Ambani, would occasionally drop by for a quick snack with a friendly bureaucrat. Many important deals, old-timers recall, were struck over a plate of piping hot dosa and uttapam.

The takeover of UNI by Zee TV’s owner, Subhash Chandra, did not happen in the decrepit but hallowed canteen. It was conducted stealthily in the boardrooms of Mumbai, facilitated by Chandra’s friends on the UNI board. Sixty per cent shares were given to Zee for about Rs 30 crores, after spurning a deal that was of far higher value from a Madhya Pradesh media company. It is the MP-based media baron who has moved the court to stay this sale of shares.

The transfer of shares has outraged UNI’s employees and all those who have been striving to create a media entity independent of corporate control in India. The UNI is an Article 25 company—almost like a trust—where the profits are mandated to be ploughed back into its growth and expansion. So, if a media entity is trying to gain control of a company like UNI, what is the reason? It is this fact that has made the employees and their supporters deeply suspicious of the intentions and motives of Chandra.

The Zee boss has sought to clarify that his move was meant to make UNI more competitive and he has promised to infuse Rs 100 crore in a company whose net worth has been eroded due to years of mismanagement and criminal indifference. Employees’ unions are questioning even this motive and wondering why he wants to be so benevolent if he is not going to get anything out of it.

Chandra, as media watchers can testify, is not given to altruism. He has made money from diverse enterprises - from selling rice to the now defunct Soviet Union to setting up entertainment parks. He owns 20 TV channels and has been likened to Rupert Murdoch by some uncharitable commentators.

Chandra, in his many interactions with the press, has hinted that the media business has become very competitive and his company needed to do things to get an edge over others. Buying out UNI is, quite evidently, a brazen attempt to control the information flow from across the country and determine what will be watched, heard and read. Indeed, is he doing this at someone’s behest?

All the breaking news stories on satellite news channels (which we have become used to suffering all day) are often first reported by news agencies like the UNI and its competitor, the Press Trust of India (PTI). Getting a stranglehold on UNI would give an individual or organisation incomparable control of a kind never exercised before. What troubles many veterans in the media and the political world are the manifest links of Chandra with the Hindutva front, the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) to be exact, which has shown an obsessive fondness for influencing and controlling the media, especially when its electoral front, the BJP, is calling the shots at the Centre.