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        Abraham Lincoln defined democracy as Government of the people, by the people, for the people. In a great democracy such as ours the outstanding need of the hour is greater information and greater tolerance. Sincere attempts at enlightenment and education by the press are more important than self-appointed or self-important or self-righteous leadership in the media section in the office of the Prime Minister. Very unfortunately for our Prime Minister and even more tragically for our country, a journalist of global stature and cosmic significance, Dr Sanjay Baru has boisterously overstepped his authority and jurisdiction by launching a tirade against those who have been critical of our National Security Policy in the context of the joint terror control mechanism agreed to by our tepid and neutral Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and peace-loving and ever-compassionate Pakistan President Pervez Musharaff at Havana. Dr Sanjay Baru has covered himself with historically unprecedented glory by sending a hot e-mail to Parthasarathy, formerly a diplomat belonging to the Indian Foreign Service (IFS). It is understood that he was responding to an e-mail that had attached to it an article by B Raman, former Additional Secretary in the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in the Cabinet Secretariat. The Prime Minister's media advisor wrote to Partahsarathy: 'This so-called piece by Raman is UTTER NONSENSE. For two years people have been betraying the Prime Minister as an innocent babe in the woods'. But he has gone from strength to strength. That such criticism should come from those close to Brijesh (former National Security Advisor) and Narendra Modi (Gujarat Chief Minister) - guys like Satish Chandra ( former ambassador) and B Raman and the new Modi think-tank. Good luck in your new political career with the BJP.

        'I am very happy to see that Parthasarathy has not allowed himself to be intimidated or cowed down by the Goebbels-like if not Hitler-like threat issued by Dr Sanjay Baru. Parthasarathy has responded in a responsible and civilized way by saying, 'I did not realize that a journalist could metamorphose into a bureaucrat at such a fast pace. Criticism does not mean that everyone is a BJP closet wallah. At any rate you should not deal with this situation by throwing tantrums'.

        There is a general consensus among nuclear scientists, senior former diplomats, senior former civil servants and senior police officers that Dr Sanjay Baru is not functioning responsibly as a neutral Media Advisor to the Prime Minister but as a third grade Congress politician from UP or Bihar or Tamilnadu.

        In a letter to one of the news papers, B Raman has written rightly as follows: 'Is Dr Manmohan Singh's reputation so fragile that Dr Baru has to stoop to such methods to safeguard it by bullying and intimidating his critics into silence? Is he heading a media relations cell in the PMO or is he running the GESTAPO?'

        I would like to remind all the responsible citizens of India that men like Parthasarathy and Raman whom Dr Sanjay Baru has chosen to castigate like Fuehrer in Nazi Germany or Stalin in Russia for their fearless and objective criticism of our National Security Policy, are in no way less qualified than Dr Sanjay Baru to comment on different dimensions of National Security Policy. There can be no effective moral house cleaning of Governmental Agencies without exposure by independent journalists based on proof of wrong-doing and solidly backed by an awakened public conscience. That is why the great French leader Napoleon declared with gusto: 'A journalist is a grumbler, a censurer, a giver of advice, a regent of sovereigns, a tutor of nations. Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a hundred thousand bayonets'. If Napoleon had been alive today, Dr Sanjay Baru would have used the official authority of his mighty office by treating him on par with Parthasarathy, Raman, Satish Chandra and Narendra Modi and sent him a hotter e-mail, endeavouring to coerce Napoleon into a tame submission!! In this dark context, all the pressmen must join together and declare to this self-proclaimed dictator in one voice: 'Pray, don't try to enslave the press. An enslaved press is doubly fatal; it not only takes away the true light, for in that case we might stand still, but it sets up a false one that decoys us to destruction. Don't dare to decoy us to destruction. Pray, don't forget that Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi disgracefully attempted to silence the press during emergency in 1975. Rajiv Gandhi sordidly attempted to muffle the press by bringing in a new DEFAMATION BILL in September 1988 and failed ingloriously because of the then rising crescendo of public opinion against that BILL'

        While news is important, news interpretation is far more important. Dr Sanjay Baru seems to have greater professional faith in jumpy insinuation or intimidation and not correct information. Against this background, I would like to put the following questions as a private citizen to our Prime Minister's Office.

        a Who gave Dr Sanjay Baru the turn-key authority to intimidate the pressmen in a cheap political way by functioning as a stooge of the Congress Party? Who authorised him to react like Sanjay Gandhi during the dark days of Emergency in 1975-77? If he asserts this untenable position as his inalienable official right even while being a part of the Government machinery, how can he ever question the right of individual pressmen or retired civil servants or diplomats or police officers to choose their own ideological spheres in the definitely murky world of democratic party polity, without fear or favour?

        b Does not Dr Sanjay Baru owe his official position to the Congress Party?

        c Does not Narendra Modi owe his official position as Chief Minister to the will of the people of Gujarat categorically expressed in an election four years ago?

        d What are the official credentials of Dr Sanjay Baru to officially comment upon the public face of Narendra Modi? While doing so without credentials or without any direct mandate from the common people of Gujarat, is he not by implication showing indivisible contempt to the exalted office of the Prime Minister whom he is expected to serve with finesse, probity, decency and decorum?

        e Does he derive his extra constitutional fervour if not authority from his own clouted and perceived perception that even our Prime Minister is not an elected Member of the Lok Sabha but only a Member of the Rajya Sabha?

        f Who is he to question the right of the people of India to vote for a particular party like the BJP or subscribe to the ideology of a patriotic organization like the RSS? Who can question the right of the people of India who voted for the BJP Party in the Parliamentary elections in 2004, making it the second single largest party in the Lok Sabha, to put reasonable questions relating to national security through the pressmen in the media in whom they have greater faith and trust?

        As Prime Minister's media advisor, he should understand that the freedom of the press is not an end in itself but the means to an end— a free society. A free press stands as one of the great interpreters between the government and the people. To allow it to be fettered or chained, is to be fettered or chained ourselves. The founding fathers of our constitution wanted to preserve the right of free and fair comment as one of the essential elements of our freedom of speech. We must ever maintain this right intact without allowing it to be whittled down either by legal refinements or by executive exhortations from men of creative genius like Dr Sanjay Baru. When a citizen is troubled by things going wrong, he should be free to write to the newspapers and the newspapers should be free to publish those writings. It is often the only way to get things put right. The matter must, of course, be of public interest. The writer must get his facts right: and he must honestly state his opinion. But that being done, both he and the newspaper should be free of all types of Government control, regulation and interference——particularly the kind of sinister intrusion from the Prime Minister's Office.

        For what is good journalism all about? On a working, finite level it is the effort to achieve illuminating candour in print and to strip away cant. It is the effort to do this not only in matters of state, diplomacy and politics but also in every smaller aspect of life that touches the public interest or engages proper public curiosity. It is — to use the solemnly big word - the pursuit of the effort to state the truth. All responsible journalists should realise that men, not names alone, make news and that men are made by the clarity with which they state issues, and the resolution with which they face them. It is the paramount duty of journalists to encourage rather than avoid controversy and argument, remembering that controversy and argument are not the enemies of democracy but its friends. People who disagree have an argument, but people who dissent have a quarrel. A society of disagreers is a free, fertile and productive society. A society of dissenters is a chaos leading only to dissention. Dr.Sanjay Baru's motto seems to be an emendation of the old and well known maxim of Voltaire which all of us have heard from our collage days: 'I do not agree with a word you say and I will defend to the death my right to say so'.Unfortunately for the people of India, Dr. Sanjay Baru Seems to be committed to the philosophy of denial of not only freedom OF speech but also denial of freedom AFTER speech to the people of India. Such an attitude can only be viewed as an outcome of ridiculous vanity, a monstrous symbol of unrestrained autocracy running counter to all known forms and aspects of a free democracy.