India on Sale: More Radia Tapes, the Anil-Mukesh Angle

The Radia tapes, released in November 2010, documented a series of conversations between corporate lobbyist Niira Radia and a range of journalists, politicians, and businesspeople that illuminated the informal networks through which India's policy decisions were being shaped. The release of the tapes — initially through an income tax investigation that had been monitoring Radia's communications — produced one of the most significant media scandals in recent Indian history.

The conversations were remarkable for their candor. Radia, who represented the interests of both the Tata Group and the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries, was heard discussing the allocation of cabinet positions during the formation of the UPA government, the management of media coverage, and the cultivation of journalists whose editorial positions aligned with her clients' interests. The journalists identified in the tapes — some of the most prominent names in Indian media — were heard engaging with Radia in ways that raised serious questions about the independence of their coverage.

The specific Anil-Mukesh dimension of the tapes concerned the ongoing and extensively documented rivalry between the Ambani brothers — Mukesh of Reliance Industries and Anil of the Reliance ADA Group — over the terms of the demerger of their father Dhirubhai Ambani's business empire, and the government policies, particularly around the allocation of natural gas from the KG Basin, that were at the center of the dispute.

The tapes did not reveal corruption in the narrow legal sense — no money is heard changing hands. What they revealed was a system of mutual accommodation between business, media, and political power that operated through relationship management, favor trading, and the subtle shaping of narratives rather than through the direct transactions that corruption law is designed to address.