Journalist Karan Thapar’s book, ‘Devil’s Advocate’, a memoir of sorts, presents his strengths, weaknesses, and prejudices. The first, he is far from being modest about; the second, he is occasionally apologetic about; and the third, he does not care to hide. He is inclined away from the Right, which is fine given that this is a free and democratic country and every one has the right to his opinion. What is less fine is that the bias appears to have evolved out of his personal relations with the country’s most powerful political family and the debt he owes it.
By his own admission, he was friends with Sanjay Gandhi in the 1960s and 1970s, with the latter even once attempting to teach him flying an aircraft. Thapar recounts various anecdotes of Sanjay’s daredevilry and his adeptness at various mechanical tasks — fixing broken doorknobs and handles, which he undertook at Thapar’s house, where he was a regular visitor, for instance. It was through him that Thapar got to meet and know Indira Gandhi. Not surprisingly, when the author speaks of the Emergency period, he does not talk of the excesses or the mockery of the Constitution or the clampdown on the media and the opposition. But he remembers, rather fondly, that at the height of Emergency, Indira Gandhi took him and his sisters to watch one of the Pink Panther films. He quotes approvingly of Indira Gandhi dryly poking fun at the ineffective telephone system in the country and saying: “They call it crossbar but I think they may mean crosswire.” Of course, it never occurred to Thapar to wonder what the country’s Prime Minister did to bring about systemic changes in the telecommunication infrastructure.
It is not just Sanjay Gandhi and Indira Gandhi who are firmly implanted in his happy memories — there is Rajiv Gandhi too. Thapar admits that it was “Rajiv Gandhi who made my return to India possible”. In his last months of prime ministership, Rajiv Gandhi pulled strings in Doordarshan and got Thapar to work with the national broadcaster with the rank of a Secretary. True, Thapar had come to India — after the unfortunate demise of his wife — with commendable credentials of having worked for the BBC, and the print media too in the UK. But how many people with credentials are fortunate enough to get for themselves breaks following an intervention of the Prime Minister?
The debt was to pile on. After Rajiv Gandhi lost the election and the prime ministership, Thapar’s short stint with Doordarshan too ended. He had, after all, been a political appointee. Rajiv Gandhi then put in a word with Shobhana Bharatia, then editorial director of Hindustan Times, and “persuaded her to set up a video magazine”. That is how Eyewitness came into being — a challenger to Newstrack being produced by the India Today group. Thapar became the editor-in-chief, and his news television career began — and was to later soar higher and higher with the explosion of private news channels.
With such a background, how could then Thapar remain objective? He did make attempts at times, but they were as hollow as the hug that Rahul Gandhi recently imposed on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On the few occasions that Thapar managed to win over the confidence of those on the ‘other side’ — opposed to the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty — he messed it up. The author recounts in detail his meetings with veteran BJP leader LK Advani, and how over time he became close to him and his family. Sometime in early 2006, by which time his friendship was strong, he did an interview with Advani for CNN-IBN. After it was recorded, the BJP leader said he was unhappy with the narrative and desired a redo. Thapar requested him to think it over for a few days. Advani remained firm even later. Strangely, Thapar threw friendship to the wind — would he have done a similar thing in the case of a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family? — and the interview was telecast. That was the end of the relationship. To be fair to Thapar, he does deeply regret the error, and regrets also for not having taken the channel editor Rajdeep Sardesai’s advice to rethink.
Thapar has different standards for different people. He expresses his dismay over his Barack Obama interview, and says that the Obama team insisted on written questions in advance, and then wanted five of the questions dropped. It was enough to ‘disillusion’ him. But Thapar had happily shared questions with cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar, and even went over them with him and helped Tendulkar frame his responses before the actual interview was recorded.
His bias was most evident in the 2007 interview he did with then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. An interviewer should seek to draw out the best in his subject, without offending the person. But Thapar had a different rule for Modi. Despite being repeatedly requested by Modi that the latter did not wish to comment on the 2002 violence since he had said all that he had to say, Thapar persisted with his questioning. Modi walked out of the interview. Today, the author boasts that he “hit where it was likely to hurt most”.
Sadly he neither hit nor hurt any public figure from his charmed circle. J Jayalalithaa was of course not part of that circle and she too was subjected to questioning that bordered on the offensive in an interview that he conducted. But perhaps the most glaring instance of his insensitiveness was evident in the interview that he did with superstar Amitabh Bachchan, during which, in the presence of the latter’s wife and two grown-up children, he began asking the actor questions regarding his supposed relationships — including with Rekha. Thapar got his interview, but it left a sour aftertaste. It’s not something he ought to recall with pride.
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