Karan Thapar’s revenge on Modi

Weeks before Narendra Modi won a second term as the Gujarat Chief Minister in 2007 he memorably walked out of Karan Thaparrsquos interview After Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014 Bharatiya Janata Party leaders were asked to boycott Thaparrsquos show prompting India Today TV to not renew his contract in 2017 With no other TV channel willing to commission him he went digital From 2018 The Wire began to host The Interview with Karan ThaparThapar was hounded even here To The Hindu he recently disclosed that The Interview had a sponsor for 16 months before being told that its sponsorship was considered an ldquounfriendlyrdquo gesture towards the government The sponsor backed outThe boycott of Thapar is Modirsquos revenge for the humiliation he thought he had undergone in 2007 To fathom Modirsquos perception rewind to October of that year as soon as Thapar touched down in Ahmedabad he received a call from Modi asking him to come a little before the interview for a tecircteagravetecircte ldquoWe bantered laughed and jokedrdquo Thapar reminisces in Devilrsquos Advocate The Untold StoryBut the bonhomie did not dissuade Thapar from shooting a tough first question to Modi Citing the Rajiv Gandhi Foundationrsquos rating of Gujarat as the bestadministered state and India Today twice ranking him as the best chief minister Thapar asked ldquoAnd yet despite that people still call youhellip a mass murdererhellip Do you have an image problemrdquoAlso Read Vinod Rai Killer of IdealismModi claimed only two or three persons thought he had an image problem Thapar countered that the Chief Justice of India in April 2004 had compared him to a ldquomodernday Nero who looks the other side when helpless children and innocent women are burntrdquo But that was just an observation which the Chief Justice did not record in the judgment Modi shot backThapar pressed on ldquoWhy canrsquot you say that you regret the killings that happenedrdquo Modi volleyed back ldquoWhat I have to say I have said at that timehelliprdquo Thapar persisted ldquoBut by not saying againhellip you are allowing an image that is contrary to the interest of Gujarat to continue Itrsquos in your hands to change itrdquoBy then Modi had had enough ldquoApni dosti bani rahe Let our friendship be maintained hellip I canrsquot do this interviewrdquo After the aborted interview Modi plied Thapar with tea sweets and dhokla over an hour of small talkWhen BJP leaders stopped coming to his show Thapar after futilely asking them for the reason of their boycott contacted then Principal Secretary Nripendra Misra to fix an appointment with Modi Thapar writes in The Devilrsquos Advocate ldquoHe Misra said the prime minister felt I was prejudiced against him and it was unlikely that my attitude would change because of a conversationrdquoMonths later former diplomat Pavan Varma narrated his conversation with Prashant Kishor to Thapar Coaching Modi for his 2014 prime ministerial bid Kishor sought to guide him on how to tackle embarrassing questions repeatedly replaying Thaparrsquos interview as an exercise It was in one such session Varma told Thapar ldquoModi said to Prashant that he will never forgive you Thapar and when he gets an opportunity he will take revengerdquo Kishor also disclosed that the small talk postinterview was Modirsquos strategy of lulling Thapar into believing the combative exchange had not been taken amissThapar recently bagged an explosive interview with former sJammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik who ripped apart the persona Modi has cultivated over the yearsmdashthat his knowledge befits him to play the role of Vishwaguru that he detests corruption that Pakistan cannot penetrate his securityintelligence arrangement to wound India a myth the 2019 Pulwama attack busted No wonder Malikrsquos assertion was headlined even by national newspapers otherwise circumspect about featuring antiModi stories especially those broken by their competitorsLook upon the Malik interview as Thaparrsquos revenge on Modi Their titfortat has lessons for usLesson No 1 Modirsquos hounding of his critics drives them to try putting him in the dock Would Thapar have been so obsessive about critiquing the BJP rule had Modi chosen to let bygones be bygonesLesson No 2 Outside the legacy media journalists have the freedom to combine journalism with integrity Thapar is an apt example His interviews for The Wire have a far greater depth than those he would conduct before 2017Lesson No 3 Legacy media is no longer a beacon of free speech and fearless journalism Hear what India Today Grouprsquos proprietor Aroon Purie said to Thapar as a justification for not renewing his contractldquoBJP will not come if you are there We will be boycottedrdquo India Todayrsquos hiring of anchor Sudhir Chaudhary however is a metaphor for the Group pleasing not just appeasing the BJP of propagating its ideological lineLesson No 4 The past cannot be tailored to the whims of the ruling party The 1984 antiSikh riots haunted the Congress despite its efforts to suppress the truth about its involvement in mass murder The 2002 Gujarat riots haunt Modi most recently through the BBC documentary on him Bow to the idea of Immanent Justice which says the moral quality of a personrsquos actions leads to deserved outcomes even if not causally linkedThe writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper