Devil's Advocate

by Karan Thapar

  As I thought it would, the interview attracted a lot of attention. Long before it won the Asian Television Award, it became the subject of eager questioning. People would stop me at parties or, sometimes, in shops and want to talk about the interview. Was it really as quarrelsome as it seemed? Was Ram Jethmalani upset? Were we still on talking terms?

  So often did this happen that I decided to write about it. I chose one particular instance as the best illustration of the curiosity the interview had provoked. The piece I did was for my ‘Sunday Sentiments’ column. It appeared in the first week of December 2006. Called ‘Is an interview a game?’ this is what it had to say:

  ‘Excuse me Mr Thapar, but there’s a question I’m dying to ask.’

  I was at a wedding, standing on my own and feeling a little lost. So I welcomed the interruption. Turning around, I saw my interlocutor was a bubbly lady in her thirties in a striking strawberry-pink-and-gold sari. She seemed quite excited.

  ‘Of course,’ I replied encouragingly. ‘Go right ahead.’

  ‘How often do you find that after an interview your guests have stopped talking to you?’

  I laughed nervously. To start with, I wasn’t certain what she meant but decided it was intended as a compliment. However, I was also aware her comment appeared to suggest that I’m insufferably rude. I suppose it was her smile which made me overlook the innuendo.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ I hadn’t meant to sound defensive but I fear I did. Still, since I don’t think of myself as an ogre, it was a justified question.

  It brought forth a loud cackle of laughter. I smiled sheepishly. It’s rather embarrassing when people find your innocent remarks hilarious. Are they laughing with you or at you? I didn’t know how to respond.

  ‘I keep thinking of poor Mr Jethmalani. He was so angry with you.’ At this point the lady in the pink sari started to convulse all over again. Soon her face was the colour of her clothes. Meanwhile my smile, by now frozen on my face, was starting to hurt. Worse, I was no longer sure which way our conversation was heading. So on top of everything else, I was also a little apprehensive.

  ‘He must have kicked you out of the house.’ Suddenly the laughter stopped and her face turned serious. In fact, it seemed severe. ‘I don’t think I would have blamed him if he had!’

  ‘Actually, he offered me a glass of whisky.’ It was my turn to smile. I managed a small one. After all I could feel my confidence crawling back. ‘He asked if I would join him for a drink.’

  ‘You mean the anger was put on?’

  ‘No.’ That should have been sufficient but I foolishly added a fuller explanation. ‘First, I don’t think he was angry. Perhaps irritated but not more. Secondly, Ram Jethmalani is a passionate and excitable person and always responds in a dramatic sort of way. And then, more than anything else, he’s a gentleman. He never bears a grudge.’

  However, my effort did not appease the good lady. She was not to be put off so easily. Her next line of attack was ready and it was delivered with aplomb. I was caught off guard.

  ‘And does everyone forgive you so readily? You can’t be that lucky every time.’

  This time I was speechless. If the conversation had started with a certain unstated admiration of my style, there was now the clear suggestion that I overstep the limits of decency and rely on the large-heartedness of my interviewees to overlook this. I decided the time had come to explain why my interviews often become fractious.

  ‘The point is this: if a question is worth asking, it’s worth ensuring it gets an answer. So when a guest doesn’t reply or actually evades I feel I have to persist. In turn that means a certain tension inevitably creeps in. Depending on how long it takes to break this impasse or how risible the guest, things can seem to get heated. But it’s only momentary and it’s only within the context of the interview.’

  ‘Okay, that’s your explanation. But do your guests see it the same way?’ The lady had now crossed her hands in front of her chest. She was looking at me intently. I felt like a target.

  ‘I think so.’ But it was a weak reply. I needed to do better. ‘You see, they realize I’m doing a job. And when they are being evasive or less than fulsome they’re only protecting themselves. So I do think both sides understand the situation.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ A long pause followed as a slow smile started to crease her face. Behind it emerged a look of understanding, as if something important had suddenly dawned on her.

  ‘So an interview is a game? Even an act? Is that what you mean?’

  I was about to reply when I realized she wasn’t finished. I held my peace.

  ‘I suppose journalists and politicians are like cops and robbers. But in this case, who’s the cop and who’s the robber?’

  If the first Devil’s Advocate interview with him left our relationship—friendship?—intact, unfortunately, the second didn’t end as felicitously. On that occasion the subject was Ram’s decision to rejoin the BJP. After being forced out of Vajpayee’s government and then breaking with the BJP in 2004, Ram had actually stood against Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the election of that year from Lucknow. At the time he had called Vajpayee’s government ‘a cesspool’. In fact, he had questioned whether the prime minister ‘carries a sound mind in a sound body’. In a particularly low blow, he had added, ‘I have a lot to say that will put this prime minister and his men in the dock.’ Although he never revealed what was up his sleeve, he did repeatedly threaten to do so. Finally, he added: ‘I am a friend of the prime minister. He is not my friend.’

  So, in the circumstances, my line of questioning was clear and simple. After all that he had said, this decision in 2010 to rejoin the BJP was just an easy way of getting back into the Rajya Sabha. It was, as I put it, ‘an act of gross opportunism devoid of all principle’.

  On this occasion we didn’t even get to the end of the interview’s allotted twenty-two minutes. Roughly fifteen minutes in, Ram got up and left. I won’t say he stormed out of the room because he’s clearly too old for such a feat. But his anger was visible and he left in a very determined and resolute manner. He didn’t return and I had to complete the interview by speaking directly to the camera to relate what I would have asked had the interview continued.

  This incomplete interview, including my explanation for its abrupt ending, went on to win another Asian Television Award. I suspect it wasn’t the quality of the interview that impressed the judges so much as the fact that the interviewee walked out. Juries are often impressed by such things.

  Sadly, this time my relationship with Ram Jethmalani was damaged. He didn’t forgive me and that, in turn, affected the way he viewed me. Although he gave me another interview some two years later, our relationship was never the same. The friendship and the trust had evaporated. No longer was I a journalist he would ring up. I was also struck off his dinner-party list.

  Now when we meet, we smile and shake hands and he still calls me ‘beta’. But we both know it’s not the same. Once the ice is frozen over, it’s hard to crack the surface and get back to where you were.

  Which is why I prefer to remember Ram not by the two Devil’s Advocate interviews but by the one I did during the days of HARDtalk India. It happened just after his forced resignation as law minister from the Vajpayee government. This was a particularly low moment in Ram’s political career. If I recall correctly, he had made personal and uncomfortable allusions about the sitting chief justice which, many thought, were unacceptable from the law minister. That was enough to precipitate the resignation.

  Every journalist wanted to interview Ram to get his side of the story. I was lucky and managed to convince him to give me his first. But the truth is, it wasn’t I who sealed it so much as the fact that the interview was for the BBC.

  It was when I dropped into Ram’s Rajaji Marg residence to discuss the interview and fix the date that he surprised me by his behaviour. He began to tell me his side of the story. Getting into his stride, he pulled out his personal file and rapidly pointed
out several letters and documents that proved his case. These, I realized, were critical.

  ‘Can I borrow your file?’ I suddenly asked. ‘I’d like to go through these documents because then I can raise them in the interview and help you make your case.’

  I was, in effect, asking Ram to trust me. Once I had his file he knew—and, for my part, I felt sure of this—there would also be things I could use against him. Far from helping, this could trip him up. But Ram Jethmalani is a trusting person and a warm-hearted one too. He took me at my word and gave me the file.

  ‘You can have it, beta, but please treat it carefully.’ And then he laughed. His eyes twinkled. ‘Who knows what you’ll find and how you’ll use it. I’ll probably regret giving you this file. But today, it’s yours.’

  We agreed to do the interview the following morning, which gave me the whole night to read the file and see what I could find.

  All of this happened in July 2000 and that’s so far back in time that I cannot recall the details clearly. What I do remember, however—and Ashok Upadhyay, my producer at the time, has confirmed it—is that we found a lot of stuff in Ram Jethmalani’s file that we were able to use against him. What he had laughingly feared thus came to pass. I had borrowed the file to help him corroborate his position but used it, instead, to undermine his arguments.

  I clearly recall the feeling of apprehension when the interview ended. Would Ram be upset? For sure he would know that I had not lived up to my promise. I had made good use of the file, but not in a way that would help him. The blunt truth is I had been selfish and all the advantage had accrued to me.

  ‘Well, beta,’ he said as the interview ended. He was smiling. It wasn’t put on. ‘You were in great form and you used that file to good effect.’

  ‘Do you regret giving it to me?’ I asked. It’s not the sort of thing I’ve said before, when I’ve misled someone into doing something, but this time it just popped out of my mouth.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘You see, you might have found a few useful points but you forget that I was always aware of them. Listen to the interview carefully and I have answers for each of the things you brought up. Now it’s for the audience to decide what they believe. And isn’t that what this is meant to be all about?’

  To my delight, but also my surprise, Ram Jethmalani left in good humour. He had the file firmly tucked under his arm. More importantly, this was the start of a trusting relationship between a politician and a journalist that continued for a decade until the second Devil’s Advocate interview brought it to an end.

  16

  AN ACRIMONIOUS INTERVIEW WITH AMMA

  I

  t seems to me that there are two interviews I’m best known for. Both are political and ended on an acrimonious note. It’s the underlying tension in them that, I believe, has caught everyone’s attention. So, not surprisingly, both are frequently repeated. Indeed, at times they seem to have an independent life of their own on YouTube.

  The first is the 2007 interview with Narendra Modi where he walked out after roughly three minutes. The second is an even older interview with J. Jayalalithaa, recorded in October 2004. She stayed the full course. But then, she left in a huff. This interview was much repeated when she died in December 2016, oddly enough, as a tribute to her. It showed her as a fiery lady and, therefore, revealed the tough metal she was made of. Let me start with this one.

  The truth is, the Jayalalithaa interview rippled with tension from its very start. It ran through the conversation like an electric current. Her manner and the increasingly cold and angry look on her face only added to the impact that made.

  Which, no doubt, is why I’ve been repeatedly questioned about this interview. Most people suspect there’s a story behind it, waiting to be told. And there is. I’ve hinted at it in my columns but never told it in full. Now, fourteen years later, I can be more forthcoming.

  So let’s start at the beginning. It took a lot of effort to secure the Jayalalithaa interview. If I’m not mistaken, it took years of trying before I succeeded. En route there was even a false start, an interview that I thought was fixed but which never happened.

  When she did finally agree, it was on the condition that I submit my questions in advance. I protested that this was not the proper thing to request of a journalist. On the other hand, I was well aware that Jayalalithaa was not the first politician to make such a request. Several others had as well. In their cases, I had fobbed them off either with obvious questions that could easily have been predicted or false questions which I had no intention of ever asking. So I decided to do the same with her.

  Mercifully, that did the trick. A date was fixed and when I conveyed the news to the BBC—their programme HARDtalk India would air the interview—they were particularly pleased. There’s something about Jayalalithaa that makes everyone consider her special. The BBC was no exception.

  The phone rang the night before I was to leave for Chennai. It was from the Tamil Nadu chief minister’s office. My heart sank. Normally, such last-minute calls are harbingers of bad news.

  ‘Sir,’ said a placatory voice, a touch too eager to be the messenger of ill-tidings. ‘Madam would like to start tomorrow’s interview at 1.30 instead of 2.’

  It was an unexceptional request. Though I breathed an audible sigh of relief, I still asked why.

  ‘It’s auspicious, sir.’

  Determined not to let any impediment derail the interview, I readily agreed. Three years earlier, when Jayalalithaa had first accepted, a Supreme Court judgment unseating her torpedoed my plans. This time, when after much persuading she had said yes again, I was on tenterhooks.

  Of all the people I had ever wanted to interview, Jayalalithaa was almost at the top of the list. She intrigued me. Her convent accent, sangfroid, deliberate manner and glide-like walk were captivating. She was so cultivated, so carefully put together, she seemed unreal.

  I was therefore both nervous and excited as I entered Fort St George in Chennai. The silent army of faceless civil servants, beavering like ants, added to my tension. ‘Madam’ wasn’t present but her presence was everywhere. The atmosphere was heavy with expectation and foreboding.

  It was only the freezing cold temperature that prevented those of us waiting from swooning or going into a trance. I’ve never been in a colder room. My teeth were chattering, or they would have been if I hadn’t kept talking. The thermostat was set at 18°C but the actual temperature was way below that.

  Alas, the astrological calculations that had determined the interview hour proved false. Perhaps the stars were misinterpreted, for their augury went awry. Instead, Sod’s Law took over. Put simply, that means everything that can go wrong will. And it did.

  The trouble began with something as silly as flowers. Jayalalithaa had asked for some to be placed on the interview table. So a vast arrangement that stretched from end to end was readied. I balked and refused to allow this huge display to obstruct my view. Instead, I placed them on a stool by her side.

  What I did not know was that the flowers were not intended for their beauty. Jayalalithaa wanted to hide her notes behind them. In their absence, the papers she carried became visible and, as the interview proceeded, I could see her flicking through them. From time to time, she even seemed to look down and read.

  I suppose my mistake was to point this out. I don’t know why I did it. Other interviewees have consulted papers before, although perhaps not so obviously or frequently. But on this occasion it slipped out of my mouth. Her reaction was instantaneous.

  ‘I’m not reading,’ she shot back angrily. ‘I am looking at you straight in the eye. I look at everyone straight in the eye.’

  In fact, the truth is that the interview got off to a bad start well before this happened. The problem began at its outset. The fault was undoubtedly my first question.

  ‘Chief Minister, let’s start with your image,’ I began. ‘For the last three years the press has at different times portrayed you as undemocratic, unrelia
ble, irresponsible, irrational and even vengeful. Are you misunderstood or can you accept you have made errors and mistakes?’

  Her reply was terse. It was a clear hint of what was to follow. ‘I’m not irresponsible at all. That’s totally removed from the truth. Yes, I’m misunderstood. As for all these other tags, that is because the media has been against me, not just for the past few years but ever since I came to politics.’

  I had intended to attract attention with this question. Unfortunately, to Jayalalithaa, it probably felt like a personal attack. Yet it was clearly justified and, undoubtedly, needed to be asked because it touched on a key concern about her.

  I should have been forewarned by the cold steel in her voice, but interviewers sometimes fail to sense what is obvious to others. Anyway, I had a set of questions and was determined to carry on.

  ‘All right, let’s explore some of the developments that have led to this image. Less than a week after your party failed to win a single seat at the national elections, you reversed a series of decisions taken in the last three years. Were you courting cheap populism or admitting to a mistake?’

  Once again, she was hard as nails in her response. ‘The changes made in May 2004 were termed by the media as rollbacks and they made it seem [as if] these were done in the wake of the parliamentary election results. That is not so. What I was attempting was a major recalibration of the process of structural adjustment … I inherited a whole pile of unpaid bills. The fiscal balance had to be restored and this needed structural changes.’

  This was another cue to rein myself in but now, I guess, I was turning defiant. I was determined to continue in the same vein. ‘And what about the withdrawal of defamation cases against the media and the cancellation of punishment and disciplinary action against government servants for going on strike last year? They seemed arbitrary and unjustified then and they seem the same now.’