you are the cause of all evil I mean everybody says that Society is breaking up because of TV debates Hannah so and you were talking about how you have to be alert all the time so it becomes your fault how does that rest on your shoulders as I've grown up uh some some very uh you know very fundamental thoughts and principles of life I've grown up with for example uh my my parents are from Earth while Pakistan and uh you know during uh partition they walked and came my mother came in a train where people were being uh you know literally slaughtered around her so she's seen that with her own eyes and she would wake up in cold sweat uh till I was what 17 18. uh middle of the night she would have nightmares and I've seen I've seen that uh so uh and and my father when we were three siblings and when we used to fight I don't have a study table and my brother is pushing his elbow and my father would come and tell us


his elbow and my father would come and tell us this story that and we never like our children we never kind of made fun of the stories our parents told us about their childhood my father always told us a story family some Park used to mention which I've forgotten Lucknow Park is that is struggle so uh from there then my father also started the first fertilizer PSU uh in the country and then you know went to a private job and stuff like that so we when we were born we had cars you know so my father used to always tell us there is no shortcut in life never is long lasting so sincerity and hard work is what will get you whatever so uh you know I keep that principle in my life that wherever I am it may be the first step of the ladder it may be down under wherever I am I am because of my hard work because I worked my way up I didn't have nobody to push me ahead so sincerity and hard work that was one principle


so sincerity and hard work that was one principle and my mother always taught me again so don't bother you don't have to justify challenge we should not be going there to our maker and then have to lower our gaze and say okay how do you like you were talking about you got to be alert all the time it's not just what you're saying what the other person is saying in the debate and expert is saying and you don't catch that or you don't stop that person or you don't counter that person then also your it's your fault no but even if you counter and you set it uh you know set the record straight uh even then you have Firs against you because you haven't countered by screaming at that person throwing the person out foreign you ultimately have to answer your own conscience that what you did could you have done it better I think always always without question could you have done better there is always space for improvement so when you look back on that uh nupur


so when you look back on that uh nupur Sharma episode I mean that that led to a lot of flack coming the way of the channel and you there were Firs and and well everybody knows the snowballing effect of that one debate when you look back do you regret could you have done things better or do you think that this is the pitfall of Journalism on television uh Smitha um the only the only thing that I feel is that can could I have done it better or like I said always everything can be done better my best debate I can still do better because you know in hindsight you know at that inflection point I could have said this but you are as good as your thought process at that time Plus in television there are a lot of things that are not visible today I can talk about it because uh the Supreme Court has heard my case I mean so far I could not even speak about it uh and I don't want to go because a part of the case is


want to go because a part of the case is still pending yes uh but I uh I just want to say this that I've said this on the show but nobody wanted to hear that and nobody's heard the show in its entirety uh it was a 33 minute uh long debate and in the beginning I'm telling them that don't speak take over each other I'm in Kashmir there is a problem in connection oh you could hear clearly and and there is a time lag when you are out station you have worked on satellite links you know there is a time lag yeah it takes about 20 seconds sometimes more sometimes more and on the day this was and you can pick up I think it was 26th of May you can pick up the newspapers that day there were a few Encounters in that week where Hindus had been targeted so our office is in Lal Chowk area the internet was not functioning properly there the delays were much longer than they normally are internet is a bit iffy


than they normally are internet is a bit iffy in the heart of Srinagar at the best of times and this was a day when internet really was uh rather terrible connections at that time and I've said this on the show in the beginning that I'm requesting all my panelists to please not speak over each other because there is a delay in communication it's very much there in that file that link which you submitted that I could submitted it to the court okay and I have said that there and I there is a time lag of 20 25 seconds so half the problem arises out of the fact that people thought that I was hearing and not reacting I was hearing those who picked that the so-called fact Checkers who picked only a portion oh well fact Checkers uh God bless their souls because as I said you're kind I don't want to bless I don't want God to bless the ultimate judge is the maker I leave everything to the maker frankly because Justice is not for us to do over


because Justice is not for us to do over here and especially if you're unaccused how can you do or say anything so right now so that only that part of so then what happened then so then after after nupur said what she said she had she had also been provoked to My Mind by the other panelists I just came in and I said that this country has to be run by the Constitution of this country and this country's Constitution makes it imperative on both sides not to hurt each other's religious sentiments because these are questions of faith and this is ensured in the Constitution now to my mind I had put both people in their places Yeah by saying that the country has to be run now did I not call names to nupur Sharma should I have called names why I don't know did I call names to the other person on the show no I didn't um and it's not it's not me to call people names yeah and in this case by the time the delay and whatever


in this case by the time the delay and whatever had happened I ended the debate with one sentence and to my mind I had put the perspective and the context where it should have been which is the Constitution but it snowballed into something so big and then this whole because fact Checkers love us fact Checkers lovers yeah I'm going to put that in quotes and though it's in a podcast with I'm putting it in quotes right the fact Checker so-called fact Checkers and Fitness that hatred I can't sometimes understand that you know this whole thing North Korean television news I can also sit and say that I can't understand some of your colleagues who worked with you for 15 20 years even to say that you know yours is North Korean television how do you deal with that people you work I will have very few friends uh Smitha in in the profession that I am in uh and uh you know my family not connected to any of the things that I do they are completely on the other


things that I do they are completely on the other side of the fence so it's very easy I choose my friends and my friends are for life I don't have too many friends in the same profession yeah and uh therefore uh this conversation frankly doesn't happen in my friend's circle of course my friends have been very very kind to me the ones who are not in this profession but who are in other professions who've stood by me like a rock and some of them happen to be lawyers do you know uh I want to say this about my friends some of them happen to be lawyers my son is also a lawyer but he can't officially appear for me because there is some bar rule that disallows a child yeah it's so bizarre anyway but they're not say bizarre with the Judiciary you can't say that contempt contempt so uh you know my my son actually because he's a lawyer and he knew what the pitfalls were he was more worried than I was yeah I took it


was more worried than I was yeah I took it in my style like you were that situation then because people were scaring me and there was so much hate and I you know uh social media is so full of you know that's something yeah they preach so much about tolerance but all the intolerances on social media especially the so-called liberals no they got after you liberals I am from a small town even on your clothes they make comments I can't understand I'm Benji you know somebody I don't know my name on social media is kachra I'm I I've trended with the name kachra Tha no my least you don't hit back I've seen that there are many uh journalists I can't I hit back I shouldn't cue take a deep breath listen to Mohammad Rafi there's nothing that you know an evening of Mohammad Rafi doesn't sought out for you navika please you going Mother Teresa Mother Teresa I'm telling you because my uh you know music for me is like


because my uh you know music for me is like forgetting everything I've heard you sing you sing lovely sing I used to at one point in time Smitha it was my passion you and Rishi Kapoor my goodness I mean like amazing no uh um I can I can uh you know Siri so I'm like a serious you would need something to you know to cope with this stress so music is the way I I'm a regular South Delhi Punjabi I have many outlets shopping retail therapies ranked higher up music is there uh spending time with families there Khana Pina what is better than uh butter chicken and naan uh it even had in my family uh you know when the kids were this small they used to say rrbc day to day what is that rumali Roti and butter uh you know I I it's not like I don't have my bad days but I try to limit my Badness I don't want to be Meena Kumari with all due respect to Meena Kumari


Kumari with all due respect to Meena Kumari tear jerkers don't turn me on I love my Karan johars I love that girl live like king size not by robbing the banks but uh you know wearing your pole Keys your designer lenghas and all so I can I can find happiness and you you can afford to buy it you can just uh designer bags sorry it's got a beautiful collection of sarees in fact that's one thing also you did like anchors in those days when you started anchoring they were everybody was in Western Wear you know jacket and shirt I don't think like that no so it doesn't go with my producers and directory he told me then first I was to I I was told to wear jackets and shirts it just wasn't me it just wasn't me I probably didn't do that much of uh uh you know Western Wear even in college I was more churidar kurta kind of a person so you took that to the screen and said this


so you took that to the screen and said this is how I'm going to Anchor it is me I why should I adapt to others others should adapt to me okay that's the Punjabi India the Middle East it's okay I don't have a problem I was shocked when that uh when that comment was made about you and I was like uh we all looked up uh to this uh journalist with and said that she's our senior I mean we used to look look at it always right and to and uh in fact uh I don't want to name and you know say things but then you saw these Germans that that you know when she in fact wrote a book book on how when when she was in NDTV that NDTV English used to get all the all the you know bhav and all the finances everything was towards English and when she was in NDTV Hindi it was considered the poorer cousin and it was not the the right an entire book and she anchored wearing a saree


entire book and she anchored wearing a saree she refused to Anchor wearing a western outfit and then she made a snide remark on you which which really got my goat at that time that how I mean I can imagine youngsters you stood up for me she's like I think uh the only one who stood up for me but uh journalism no no objections it's just ignore ignore because does it impact your life are you going to change because somebody said something to you also you like a good spot sometimes I feel you know because this television I'm not uh you know I can I can have a good fight I'm a Punjabi spiriter so this fight is going on TV channels I'm going to get to that also so the the unpleasant thing for me please don't make me lose my job I also don't want to talk to my friends also disclaimer all of you are also Ani's clients so for me it's a it's a difficult thing to talk and but and I've seen you all


thing to talk and but and I've seen you all I've seen you I've seen or nerve I've seen Rahul shiv Shankar for 20 odd years Rahul and I even worked in the same Newsroom I didn't know that yeah we worked in the same Newsroom and he used to work with for the BBC News Channel at that time with Reuters and so we worked in the same Newsroom and then with or no you know his wife was my producer when I used to do a television show for doordarshan so I've known all of you to 20 25 years and worked with all of you you and I have covered press conferences together and now I'm seeing you all juggling with each other is very difficult for me but I have to ask you that why is it on air why are the fights on air why not why not off air I'll just say okay yeah if I ask him he'll say the same thing I see I I personally don't think that dirty linen should be washed in public


think that dirty linen should be washed in public that's that's where I come from uh if I have a problem with you Smith and it's not like I am this Zen level of Tolerance and it's such a put on I I do feel angry but then I have I'll feel angry with people I know and friends I I feel more angry but then I sort it out with them yeah that this is not okay with me and I'll have that conversation with you where we'll crash it out and for me once it's thrashed out then it's down the tube it's flushed and covered forever okay and and then you move on because life means that there will be issues that will keep coming up now you can't you said this to me in 1920 then you said it in 1946 and then you said it in 1954. it's not it's not something that is a open bahi khata which you have to keep running okay so that I do with friends and uh you know I I sort out my issues


and uh you know I I sort out my issues I cannot be a friend and I cannot speak with you unless I sort out the mess of the past if it's troubling me so that is the way I am after I've sorted it out and we've reached whatever mostly I'm sorry that's also a given and I have this uh you know if my friends are listening to this they know exactly what's coming um that's that's a starting point that's the starting point what is this so anyway sort it out and you know do a jumpy puppy and move on very Punjabi about my fights also okay but when you sort of finish and friends forever and move out um television frankly it's not the first place that we go to and you know I I don't believe in not taking names arnab is somebody who actually got me into television and I've always admitted it you know he got me into television I would never have explored this landscape if it wasn't his persistence following me and


landscape if it wasn't his persistence following me and it was his phone call in Australia uh you know that uh got me you know my defenses low and the meeting happened and the rest as they say is history and I've learned a lot from him but somewhere along the line I don't know why there is there is something that he has in his mind he's never shared it something's been building up but there is there is a lot of uh what do I say there is a lot of bile in there now why should it be on television if there is a personal bile then it can be done I work for the company where he brought me he also worked for the same company yeah I have no problems in recognizing that foreign professional and the way he rose you know with the times now brand the way way he brought it up is something that's part of History who can change it why he has the bile why he has this thing is for him to say yeah hopefully you guys will sort


for him to say yeah hopefully you guys will sort it all of you are including headlights today the only thing I don't know now if it is possible because he has put a defamation case which is going on yeah uh for two years or two and a half years or whatever it's been going on up uh up the point is you abuse a brand the brand belongs to a group which is 180 odd year group you can't no it's not a free run for everybody it shouldn't say maintenance you know the days of gandhiji are long gone people don't offer the other cheat these days yeah the and competition has become so stiff all we also represent I mean it's not my company yeah it's not my company you're speaking on behalf if if there is a brand that I represent then I have to fight for that brand because I've also given 17 years to that brand to that value system and there is a value system that exists in the times group there is so each Channel you know for viewers


group there is so each Channel you know for viewers who are watching you guys each Channel every week saying oh we are number one we are number one if you ask me if you ask me and frankly you know this is like an autopilot again I mean it's uh you know it's been going on since times now was there and the tone tenor uh has only become Shiller uh no it's not just times now it's every channel headlines is the advertising pie so small that every channel has to have this thinking my first my first I'm sure in recent times especially uh since kovid there have been pressures and and then the whole uh box uh scam as it came out the trp scam as it came out did put a question mark As far as advertisers were concerned uh following which the government also suspended the trp system so uh I'm sure every industry needs some benchmarks to go by um my my sense is that are these trps the best way to go I don't know I


the best way to go I don't know I don't think so even in its second avatar uh you know two big players are not part of the system so is it really a system is it sustainable at all this kind of a I don't know it's a it's a call frankly the stakeholders of the industry and the government which uh sort of is the policy maker in this they have to sit together and figure it out it's not healthy it creates pressures content uh isn't really the king uh you know good content so to speak and uh you know it it tends to make people Thriller um and and everything goes by then this is what people want okay that's what even the Judiciary saying that that all this hate and this fights which happen in the debate Hindu Muslim caste related television Society I mean what are what are we saying are we in the real world or not everything is television's fault are we running the country then by that logic then we are running everything


country then by that logic then we are running everything so you know it's a very simplistic way of looking at things there is a change in society and I I believe that the society the younger generation even us Smitha just talk about yourself it was not the done thing when I was working we are doing this on karva chauth day yeah when I was working karva chauth was told to me that it was such a regressive thing on my face by my colleagues it's the same thing you know there's no I've just but at least we are we are not taking everything in our stride cave this is a given is remember navika when we were kids our parents would not you see if you if you are a student of History you could ask a couple of questions and say gandhiji or a nehruji or whatever but you could never question anything any decision taken by nehru that no no no because they you defy some people today there is no there are everybody has feet of clay


is no there are everybody has feet of clay you can question anything there is nothing special I grew up in Bihar in a convent school it was in Mount Carmel Convent digwadi District or frankly history thank you okay you know you had those chapters which you had to learn where was the good and the bad what was about questioning at that point in time so that's what I'm saying so you didn't question right but today everybody is questioning isn't it that's a good thing that's a good thing and you will this is this is the time you know this is the cycle of things there will be a period Our Generation was not so questioning our parents told the told us that was the rule yeah and as journalists also you know it was like journalism but come back home there was no question you know women journalists couldn't do that hang out in bars and get a story which guys can my dad when my first job in ET bahadusha Zafar mark my dad used


in ET bahadusha Zafar mark my dad used to sit in a car downstairs waiting for me to finish and I used to say it's you know creating a lot of tension for me and my father very sweetly would say uh we used to live in Vasan kunch those days and not Vasan kunj of today where everything is so well developed my father used to sit there that may be better you won't come in an auto yeah so you know it was Against All Odds if you got a story because you it was harder you couldn't go to say if you were in Delhi you couldn't go to India International Center or you couldn't go to Press Club which male journalists could do uh you know anyway so let me get back to television journalism of today would you advise young uh journalists that you know get into television journalists it's a fulfilling job sure why not in fact to all journalists I would say that whether it's print web um you know digital whatever television join journalism


web um you know digital whatever television join journalism only if you have the passion for it and in our times we were taught that there is a very well defined line between journalism and activism today that line has got blurred and if you want to go back to the drawing board it's a very very well defined line that we were taught to respect I think we need to go back to the basics and look at that line the lakshman rekhas are important many think that that's not the case like I I tend to agree with you that activism or journalism like I I haven't seen you and I haven't done it myself of going to India Gate and standing with a banner and all that because I was the one covering it for whatever reason whether it was a Delhi rape case whether it was us even if your sympathies lied with the people or with the cause you didn't protest but I have seen many journalists who feel that that's not the case journalists should get involved in


that's not the case journalists should get involved in that lines are blurred and it's because to my mind the traditional old school journalism uh thought process that I come from uh I think the line is very well defined and it should be respected activism is a different profession it's a different activity altogether journalism is different to my mind but of course fact Checkers if you remember I mean you've not done the foreign beat but you have done at times foreign used to tell me the Foreign Affairs beaters uh 80 percent protocol and 20 alcohol not interested in true okay God bless his soul but not true yeah I know what people used to say but you've done a couple of uh I mean I have tried and you've seen me trying keeping that is one thing that raises my blood pressure okay but in in many senior editors Joe foreign agency reporter where you have no egos agencies so these editors used to you know hobnob with and give Gyan to Prime Ministers so that is an activism of


to Prime Ministers so that is an activism of a different level altogether isn't it and they Justified that for the greater good this was a different era when they were the greats and they decided uh you know the future governments the future foreign policies or so they thought uh I don't think on the present day there is any such greatness that has been assigned to us uh nor are we in the position to assign it to ourselves so you interview Prime Ministers home ministers these days everybody knows what they want to do and what how they have to do it I don't think journalists should uh ever ever uh think that they play some advisory role and there's a lot of criticism that also comes uh in you know to successful journalists like you and some of the others don't successful journey in the sense that come on yeah you are right up there it's not because you watch my channel there will be 30 will say then I'll become unsuccessful you are this humility is a little bit


unsuccessful you are this humility is a little bit like you are if you say so Smitha you know like a Punjabi humility doesn't come easily to me but if you are saying so I'm happy to believe it you get what changes what changes you get you have to work hard for today's show for tomorrow's show as much as you worked hard for yesterday's show so what changes what is success success is you're as good as your last story is what I was taught when I was growing but see everybody says that you have access compared to many of the other journalists they don't get the opportunity they don't get the access which they say 2014 only a few journals have foreign my beat so to speak was Ministry reporting and I've done various Ministries so that was the beat that I sort of grew up with I've done that and I think I did it with the great deal of rigor uh with a great deal of success only through hard work because I used to go


success only through hard work because I used to go down uh you know to get a story to the level and if time permits I just want to tell you there was a story that once somebody told me that there was a minister who came the first decision he had to confide was to give guns that had been confiscated by customs and he gave those two guns to his sons okay and that was the first decision that he took and I was a young reporter at that time foreign sitting in the Indian Express know who I'm talking about because they cleared my story and it was discussed and planned out in The Newsroom in Indian Express and uh near the airport at that time there was a new customs house [Laughter] in case you need help you can call out to him that was so scary it was like um foreign foreign stories out another time I did a story where I used to cover Telecom mtnl had put a antenna on top of the Supreme Court and on file it had


top of the Supreme Court and on file it had Justified that we've written to the register that in return for the antenna we'll give cell phones to all the judges honorable judges of the Supreme Court and then the justification had been made on file that our cases are also going on in Supreme Court this will help in building relations with the Supreme Court Judge I see foreign s are paid by the Consolidated fund of India and judges are appointed by the president of India the building and the property is maintained by the you know government or or the PWD by Direction by the president is yeah it's a perk that is being given to them which is not in the pay or whatever which is fixed by the whatever system that is there to decide the judges speak so I remember I filed that story and there was total chaos in the top rung of my uh newspaper okay what do you think will go and I still remember that story went for uh legal opinion to falina riman okay


went for uh legal opinion to falina riman okay and he said after it got published no no before because I mean the newspaper would have so these are the firewalls which are there in uh in newspapers but SC firewalls television Newsroom we don't have them that's why I guess because of the images a sum of uh some of the firewalls and uh you know shortcuts have begun to come in but actually this is the principle you have to get you have to get a comment from from the sources in this case it was the Supreme Court and 26 judges so it went for a legal opinion that will be held for contempt of saying this uh the whole process and I think two weeks and these were exclusive of stories so people sat on it for two weeks before a final call was taken and when it was printed uh The Heading the headline I still remember this was 20 years ago the headline read hello your Lordships this television news give you the same kind of satisfaction like this headline that


you the same kind of satisfaction like this headline that you're talking about a different kind but it does it's heady uh office of profit I broke uh I think one month old times now and I was the first one to Break Jaya Bachchan first and I was the first one to go on air to say that Sonia Gandhi is resigning at that time I got calls from such high offices to get off air and that afternoon she did resign tell me these politicians whom you meet who you interview and all they must be getting mad at you also at times that they do so people think is this my autobiography no no that's going to be long later but tell me is this podcast going to end anytime soon are we getting all the secrets of my life since it's karva chauth you can Aram say go today to work this is what people tend to think that you know you're meeting with so many politicians there are selfies with politicians they don't understand there's something


selfies with politicians they don't understand there's something called being friendly and a friend a journalist can't become a friend as such with politician right you can't even be friends with uh regular colleagues who are journalists isn't it blow your eyes out except you know some touch would few like you and me who can get along because we are non-competitive I guess that's true otherwise uh very difficult to have lasting friendships yeah you have to keep that that uh kind of I don't know whether you have to keep that or uh story Karo against any of them or the organizations does that happen but they argue so much on your channel and they say you're unfair you're allowing that one to speak and not us it doesn't matter to you anymore oh I try to do my best but beyond that um yeah that's a good way of looking at it that you know this is if if you expect somebody to give you a certificate saying that you're doing a great job one thing before I


that you're doing a great job one thing before I conclude you started a Hindi news channel I mean you're basically an English journalist you learned how to speak fluently in Hindi though you're a Punjabi but that fluency in Hindi because I grew up in Bihar you forget but your thinking is in English and your writing is in English your journalism is in English was it difficult to adapt to Hindi I mean in our day-to-day our workspace it didn't it didn't matter language is I can speak Bengali okay oh wow okay so then now times now Bangla no too many Firs there I'm sure it will get resolved at some point I guess I like everything gets resolved in life I feel okay so we'll get you back as of now I can only say okay uh Supreme Court no coercive action so at least that was a that was a great thing more than me my kids and my family were feeling I know and what if they do it on a Friday then what will we do


do it on a Friday then what will we do over the weekend cook the butter chicken and keep it ready in just in case well they want that uh okay with it or with the thought okay thank you so much for speaking with us navika and we hope to have you back soon really are there still some Secrets left some Secrets will I have friends left after this of course of course you will people look up to you because there's so much to be tell me which one I really want to meet no really because as a as a journalist who get got into television midlife as you yourself are saying you are an inspiration to many journalists women journalists who say yeah I mean it doesn't matter at what point of time we can make a success uh in television channel everybody uh uh you know can make a success of whatever they do uh it depends they have to have their own uh version of success that they are looking for and they have to love what they do just like I and still


to love what they do just like I and still uh in love with my job and my job and my hobby happen to be the same thing I still have the same passion uh sense of humor you have a sense of humor that's great you don't take yourself too seriously you shouldn't I mean I mean here today gone tomorrow nobody will remember asmita please believe you me so this whole Aura of greatness that we assign to ourselves we are not agents of change or anything um please oh that's a lovely one on that note thank you thank you so much navika thank you Smita thank you for having me and two women we really talk too much okay thank you for watching or listening to a i podcast with Smitha prakash do like or subscribe on whichever Channel you heard this namaste foreign [Music]


I am a class traitor on so many levels yeah I have betrayed the IAS I've betrayed the IAS which my father was from I have betrayed um uh hindutva by eating beef apparently yeah I've uh betrayed uh the cultural norms of this country by wearing shorts and a t-shirt okay BJP hasn't moved away from the right-wing narrative in one important Point what made them right wing was Hindu nationalism these savarkar was an intellectual giant of his times yeah what happens with the left in India is they are never going to get political part again for at least another 15-20 years who made Rana are you big entirely the right wing everybody requires validation I'm unique I only seek validation from my dogs and my cats welcome to another edition of ani podcast with Smitha prakash today I'm going to be talking about the right-wing narrative now even though since 2014 there is a right-wing government in India the BJP is in power in spite of that the right-wing


is in power in spite of that the right-wing narrative remains fractured the BJP wins elections yes the Modi government is unabashedly right-wing why do I say unabashedly that's because the Congress the UPA government could probably have been called left or Center left but in matters of the economy it pursued liberalization process it was Centrist some may even say center right let's come to the BJP it's seen as right-wing because of its obvious right leanings but when it comes to the economy its own supporters call it more left than even the left liberal parties that we have is the left actually liberal and is the right not liberal these conversations become extremely volatile on Twitter and Facebook so to discuss all this I spoke with Abhijit Ayer Mitra now if you follow him his podcast his Twitter Avatar he's there on uh television debates and he has very radical uh view he's seen by the right as one of theirs but at the same time they attack him because


theirs but at the same time they attack him because he doesn't do things which the right likes as far as the left is concerned they have dismissed him as a right-wing person with extreme views he has a he's an extreme liberal if I may say because he believes that in in total freedom of thought and expression of thought in an extremely interesting conversation you know he's he's somebody who is written on Military Affairs he's written on on nuclear Affairs he he uh he does a lot of radar imagery research he's a researcher par Excellence but he talks on political views he talks about on social views so he he's a good person to speak to because he's attacked by both the right wing and the left wing in India and of course it made very interesting conversation thank you very much for speaking with us three name business right why you three names first thanks for having me on and it's three names because my mom is the ire in the mix okay and she decided that she


ire in the mix okay and she decided that she did the Lion's Share of the work giving birth to me the nine months of tenancy and the delivery so she was like my name is going to come first and it is going to be there okay so so those who don't follow you on social media probably don't know about this I mean you're you your podcast your Twitter avatars and your fights everybody seen you on TV of course but you're this so big nobody there you know uh take you on because then it's like No Holds Barred so Abhijit is to be feared but I also know that you're this nice warm sweet guy also but you don't like giving that image right no no you want to be this nasty snarling taking on everybody yeah I think you know like um Sigmund Freud says everything goes back to your childhood I guess because I was the fat bullied child um I couldn't like fight back against people bashing me up so I came up with verbal


bashing me up so I came up with verbal bashing as my defense mechanism that's also your Ayer isn't it this is what she said about Ayers how dashy and all that she must be an ayengar that's why she's taking on the Ayers that's not it what I'm trying to say is that there's this tambram image of being this sharp witty way with words but take down with miti churi is that you no the uh Ayer uh brood has a reputation for working in the shadows and being bureaucrats examine they used to say you know in South block you're either a madrasi or you're a chaprasi and in those days all the madrasis okay right so I think it's quite uh non-air to be like this I think their few to know Ayers were actually very outspoken they tend to work very quiet okay Abhijit you're so right because uh there was this one incident I was traveling with uh a bunch of us journals and there were these senior


bunch of us journals and there were these senior uh government officers and the senior most of them was narrating some incident and he said I'm from palghat as a manner of conversation so I said oh there are two other secretaries out here from your village he got so mad at me how dare you say palgar is a village he's like oh my God I made some like you know you prani how dare you say call My Pal guard this place as a village but you know balgart the the really Posh people from palghat we come from Villages you know there's this notion what is palgart is what so Paul card is a district so uh milk uh milk Forest okay uh sorry for it okay okay and I come from a place called pudugramam which is in kolangor okay okay and pudugrama means New Village Pudu is new and grama is Village okay so I'm I am a villager I'm very proud to be a villager oh huh they


proud to be a villager oh huh they can't be a more urban I know than you other than probably Mani shankara he's much more urban and urban than me I guess okay so now let's get to the topic I'll keep chatting with you otherwise we today we were supposed to talk about the right wing narrative now you know you your area of expertise is from defense uh you know to nuclear stuff and you talk about foreign policy but you also talk a lot in your podcast in your conversations on television on the right wing narrative now tell me is there a right a right-wing narrative in India and where do you think that you know see the reason I'm asking you this is is there a right-wing narrative in most liberal democracies there is a left-wing narrative and a right-wing narrative and they're you know they they quarrel among each other but there is a narrative in India since 2014 we have supposedly a right-wing government right but there is no


supposedly a right-wing government right but there is no right-wing narrative I feel yes the right-wing government wins election that's a different matter but is there a cohesive right-wing narrative as you know do you see that um no there isn't and you know these things are relative so let me give you an example in India we have a saffron socialist government or a saffron communist government uh which because it isn't as loony about uh you know State ownership of private Industries or as um uh willing to turn the Blind Eye to minority disturbances is deemed right wing when you say minority it's religious religious minorities right uh in if you look at the textbook Occidental definition of a right wing the BJP would actually come quite far to the left but because it's all relative where does the median lie in India the center is so far left in India that relatively speaking the BJP is a right-wing party but do they believe in individual liberties no uh do they believe in uh uh


liberties no uh do they believe in uh uh a state agency which is anathema to the right fundamentally from a western definition yes they do uh do they believe in uh you know the absolute uh uh authority of the state yes which is necessary in a pre-industrial society but not in a post-industrial society and yet they keep talking as if India has become post-industrial but when you're saying all this you the presumption is that BJP is the is the one who is doing the is one who's molding The Narrative of right wing is that it that BJP not RSS not BHP not anybody else correct because see there is uh if you read nalin Mehta's book uh what happened was you remember 2004 when vajpai G lost the election uh there's a very coherent case to be made that India shining didn't lose them the election it was the RSS that didn't come out and campaign for vajpai that lost them the election uh I think they've learned from that and what


uh I think they've learned from that and what modi's done is before the RSS the RSS and BJP numbers were roughly equal today the BJP is 29 times the size of the RSS so even tomorrow if the RSS decides to pull the rug there's nothing say they withdraw support or they don't come out and campaign actively like they didn't in 2004. do you think it will impact on bjp's electoral not at all not anymore and what about the narrative the right narrative is it RSS driven the right narrative as I see it there is no classical right in this country there is no new chanakya in this country chanakya was actually quite right-wing okay yeah he was the father of the right you know this is the same thing loves chanakya everything you love chanakya but they don't follow so for example Buddhism if you look at all early iconography of Buddhism the Buddha was never meant to be represented anthropomorphically you showed either an elephant or a


you showed either an elephant or a Lotus or something as this thing but now it's turned to worshiping the Buddha's image right right so they may love chanakya the issue is they tear the arthashastra to bits on everything be it foreign policy made defense policy and especially on economic policy I think chanakya's Atma is in serious turmoil somewhere look looking at what is being propagated in his name so there is no right wing out here you look at political Islam for example yeah that's what I was going to say that while you say this about the right the right which is the Hindu right there is also the Muslim right and the same thing right uh same thing right the same thing in the sense of um the if they go by if these guys don't follow chanakya but idolize chanakya the person here you have uh the Muslim right which talks about the Quran but may not be following everything that the the book says right so here what happens is uh you have what


so here what happens is uh you have what you'd call political Islam which is to say the Muslim right which is identarian politics which is loved by the left globally the left loves political Islam they haven't met somebody from the Muslim Brotherhood or a political Islam party who they didn't consider a fellow traveler right now for example I would consider him a political right a Muslim political right but he will be welcome in any left-wing publication anywhere either in India or abroad right so what makes you left-wing then what is the left what is the right is that why you think that even in in Western liberal Western democracies there's not much support coming out for uh Iranian women who are pulling off the hijabs there's this very uh weird Silence from the so-called left liberals not just in India but in countries where the the Muslim population is low even there so even there I want you to contrast two things Iran hijab protests get much more press traction than the uh car driving or


much more press traction than the uh car driving or hijab protest in Saudi Arabia ever got and there's a reason for it the overwhelming part of the minority electorate and European countries is Sunni okay they would much rather pay attention to a Shia anti hijab protest than paid and remember overwhelmingly when you look at it a Muslim minority in Europe and America a Sunni minority in Europe and America is one of the most economically depressed sections of society like take Britain in terms of its the Indian subcontinent technically we were all one country at the same at one point of time Hindus have the lowest levels of incarceration lowest jail population lowest violent crimes lowest arrests highest income group pakistanis and bangladeshis are the exact opposite lowest income groups overwhelmingly blue-collar disproportionate in the amount of them who are in jail and they form the Back Bay the backbone of the labor party right so there is a fundamental thing where you appease your vote bank which is why you


where you appease your vote bank which is why you know it is political there's never a even standard applied to everybody there's not for example Ukraine you have videos every day coming out showing you how Neo-Nazi the Ukrainian military is you know for the first two months of the war there wasn't a single image that the Ukrainian military put out that did not have a Neo-Nazi or Nazi connotation to it I'm going to bring you back wait wait but they are liberals and the BJP is fascist I'm going to come back to this where you know we were talking about who who is the the speaker for the Hindu narrative or the not the Hindu narrative who's The Speaker for the right-wing narrative in India let's first let's figure that out then go to the uh the Muslim right-wing narrative when we talk about the Hindu right-wing narrative is it Narendra Modi is it the gaurakshaks is it you know is it the RSS who who do


it you know is it the RSS who who do we say okay because what you are saying is that the BJP has moved away from the right wing narrative so then who is it um so the BJP hasn't moved away from the right-wing narrative in one important Point what made them right-wing was Hindu nationalism and Hindu nationalism was dependent on overcoming caste because caste elections in this country were one on caste and as long as those caste divisions State Hindu consolidation was impossible which is why you have that caste consolidation so in that they're actually very right-wing the economic right-wing who are the speakers for an economic right-wing hardly anyone today at most say Jagdish bhagavati the the UPA was supposed to be left-wing but when it came to uh economic economics they came right they were and the BJP which is right wing when it comes to their economic policies their own people castigate the party to say that we have turned left wing correct but tell me is


we have turned left wing correct but tell me is it economic left because they're until their scheme is it it's I mean many say it's socialism with an Indian name that's all basically you look at everything they do so there's two three layers to their economic policies right on one hand you have the very admirable uh denationalization or the privatization of Air India which should be lauded thank God I expect a lot more to happen uh you but on the other hand you have the return of a license not a license Raj but a baburaj and how I think babus have been empowered like nobody's business and remember the baboon is essentially a rent-seeking system right it's a rentier state of the worst possible kind they make Russians Saudi Arabia look like uh raging liberal democracy about comparison you don't say that it's the iron frame which is holding India in place exactly I want to ask that too you you're the ultimate privileged brat who is from the from the bureaucracy Bond


who is from the from the bureaucracy Bond so you understand the bureaucracy I am I am a class traitor on so many levels yeah I have betrayed the IAS I've betrayed the IAS which my father was from I have betrayed um uh hindutva by eating beef apparently yeah I've uh betrayed uh the cultural norms of this country by wearing shorts and a t-shirt okay and uh I I have betrayed the ethos of this country by being Occidental in my Outlook I am a lecture Trader at so many levels and what Putra are you I prefer to think of myself you know there's that um the thing from the upanishads and now here you are quoting now now what do I do if you start spouting Vedas and you starts us next you're going to spout Vedic philosophy and you're going to get everybody angry that you this beef eating Veda spouting person so I I just do everything I have an issue see I'm not ideological because


I have an issue see I'm not ideological because for me ideology is outsourcing your brain to somebody why should I I need to follow where evidence leads me so in some things I'm quite left-wing now you are branded as right-wing sorry you can call yourself left wing your branded is right wing that's why you're here to explain it identify is right yes you identify as right wing now why does the right wing seek validation from the left all the time okay a severe inferiority complex their education isn't good enough uh when they get money they don't value um a Humanities education at all and I think that's the Indian mindset you know uh actually Gober has higher value than Humanities graduate in India they never study the humanities and they don't realize that historically it is always the humanities that has controlled the sciences and not science that has controlled Humanity you tell me one scientist whoever became president you're now getting too deep for me but it's the truth get to the point Humanities


but it's the truth get to the point Humanities is how to control the human mind okay science is about controlling nature and the laws of nature humanity is about controlling the human mind the the right in this country does not invest in education they don't invest in research they don't invest in archiving they don't invest in human beings right that's why all the think tanks in this country are all left all the media is left um well the think tanks aren't really left the think tanks are non-committal but you tell me the well-funded ones are left leaning uh that's that's a whole different thing that's a left ecosystem okay it doesn't mean they're particularly perspicacious because the Indian left also has certain very severe problems okay we will get to that soon okay but let's talk about the right word leaning ones in my experience think tanks have a mix of both right and left okay uh but mostly think tanks in India seldom do any research they do events uh events are not research you know you look


events uh events are not research you know you look at Western think tanks I mean for all your criticisms of them that they're ideological whatever whatever they become ideological uh they actually invest hugely in going to the places they study sitting and talking to people on the ground meeting people doing hard painstaking ground research whether it's crackery or not you can decide later but in my experience ground research always yields gold right let me give you a simple example with me do you remember when uh doklam was happening in 2017. um there was a lot of stories coming out except nobody from the Indian side was going to do club right uh it curiously happened that the end of my North Korea trip was also the beginning of my Tibet trip so I happened to be in lhasa and I wanted to be in lhasa and I took the car went past shigatse and got very close to doklam say about 100 kilometers away and you know I was looking at because when


away and you know I was looking at because when you're coming to Chicago you can see the airport formations when you're leaving last time coming into lhasa uh you can see the aircraft parked water the military aircraft parked on the tarmac what are the uh armored vehicles in The marshalling Yards around uh lhasa and things like that and it simply didn't add up with what we were Hearing in the Indian press there was no sense of urgency or alarm on the Chinese side and they were actually quite surprised in Beijing by what was happening in India because they hadn't expected that kind of a response from India now that is called primary research where you're actually going into the middle of a uh this thing and looking at it now very frequently we don't have the money to go there right so at least look at satellite imagery then the satellite imagery doesn't tell you the whole story but it can give you about 60 70 of the story at least who in India does that Indians


the story at least who in India does that Indians I mean you look at all these big houses the media houses they have money to do you know Leadership Summit uh uh uh uh your majesty Summit your Excellency Summit uh basketball player uh tennis player this they'll bring they don't have money to spend on their main thing which is to get you information which is satellite imagery or send a correspondent out there we now that we're talking about media the media you know uh internationally speaking like in most uh Western liberal democracies the media has generally been uh left-leaning right even in India the media has been uh left-leaning it's it's not comfortable with a right-leaning government which comes in uh even when it does come in the bureaucracy sees it as an interloper the media tends to think that they are not for free thought and it's to rashtravadi and you know it doesn't it doesn't um Fosters free speech and you know the left liberal views or whatever but


and you know the left liberal views or whatever but uh the the left ecosystem now says that the media is completely sold out to the right do you see that do you see that happening in no I see Market forces at work out here you know you see the media landscape mirroring the political landscape out here right now or always uh always okay it's not just now okay it's always been that that the most popular government Indians generally tend to be very pro-government it doesn't matter which government is in par the government is usually a reflection of popularity in this case right okay and uh I'll get in trouble so I'm not going to say that but in that sense so you will have uh so they're two parts to your question first why is the media like Academia and think tankery so left-wing it's because the humanities has executed a complete institutional capture and a mind capture of the humanities okay so you know your if you're studying humanities it's fundamentally a left-wing indoctrination camp right


it's fundamentally a left-wing indoctrination camp right you can't get away from that hmm so the people who managed to get away will be you can literally count them on the tips of your fingers because it's that one person in a hundred who has the brains to say there's a whole world outside because even the terminology right abhijeet when you were in college and uh you know it was always Looney right which was used right it's used so liberally Looney right I was in fact there was one day I was talking about like you know now this whole thing about bhagat Singh bhagat Singh everybody's talking about bhagat Singh but when you were studying bhagat Singh in school and college and I'm talking about Urban centers you but you our history book said extremists and moderates the cbse boards were you'd studied more about the moderates correct extremist was a three mark question so let's face it if you are not a Humanity student are you going to study about


not a Humanity student are you going to study about the three mark question or about the moderates then you studied more about the moderates right because those were longer answers did you study about uh you know I'm again I want to make it clear I'm talking about our history texts which were of the central Board of secondary education not the state boards so you know your shivaji Rana Pratap or the Chola chalukya's uh pandas you know all this in cbse were two mark one more question but when you talked about the mughals was about 15 mark question 10 mark question and multiple choice question of uh or you wanted jahangir or you wanted akbar's architecture or you know so that whole thing was there and this was relegated again you're talking about Academia now the Academia is also ah left wing oriented right the left narrative we've talked about think tanks we've talked to talked about media now the Academia so Academia will especially the humanities Academia is always going


will especially the humanities Academia is always going to be left-wing because that institutional capture was uh affected almost a century back uh you know what Lenin used to say was every idea is worth a thousand pages of theory so they will come up with mumbo jumbo and sometimes it's valid and mostly it's overwhelmingly mumbo-jumbo they will break it down into its constituent parts and they will create the entire volume of work about it when you've saturated the literature with your literature doesn't matter if it's good or bad but if 99 of the available literature is left-wing then the people reading it will also turn out to be left-wing so 99 of the people reading that 99 turn out to be left-wing then the job market gets saturated with that they create their own validation circles that if you're right-wing you're not really you don't really know the subject this person knows the subject and so it became it becomes a complete validation citation and Views and employment capture the same way in which you know


and employment capture the same way in which you know Halal certification has led to a complete a dispossession of dalit butchers in this country uh and so badly so that uh products run even by Hindu sons and things like that apply for Halal certification for vegetarian products right so that's what the export Market mostly right right whatever it's Market forces as you it's Market forces yeah so you have this fundamental problem that when you have a certification agency you then start getting monopolies for example nobody can make champagne unless the French certify you as a docg champagne producer growing it in Champagne you can produce sparkling wine but you can't produce champagne but now it's all changing that I'm not talking about products or the Halal thing right now I'm just talking about the right wing now deciding like the Muslim right wing is now having a rethink the recent you know this the the pasandam Muslims coming out and saying that we do not uh you know we we support the uh


do not uh you know we we support the uh the uh the Crackdown on PFI there is a rethink among educated Muslims who feel that there was an elite which was speaking on our behalf and they were not speaking what we wanted they many don't agree with it right they may not agree with what just one group of Muslims have to say similarly uh the right wing uh Hindu narrative is also that you know what has been said so far was the left capture of History we want to rewrite it we want but then there is a pushback to say you can't rewrite history now the same thing like we've talked about Academia we've talked about media we've talked about think tanks the same thing is happening with Bollywood that Bollywood there was this whole movement against Bollywood that and this ban certain actors for what they have said it sounds a little bizarre sometimes that you go to that extreme that you're Banning an actor who just said that I had he liked beef and he


just said that I had he liked beef and he said it several years ago but there is this anger against a certain section of Bollywood that they had captured the narrative do you think that that is like valid that that angst that you're seeing spilling out now it's a reaction it's a reaction to uh the left cancer culture remember the left started this cancer culture uh you're a bigot therefore we won't platform you yeah uh they of course did it very differently right uh the left in India has its own problems because they've uh if you wear a lefty uh they would promote any mediocrity any F grader any third grader so what's happened is that all you need to do to become a serious public intellectual in India is stock left wing garbage and you can be absolute rubbish and you'll become a public intellectual you'll be labeled a puppy in Crown Market where raw mango uh cotton sarees and have at least three books from bhari Sons right in


at least three books from bhari Sons right in your left arm and a jhola in your right arm I'm talking about the women and as far as the men uh Fab India kurta I'm just talking superficially Fab India kurta uh and uh nehru jacket nehru jacket um and a slightly crumpled uh disheveled look about you and uh sit in triveni and sip tea from [Music] thing and you've given the impression that you are a left liberal now comes the spouting now you tell me what is outing of the left now comes the spouting where you can spout any kind of rubbish and as long as it suits their agenda they'll Crown you a an intellectual but they're paying a very heavy price for it which they don't realize they've been wiped out from PA you look today before uh say the Congress let's assume for this particular argument the Congress is left and the BJP is right right if this was the Spectrum the center was here the BJP occupied here


Spectrum the center was here the BJP occupied here the Congress was here and the left parties were here today the median has shifted so much that the left space is only this much the Congress is competing the cannibalizing CPI cpim votes this is the space the the bjpa by moving left nobody is there to outflank it on the right but on that left that you're showing that spectrum is also clawing at that left is that kejriwal and ahmadmi party but it didn't work for him but kg while see the thing is kejriwal is an opportunist which I'm perfectly fine with I say this as a compliment I don't mean it as an insert I would much rather have somebody like kejriwal who's willing to toy around with the right and play the right game huh than in ideological left and so what you've had is diminishing returns on the left you tell me one word uh does she come in that that small spectrum of left she comes in a regional


small spectrum of left she comes in a regional identity it's not a economic identity out there she got rid of the left and she came in she outlifted them she outlifted the left isn't it she didn't become Centrist or right no she just yeah that's it with a different name so you basically have a left party with a different name there basically basically she was the left wing of the congress party anyway yeah right okay uh so what happens with the left in India is they are never going to get political part again for at least another 15-20 years as far as I can tell be it monarchs in Europe or be it Communists in the USSR they used to Dole out money liberally to the Arts to literature to Academia to write their hegeographies okay right King John was actually a bad King John of Robin Hood Fame was actually a very good King and good King Richard was actually a very bad King and yet history will teach you that Jon was the


and yet history will teach you that Jon was the villain and Richard was the hero okay whereas all the economic records and all the other records will show you that was actually not the case King John was actually fighting for the rights of the people and the Barons took away the Magna Carta was actually a kind of re-enslavement of the people in a cells but uh but remember there was already an ecosystem and they were considered for giving you validation it and it's not just semi-literate people who require validation everybody requires validation I'm unique I only seek validation from my dogs and my cats I don't seek human validation that's why left-wing they validate each other even if they don't agree with each other yes they validate right exactly like uh you know I mean when we talk about authors in the left wing you can if you have arundhati Roy extreme left gandhian with guns and all that but who wasn't considered left he was considered right at one point of time shifted and made


right at one point of time shifted and made because you know at some point of time there were these right-wing authors columnists writers journalists who you know disliked Modi so they become left-wing right they move they jumped ship and Pratap Banu Mehta I'm sorry but I feel that that's what happened with him so you hit the nail on the head there is no left wing and right wing in India there is the gravy train wing and there is the anarth link okay explain this now okay what you call the left wing in India is actually highly privileged pricks who all come from very privileged families who essentially create a I'm sorry to use this word but a circle jerk uh of each other providing violation oh this is the new upcoming scholar of India he or she is the ultimate last word on this it is the gravy train Wing they've been brought up on state larges they have been brought up which every King historically has done the chorus did it the pandyas did


has done the chorus did it the pandyas did it the pallavas did it the mughals did it that you get poets and things like that to write hoshanas about you uh you get authors to write what a great king I mean after all was uh composed by somebody for someone the shaname was composed uh for someone by giving money to the author right so every everything even Shakespeare was like that everything yeah this government does not provide a gravy train you're supposed to do everything in so this is that swam sevak uh mentality right so the right wing doesn't doesn't provide the gravy for the gravy train so there's no narrative that's what you're saying correct okay uh if you are not going to give state largesse if you are not going to give institutional validation and the problem is the people who are in position to give institutional validation desperately seek validation from the left hmm right they will go to Every left event when invited uh just to score you know oh uh he


invited uh just to score you know oh uh he uh they essentially fit into the left's need for a token right winger to show over representative it was like that show you know that but one second even though the left wing will invite that one token right winger God help that one left Winger who gets invited to a right-wing event they are booed they are shamed they are called names because the right wing won't accept a slight soft right wing also they you have to be ultra Ultra right wing to get accepted if you are slightly like even if you're seen in the company of a Centrist not acceptable so why is that you know that intolerance in the right wing I'm sorry to use this word because the right wing hates that word being used but it is but it is of course it is look the right thing you have to understand what is the right thing in India most of them are socially upwardly mobile yuppies uh the first generation Rich they haven't had a terribly great education there


Rich they haven't had a terribly great education there are of course notable exceptions to the rule but overwhelmingly uh they are socially upwardly mobile and this is where Huntington makes a very very interesting case in The Clash of civilizations on how emerging cultures emphasize their Roots nationalism and things like that so this is a group that is not willing to tolerate and it's so bad they don't even read I mean how are you going to oppose an idea if you're not willing to read the books of the other side I you know for example I read wire and scroll a lot because I need to know what the other side is saying okay but the left doesn't read any right they they call it oh no no no no no no no they trust me they go over it with a fine tooth comb and they diss it they diss it when required mostly if you're if they find you particularly dangerous they ignore you okay the left's method of ignoring people is if they find you a


method of ignoring people is if they find you a threat they ignore you so that you will never get any publicity okay the rights method is they find you a threat even if you're a low level useless threat like ranayub is the biggest transparently fraud journalist around she has never produced a single iota of proof for anything she's ever written madhu Trehan gave her a platform gave her a platform on news laundry saying we'll publish your tapes and she said no it's actually you know Shoma Chaudhary and uh own it they said no no she's free to publish it she still hasn't published it now you say you you need to tell me Washington Post doesn't have uh the money or the resources to catalog the entire 600 odd tapes that she has of course not she never produces an iota of proof for anything she says but who made Rana are you big entirely the right wing Abhishek is the left wing is it Justified the right wing says that the left wing is


Justified the right wing says that the left wing is very intolerant of any opinion other than their own uh voice the left accuses the right of the same thing so tell me where and does the left wing do the left wing authors think tankers media do they do they cannibalize on each other as much as the right wing does no so like I said it's the gravy train Wing generally and what happens is there actually if this is the space the academic space or the profit making space from books or whatever they account for maybe this much but they occupy this much of the space right so as much as they cannibalize votes votes their cannibalizing each other but in terms of academic economic uh uh teaching opportunities or whatever or think tanking opportunities there's actually a vast field for them to play about for the left you mean for the left uh is in fact the more you spread an intolerance narrative the more their space increases the second thing about left intolerance is they are very


the second thing about left intolerance is they are very tolerant of representational diversity and extremely intolerant of intellectual diversity they substitute you can have a trans a CIS uh uh assist trans uh lady who identifies as a as the uh uh uh plastic casing on a copper wire they can have a uh a uh I don't know an Eskimo uh Aboriginal uh uh Bedouin person uh and things like that who will all be saying the exact same thing okay so they go in for diversity of color diversity of caste diversity of class it's tokenism but all to trumpet the same line and I would much rather have the right in India which is so much more cacophonous because remember on the right technically if you're looking you can't understand anything because of that cacophony no you can't understand not because of the cacophony you can't understand because mostly the right are very crude and unsophisticated and unread but there are very notable exceptions so remember we


unread but there are very notable exceptions so remember we savarkar was an intellectual giant of his times yeah and he shows you the three strands that have always existed within say the hindutva narrative one is the savarkar branch which is extremely Progressive yeah he talks about urbanization right but find me the right wing guys who will talk about them they will not because do you know I I've never met a right-wing guy who is a red savarkar most people haven't even read foreign these people the traditionalists have lost every single electoral battle both outside and even within the hindustwavadi fold and the RSS represents the middle which was going too Progressive calm down a bit you guys we don't really want to associate with you because if you think caste is important then stay away from us so they came up with this socially conservative consensus which was we are all for change when Society is ready for it for example homosexuality Congress because it had to cater to certain Christian and Muslim groups


had to cater to certain Christian and Muslim groups when it was not in court they would support decriminalization of homosexuality the moment it would go to court again they would oppose it whereas with this government it was look we're not going to talk about it openly but fine go ahead and decriminalize it right and then what's happened is I think they were particularly upset from very Progressive uh no it's typical RSS we don't have an opinion on this Society is that's fine I'm perfectly fine with that yeah right uh in the left wing though they're supposed to be liberals you have to go to the right school right College uh born to the right parents somewhat be the right cast and you need to tick all those boxes but on the right side you don't need to on the right you don't need that in fact if you have gone to those schools and colleges negative against you if you speak English it's a negative against you okay so uh so the left actually has a lot of


so uh so the left actually has a lot of classism in it okay and cast is a minute okay are some of the most horrifically Caster statements I've heard have come from the left now there's also this belief that um you know this the the whole uh right-wing narrative it it's based on this concept that a strong nationhood feeling that's the only thing that will bond us that uh and that strong nationhood originates from our Villages and urban centers are the corruption of that nationhood sentiment uh is that right is that wrong do you think that that narrative needs to go I call it the Isis mentality and I'll tell you why all self-confidence civilizations look to the Future all inferiority complex ridden societies that are not successful look to an imagined past for you know obscurantists Muslims it's the rashidun caliphate for uh uh muja Hindus it's Ram Raja muja Hindus now you're confusing me I'm very sadharan prani it's a Basics it's important


sadharan prani it's a Basics it's important and Hindu yeah I got that but why do you call them that because they're just they they're except in terms of physical violence which is to say beheading or bombing or whatever they're an exact mirror image off what they hate um and what you find with these mujah Hindus is they imagine this past oh you know we never used to eat I'm sorry to bring it back to beef but beef well we never used to eat beef you look at bibilal and nobody can accuse Bibi Lal of being a left finger yeah you bibilal's findings his own writing on the excavations at harappa and mohenjo daro the maximum number of butchered bones was that of Boss indicus not even boss Taurus it was in foreign cows that they ate they ate Indian cows so the fundamental differences between a Hindu extremist a Hindu extremist will fundamentally always be a lot more tolerant what they insist on curiously


lot more tolerant what they insist on curiously enough is direct from the ramayana it's your Agni pariksha you have to pass through all these things because you're going to get me sued I'm going to move on no no but they're actually following the ramayana we should appreciate them they are true they are following the book to the word in terms of their fundamentals everybody on this show now just please tell me where give me an answer see now those who oppose the right wing another question is those who oppose the right wing both Hindu and Muslim feel that this the Hindu right which has now you know got a government in place they will push India back it's a different matter that what Mr Modi and the BJP says is that we're building more flyovers we're opening up our markets we are giving jobs we are doing this more ports more uh Railways all that connectivity all that is going on more tourism uh we are going to be vishwa Guru that's a different point


to be vishwa Guru that's a different point all together but the left-wing thinks that with the right-wing government uh it will push us back towards a kind of a stagnation or even push us back because the the ideas that the right wing believes in goes back to The Vedic times so how how valid is that fear that they have and do is is it a fear or is it just a tactic so it's a tactic it's a tactic because I can tell you that this government doesn't actually believe in much I would say they're mostly about 10 percent genius inspiration uh 30 percent mediocrity and the remaining 60 income your Funda it's not Funda let's look at it let's look at it so the abrogation of 370 Shear genius yeah okay the way it was done constitutionally valid everything was sure genius right the rest so for example uh uh you know uh State investment in roads uh airports etc etc this is what every government should be doing technically where does the incompetence


government should be doing technically where does the incompetence angle come in South Asia we know that the building of infrastructure does not automatically lead to growth right and the clearest example is how none of those people who built the Delhi gurgaon Highway were able to recoup their money from the uh toll booths and things like that right and the reason is there is too much regulation there is too much Court interference too much everything adani is building ports and airports everywhere if there was no money if it was not lucrative so the money doesn't come from actually building the port the money didn't come out from the money didn't come from Delhi airport the money came from that Development Area Telecom right so so the money does not come directly so if it wasn't lucrative why would adani be building airports why would Ambani be in Telecom and you know I mean it is lucrative that's why we've got more millionaires we've got more unicorns you know we're doing well as as


more unicorns you know we're doing well as as far as the most even though Rahul Gandhi will say and the left wing says it's crony capitalism my whole issue is there is no suitable it's all valuation games happening with the unicorns okay adani and Ambani like I said the money will not come from the port the money will come from all the extra land which will be converted and this has been the thing in India for a very long time that it is the real estate that you squat on allow to appreciate and make buildings out of and sell residential plots and things like that that actually end up making the money we think that infrastructure leads to growth growth is a very complex feeling it happened in Korea infrastructure grow because you got your regulatory mechanisms your judicial mechanisms all of that right here I think there is a lot to be said about the economic literacy of the Judiciary there's a lot to be said about the economic literacy of the government itself you


about the economic literacy of the government itself you now you're wading into territory where I will become the villain because as far as as our uh honorable Supreme Court is concerned I am the villain media is the biggest biggest crook in this country we are worse than whatever you want to say now we are worse than what did you use that word we are worse than anybody we have you know we are the bad bad people responsible for every ill I only like villains I never like Heroes okay in every movie we are Prem Chopra Helen yes Arch villains okay true arch villain are mogambo level or you know Darth Vader level and things so we are that we are that Darth Vaders we are the Darth via the darkness so please don't say anything about the Judiciary in my show okay so now you're talking about foreign um left liberal we talked about it now this sudden uh you know India has shied away when I say India I mean


India has shied away when I say India I mean Indian government Indian government has shied away from openly taking on the foreign media whatever happened was like Ministry of external Affairs secretary level Banda would call up the BBC and say what the why have you reported like this on Kashmir uh you should report like this that it stayed at that level it would never escalated to the political uh class taking on foreign media but now you're seeing a different uh India I don't know whether it is a confident India or whether it's a different media policy but taking on the foreign media special actually in their own land saying two newspapers you know that's what Jay Shankar had said right now so calling their Bluff so you know you guys have been calling their Bluff on social media a number of people from the right wing have been incessantly saying that what the right wing specially what the left liberal uh media did during kovid foreign media reported during covet was wrong absolutely wrong a number of people did


was wrong absolutely wrong a number of people did that because they genuinely believed in it right that it was it was not done but the government never said anything and even if they did it was a muted voice now the government is like we don't want to wait for it to happen we are taking you on so I think we're basing this on just one thing which is what Jay Shankar said in Washington and even that was a rhetorical comeback it wasn't a systematic factual comeback right now if you remember I think it was the independent and the guardian when uh 370 got abrogated in Kashmir the only person that both newspapers could find one month apart in their reporting was the exact same guy with the exact same wounds and they tried passing it off as a different guy okay uh there was that lady Nicola Kareem from the BBC and one independent key journalist imagine one month apart they can only find one victim of brutality that too Anonymous who has


one victim of brutality that too Anonymous who has the exact same wound pattern uh you know I saw that yes you had put it up but you know going and saying ah you know Washington Post uh is this on New York Times is this so when you do these takedowns I mean just to uh take down the way a takedown has to happen is you need to have somebody like uh who did vajpay have promote Mahajan right yes would sit down there he would take you down that day then and there Point by point you think that this government is not doing that the social media team of the BJP is really sharp no the the social media team is not the government okay yeah see the government has to do that yes okay right there's no point sitting around and gripping about it later and that to a mesoteric way without naming them what happened was you know when that when the Indian cricketer was trolled um by these Pakistani handles which pretended to be Indian handles and said


handles which pretended to be Indian handles and said you're a kalistani and you know that's why you dropped the catch and all those things which are happening it happened close to midnight at that time and Indian media you know some some maybe innocent I'm not saying that they wanted to believe it or anything but when some of these Indian media handles saw that they believed them to be Indian handles correct and they started you know self-lagellation it started apologizing on behalf of Indians saying this is very wrong and things it was only some do-gooder around 4am or something who turned around and said brought out the back of those uh you know the found out the IP addresses and now these are not Indian handles they're pretending to be Indian so 4 AM that happens now by uh by that time the midnight and post midnight websites of the newspapers there are interns on the job or whatever Indian uh they've taken those things and then the headlines have gone on the portals already


then the headlines have gone on the portals already Indians troll uh cricketer right and call him kalistani and then that went now what happens is the websites uh or these uh you know these um newspapers who are sitting in America in Europe and things like they don't have reporters in India and even if they have they have one reporter who's sleeping it's it's their Nini time they're sleeping so what do those portals do without calling their reporter they pick from these Indian websites and they copy paste and put out there and then it goes front pages in some by the time India wakes up or Indian government handles wake up to bust this fake news almost 12 hours have gone by fake news has circulated Everywhere by this time this is what I'm trying to do and the retraction never happens have you noticed hmm this is how you create citation Loops the left is very good at this right the retraction will be one news item by that time the news item's been bombarded


item by that time the news item's been bombarded most will not retract so the problem with the left again it's statistics when your entire media has been brought up in the humanities which is already saturated 99 by the left then 99 of your graduates are going to be left-wing and that's the institutional capture that's happened in the west is where it's a globe remember this is what Manu Joseph says the left is global the right wing is always local which is why you can never build International things so whenever we talk about the right-wing narrative we end up talking about the BJP don't don't talk about it the the Muslim narrative doesn't come in which also has a very strong right wing and a left wing in that too so that we will leave for another conversation thank you so much for speaking with me thank you for listening in whichever platform you saw or listen to this please like or subscribe I am Smitha prakash signing off namaste foreign [Music]


in the BJP nitish ji was himself uncomfortable and was being treated in a manner that made it clear to him who's the boss Mr naren modi's strategy to begin with in his Ascent to the Pinnacle of the BJP was to First influence the middle class I am not in favor of mere Jordan politics what we need is not arithmetic Unity what we need is organic Unity I had once a boss in mea who tell me on the intercom I say old chap there is an HMT type of guy here then it's called umt Uh do medium type hey Jai Hind welcome to another edition of ani podcast with Smitha prakash today's episode is my conversation with Pawan Varma Mr Varma has been a former bureaucrat he was in the external Affairs Ministry held very important positions and ambassador he's also an author who's written a variety of a book on variety of subjects he's been a politician joined nitish's jdu and then moved over to the TMC uncomfortable with


and then moved over to the TMC uncomfortable with nitish's U-Turn when he joined the BJP or joined an alliance with the BJP to be specific is also an essential uh essentially a Delhi boy he um he typifies what is known as latians Delhi or uh or what is known as the Khan Market gang so I spoke about all that I spoke about politics and he discussed with me what it meant to make the transition from bureaucracy to politics uh he spoke about being of hindutva of what it means for a sanatan Hindu or an Hindu uh to you know be to face this hindutva Onslaught as he terms it and then to spoke about bureaucracy the letters which are being written about by bureaucrats against the government for the government uh a myriad of issues so it's an interesting conversation about what it means for grassroot level politics versus a kind of an elite view about what grassroot level politics is about but he remains grounded in spite


is about but he remains grounded in spite of being from Elite Delhi bhavanji thank you very much for speaking with me on a i podcast with Smith Africa pleasure is mine it's it's an absolute pleasure and honor to have you here I've known we've known each other for so long when I was cutting my teeth in journalism you were in the Foreign Service and very kindly you used to give me information which was you know which I could use in my stories and uh the beat was different the foreign office beat was different television was like so small and we were so few of us in doing television but you took to the medium very easily uh you know even then though you uh I guess when you joined the service there was just print not much of Television so anyway and you you know after an illustrious career in uh in the Foreign Service you decided to make the shift and join politics so before I get on to today's India and today's politics I want to know from


India and today's politics I want to know from you what prompted you why did you move from like you know a steady way of life which bureaucracy is to the tumult of politics well you know I I greatly enjoyed the Foreign Service and let me reiterate what the great pleasure it is to talk to you as you said we've known each other for so long not only you but Sanjeev your husband your father-in-law your father Mr Ramon Rao who was very close to me so I enjoyed the Foreign Service but I felt I wanted a larger canvas to be better able in my small way to contribute to bigger issues ah so I was toying with the idea of public life for a while and I was about to take the step but it so happened uh I mean as a coincidence that Mr nitish Kumar the chief minister of Bihar visited Bhutan when I was Ambassador there and we got on very well and one thing led to another and he said to me


one thing led to another and he said to me I've told him I would like to work with you although I must confess at that time I had offers also from the congress party I had friends in the BJP the late Arun jaitley was my class fellow since school college law faculty okay so we were very good friends you were in Saint Stephen's I was in Saint Stephen's he went to sriram we were both Debaters we used to debate against each other then we both joined law fact together and we were in the same class in Saint Xavier school okay so but I joined nitish Kumar uh and made the transition to politics he was very kind in the sense that he made me a cabinet minister straight away with as advisor the chief minister and later sent me to the Raj Sabha and I've never regretted the decisions with that but that was the main motivation I must say that in a certain way I was already in public life because of the many book side books right so


life because of the many book side books right so I was not entirely a conventional bureaucrat right and so it seemed logical to take this step to see how I could in my small way control but the books that you have written uh that wasn't that wasn't hardcore hardcore politics you know it was I mean from writing about the middle class to writing about the Kama Sutra you written the the canvas is vast but it's not it's not about uh say like maybe you know suppose it had been the nuxel issue or caste or something like that which was Hardcore politics you didn't write about that actually the service rules don't permit you correct uh to write on politics per se but I must say that I push those Horizons almost to the limit for instance apart from ghale my biography Krishna and poetry then translated yes which was a very warm relationship but uh like my book The Great Indian middle class now it is not written with the political stance but it encompasses so many


with the political stance but it encompasses so many political points of view similarly my book being Indian which was a hard look at who we are had an entire chapter the first chapter on Power and our obsession with power so there were transitional comments on politics but I didn't write about it directly so but those books fortunately did well I was in the public realm I was speaking on contemporary issues because of some of them right and so I think that in some form I was already a public in public life I made a transition to direct politics when I resigned from this so tell me what what was it that didn't work uh with you and the jdu I mean there was there was that letter that you had written about uh about how it didn't sit well when uh nitish joined hands with the BJP and especially on CAA and NRC I saw that letter that you had written so was it just that or were you just uncomfortable with the way nitish had made a u-turn at that stage I


nitish had made a u-turn at that stage I think it was a combination of both uh nitish ji when I joined him was a member of the ND Mr Narendra Modi had not yet come on the scene and with that BJP he seemed to be comfortable and you were comfortable I knew it will be very vajpayee very well so very well and and I think I joined him for what he had done in Bihar so I mean there were two aspects to it then he decided to take a strong stand against the uh Ascent of Mr Narendra Modi as the leader of the BJP and we were with him he suffered for it we suffered for it he in the 2014 elections as you know the jdu just got two seats in the Parliamentary elections when nitish ji resigned we were with him and Mr Manji became chief minister and we remained with him on principle when you say suffered you mean electoral electoral electorally suffered for that choice I mean it


electorally suffered for that choice I mean it would have been perhaps easier in terms of pure expediency or utility to be with the rising star and be a part of the NDA at that time ah but that was his decision and we backed it on grounds of ideology and principle and then uh when he made that you turn to the BJP now they were close to five years of him being a very vocal about why and his uh his criticism of Narendra Modi so this overnight switch was quite inexplicable to me frankly you none of you had any inkling that he was mulling over this move no actually the truth is and I don't know if it was intentional I was a National General Secretary of the jdu and I have checked with my colleagues the four or five others who were on this top executive position in the party none of them seemed to know it seemed to have been a decision worked out in Patna and perhaps he took that decision from the best intentions but


perhaps he took that decision from the best intentions but it was ideologically such a wolf face I mean such a U-turn that I was uncomfortable but I was with him still because in many ways there is a great personal affection between me and nitish she has been very kind to me and also his personal Integrity his administrative Acumen his intellectual leadings these were things that bonded us together but on the caanrc and I am not saying My Views are correct I know in India there are two views on the subject I know your views are different from mine I said that for him to approve of the CAA NRC ah because the jdu had supported that in Parliament and so I voiced my opposition and it became that he I was expelled from the party uh did that hurt does it does it bother no it did hurt because it was a very cherished and treasured relationship because the way I know you you would have chosen to get out rather than wait to be expelled because that is something


rather than wait to be expelled because that is something a hardcore politician does take a stand wait to be expelled and then move over to you see this seemed to be at that time no meeting point and I was seeing and now nitish ji acknowledges himself that as in the BJP nitish ji was himself uncomfortable and was being treated in a manner that made it clear to him who's the boss in fact when the first time Narendra Modi came and it was on a public rally in Patna and nitish she made one request and he said Patna University you know and the Prime Minister listened to it gave no assurance and nothing happened so I mean these kind of things were happening and I was uncomfortable with it because I also saw nitish ji as a leader in his own right and he used to be the leader was the largest party I mean the BJP that's one thing about whichever party wins or loses in in Bihar he stays the chief minister so


in in Bihar he stays the chief minister so where is it I mean I understand that that in private and then you know sensitivities get hurt these are things which happen in politics but the point is at no point of time was anybody in the BJP for contention for chief Minister's job it was always going to be nitish election after election doesn't matter how many seats he would get there was some something about nitish Kumar that he stays chief minister anyway but you get 2019 onwards it became much worse worse okay PK also left because of this I were expelled from the party on the same day by the same letter do you think there was it was the decision to expel you or do you think no I think it could have been a part of our choice no it could have been a party choice and I think as in terms of the disciplinary rules of the party they felt it appropriately to expel us why did you immediately go over to the TMC okay I


you immediately go over to the TMC okay I must say there was a Hiatus of almost two years and let me also clarify that after I was expelled at a personal level my relationship with nitish remained to be good I went to see him once at the height of kovid we had a long chat we used to talk to each other ah and he 2019 onwards I think nitish she was feeling uncomfortable but unable to break with the BJP you know he was reduced to 43 seats yeah what he calls the chirag pass one factor now he became a junior partner uh and not at the highest level but at the level of Patna and Bihar politics BJP leaders would make comments about you know who's the real people who has always been the case in Bihar politics there's always been this kind of they'll be together because of Coalition problems but they would keep making these statements that's the that's the bihari way of doing politics is where you don't it's a no holds barred


is where you don't it's a no holds barred issue when it comes to speaking your mind at least that's what my experience has been with I mean even with Lalu yadav and the others they would keep you know there was this acerbic comments that laluji would make about nitishti but they were together at one point of time during the despite so they were it was like you know two brothers in a joint family where they do talk so I would anyway let's get to the TMC part so you joined TMC at a point where TMC was expanding getting people across the board you know thinkers cricketers everybody was coming in and so one thought okay natural progression pavanji goes towards well you know TMC and then you leave the TMC again I'll tell you what's happened I'll be honest and candid with you with nitish yeast in the BJP Alliance uh people like me were wondering how to have one figure who could be Primus into Paris first among equals in