When Amitabh Bachchan lost his cool after Karan Thapar interviewed him about his rumoured affairs An excerpt from ‘Devil’s Advocate: The Untold Story’ recalls an interaction that went south.
Karan Thapar is known for being the devil’s advocate. But what happens when taking that tough line rubs an interviewee the wrong way? In his new book Devil’s Advocate: The Untold Story, the journalist recalls a dramatic interaction with Amitabh Bachchan in the early 1990s. When the Bollywood superstar was questioned about his rumoured relationships with co-stars, an eerily calm interview and a not-so-calm luncheon followed. An excerpt:
The interview that I most vividly recall was with Amitabh Bachchan. Recorded in 1992, it was meant to mark his fiftieth birthday. Long before Kaun Banega Crorepati and even before the financial crisis that crippled his company Amitabh Bachchan corporation limited (ABCl), he was then both a hugely popular actor and an unblemished personality.
Although Amitabh had appeared in an earlier episode of Eyewitness, just months after its inauguration, this time round Amar Singh, then a director of the Hindustan Times and a close friend of his, had arranged the interview. since this was a prized opportunity that would not repeat itself, we decided to do a fifty-minute interview and show it in two parts in consecutive episodes of Eyewitness.
The interview was recorded in the drawing room of Pratiksha, Amitabh’s first home in Bombay. He was seated on a sofa with his wife Jaya beside him. His children, Shweta and Abhishek, whom we intended to talk to as well, were watching from a sofa at the other end of the room.
Everything went swimmingly until the first tape change. When we paused to enable the crew to do this, Amitabh spoke about an interview of actor Warren Beatty that he had watched on American television. According to him, what made this show riveting was the interviewer pointedly and determinedly asking Beatty about the women in his life. As Amitabh put it, everyone knew the stories, but it was magic to hear Beatty confronted with them and see his response.
I thought this was a very strange thing to tell someone who was in the middle of interviewing him. Was it a hint or a suggestion that I should do something similar? After all, like everyone else, I too had heard stories of Amitabh’s alleged affairs with a number of actresses although, to be honest, I was not familiar with the details and had certainly not researched these rumours to
... keep reading on reddit ➡Karan Thapar (journalist of The Wire / Hindustan Times) is cousin brother of Romila Thapar (so-called eminent historian) and was a close friend of Sanjay Gandhi.
Karan Thapar's own Mamiji (Mother’s brother’s wife) is Nayantara Sahgal (recently famed for spearheading 'award wapasi' and yelling 'Rising intolerance in India'). Nayantara is the daughter of Vijaylakshmi Pundit and niece of Jawaharlal Nehru!
Karan's father Pran Nath Thapar joined the British Indian Army in 1926. He was made Chief of Army Staff by Nehru In 1961. General Pran Nath Thapar served as an Indian Army chief, under whose leadership India lost a war against China in 1962, forcing him to resign in disgrace on 19 November that year..
Karan's nana (mother's father) was ‘Diwan Bahadur’ Kunj Bihari Thapar, who was a commission agent of the British (and a British stooge) during the First World War and became wealthy due to this. Kunj Behari Thapar also (one of four people who donated Rs 1.75 lakh to the fund of Punjab governor Sir Michael O’Dwyer — the man who backed the actions of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer during the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (1919). For loyalty during Jallianwala crisis, Kunj Behari Thapar was awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1920!
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Romila Thapar (cousin sister of Karan) is of course, a famous “top” typical JNU Nehruvian communist ideologue historian, who gets to write our textbooks and pollute them with pro-Congress Marxist propaganda.
Romila Thapar had in the Social Science Books of NCERT Class 9th/10th depicted martyrdom of Guru Teg Bahadur as a result of his growing military and terror activities against the then regime. Very shame full and anti Sikh.
Romila’s standing and influence as a historian was largely based on repeating the discredited theory of Aryans invading India. As previously proved by NS Rajaram Romila hardly knows any Sanskrit, let alone Vedic Sanskrit, and her entire research on India is built on 19th century translations of Vedas and the Puranas, done mostly by colonial era scholars who gave these a racial interpretation. As expected this theory of the Aryan invasion collapsed under rigourous scientific scrutiny.
Another highlight of Romila’s career as a historian was her attempt to prove the non-existence of the temple in the disputed site of Ayodhya, which was of course proved wrong with ample evidence.
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Karan’s another first cousin is Romesh Thapar (own brother of Romila Tha
... keep reading on reddit ➡Karan Thapar did an interview for The Wire with Prof Faizan Mustafa, Vice Chancellor of NALSAR Hyderabad on the legal questions surrounding the dilution of article 370. Here’s the link and following is my TLDW version of it.
Although I highly recommend watching this interview for the legal nitty-gritties, I have transcribed and paraphrased the operational parts of the interview here because I felt it will help greatly to counter and clarify some of the systematic misinformation provided about the whole matter. I have taken all the details there in good faith and haven’t independently cross-checked everything. If there are errors, please point out and we’ll have an addendum.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the interview:
The Possibility of Supreme Court’s Intervention
Any call the Supreme Court might take on the dilution of 370 is unlikely to have an effect, because a consideration by a Constitutional bench would arrive at a verdict only a few years down the line, by when a restoration would be redundant.
On the matter of the bifurcation of the state, again, even if the court might recognize the right of an elected assembly’s ‘views’ on the matter, the only consequence will be that elections would have to be held, the state assembly will likely express its dissent, and as was the case with Telangana bifurcation, the Centre can then choose to ignore the assembly’s views and proceed with the bifurcation.
[Minutes 19:24 - 31:42 of the interview] How much of the Indian Constitution actually applies to Kashmir? (This is the most useful part of the interview. Please at least watch these 12 minutes)
Simple Answer: "Almost the entire Constitution". 260 articles of the Indian Constitution have been extended to J & K, 94 out of 97 subjects in which the Centre can legislate are already applicable to J & K. Of the130 articles that remain, Kashmir’s Constitution has articles identical to those in the Indian Constitution on a vast majority of them, such as the ones on the powers of speaker, deputy speaker, governor’s oath and privileges, anti-defection laws, all in Prof. Mustafa’s words “absolutely identical with the Indian Constitution.”
Since 1950, article by article, several provisions of the Indian Constitution have been made applicable to the J & K, including the jurisdiction of Supreme Court, powers of Comptroller and Auditor General, Ce
... keep reading on reddit ➡101 years ago today in 1919, British troops under command of the infamous Gen. Dyer carried out the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar, Punjab. Even the arch-imperialist Winston Churchill condemned it as a “monstrous event, an event which stood in singular and sinister isolation”.
But, General Dyer and Michael O’Dwyer (who was subsequently shot by Udham Singh) had admirers in Bharat as well. The prominent name in the list was none other than Dewan Bahadur Kunj Behari Thapar of Lahore.
Karan Thapar belongs to the Thapar clan, which was among the elite of undivided Punjab and then New Delhi, with connections to the Nehru-Gandhi family for decades. Karan Thapar’s paternal grandfather was Diwan Bahadur Kunj Behari Thapar. He belonged to a section of the Punjabi elite that came into new wealth as commission agents for the colonial British Indian Army.
Kunj Behari Thapar was also one of four people, including Umar Hayat Khan, Chaudhary Gajjan Singh and Rai Bahadur Lal Chand, who donated Rs 1.75 lakh to the fund of Punjab governor Sir Michael O’Dwyer — the man who backed the actions of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer during the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. For his loyalty to the British, Karan Thapar’s grand father, Kunj Behari Thapar was also awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1920.
Karan Thapar’s mother is Bimla Bashiram, sister of Gautam Sahgal, whose wife Nayantara Sahgal was the daughter of Vijayalakshmi Pandit and niece of Jawaharlal Nehru. Thus, Karan Thapar’s aunt is Nayantara Sahgal (now infamous for being the first of the award wapsi gang). Nayantara Sahgal got divorced from Gautam Sahgal in 1967. But the relations between the Thapar family and the Nehru dynasty still remains strong today.
Due to the family connection, Chacha Nehru, against advice by General Thimaya, promoted Karan Thapar’s father, General Pran Nath Thapar as Chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army ahead of two generals that were senior to him. Thapar took over in 1961 and served until 19 November 1962. He was the only Indian Army chief in history to lose a war, against China in 1962, forcing him to resign in disgrace in November that year. Anyone that was disgraced in such a fashion would have been relegated to the dustbin of history. However, due to his Nehr
... keep reading on reddit ➡
