Role reversal: Devil's Advocate in the dock

CHANGING ROLES: BJP's general secretary Arun Jaitley plays Devil's Advocate to Karan Thapar.

        

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Arun Jaitley: Hello and welcome to an unusual version of the Devil's Advocate. Though an advocate by training, I am not the devil in this interview, because the usual devil is my guest today, the one and only Karan Thapar. Welcome Karan.

Karan Thapar: Thank you.

Arun Jaitley:You have interviewed many a people in this programme, how many guests have you left unhappy at the end of the interview?

Karan Thapar: I may have annoyed several but I can promise you that I have never left a room after the interview with someone so unhappy that they would not give another interview again.

Arun Jaitley:Your guests always receive a nice, charming letter from you after the interview, praising them but the praise comes only after the interview, the environment of the interview is always very different?

Karan Thapar: Because I am doing a professional job, and I hope that the guests understand it. I hope they accept two things. One, that there is nothing personal in the line of questioning that I adopt and secondly even if at times, it feels needlessly persistent, perhaps even aggressive, they would accept he is simply persuading a point because he thinks he hasn’t been answered rather than being rude.

Arun Jaitley:I have noticed that you have tried to master over these years a typical contrarian style of asking questions. You research about the guest, about his positioning or his party’s positioning and wherever you find then vulnerable, you have a clipping ready, always to ask a question to him. Is it a part of a process to show him down or is it to extract the best out of him?

Karan Thapar: It is not part of a process to show him down. The aim is that if you are asking someone a question on an issue, it is worth persisting with a question until you get an answer. That means that you become insistent, sometimes you seem aggressive, but all I am doing is to try and get a question because I believe that not to get an answer is to insult the audience.

Arun Jaitley:Have your guests ever felt that you have put words into their mouth?

Karan Thapar:I may have suggested answers to them but obviously it is up to them to accept the offer that I making is one that is acceptable.