- 2 days ago
In this special retrospective looking back at India Today magazine's 50 years, senior editors, including Aroon Purie, Raj Chengappa, and Harinder Baweja, revisit the defining events of the turbulent decade from 1995 to 2005. The discussion navigates India's political landscape, from the instability of the United Front years to the rise of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
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00:00I never got a yellow post-it.
00:14Very sad life.
00:16Oh, it's been rolling.
00:18Oh, I'm so sorry.
00:20I've just been going on.
00:22So, sorry.
00:23So, what was your question?
00:24There was nothing else that could compete with India today.
00:28It was at the top of its game.
00:29It was like a heart monitor.
00:31It was able to capture what was happening.
00:33India today was truth at the time.
00:36There were so many checks and balances that you could not get away with writing stuff which was not sourced.
00:41Somehow mentorship at multiple levels was built into the workflow.
00:45It was the best journalism school in the world.
00:50It was a nursery of talent, of journalists who would become editors.
00:55It was not just a magazine, it was an experience.
00:59Capturing moments that move you.
01:01So, the decade of 1995 to 2005 was a decade of globalization.
01:08And at the same time, a lot of turbulence.
01:14When you look back about the destruction of the Babri Masjid, it's actually a turning point in Indian politics.
01:20And you were beginning to feel the heat of the tension.
01:22So, you had caste division.
01:23You had communal divisions.
01:27You had economic reform.
01:31You had political coalitions coming in vastly different from the others.
01:35In the eyes of a lot of people, the Narsar Maharao government, people felt that he was culpable.
01:44That he had connived.
01:45That he deliberately looked the other way.
01:47That he didn't act.
01:48So, the Congress was punished even further.
01:51So, therefore, when the Congress party lacks leadership, BJP created a leadership that time.
01:58That was a time when we came to the conclusion that our ideology has brought us here.
02:06So, from 1996 onwards, we have shifted our stress from ideology to good governance and idealism in public.
02:18The BJP decided that in the 1996 elections, it would project Atal Bihari Vajpayee,
02:24who was relatively untainted by the Ayodhya movement as its prime ministerial candidate.
02:29You had gone in various phases.
02:32From a one-party rule of foreign MPs in 1989, till 1998, you had too many prime ministers.
02:40Five of them in a row.
02:42In the next elections, BJP emerged as the single largest party.
02:47And along with their only ally, Shiv Sena, they formed a minority government in the center.
02:53But they could only stay in power for 13 days.
02:56My resignation has been accepted by the administration.
03:00I am happy. I have regained my freedom.
03:06H.D. Devagoda of Janta Daal became the prime minister.
03:13Gawda would not come. Gawda was a fake English.
03:15And Gawda was quite arrogant that way.
03:18He came to power with the help of Congress and Sitaram Kesari.
03:21So, Sitaram Kesari was the president of the ICC.
03:25He was not an elitist person. He wouldn't speak English.
03:29He was a small group of Bihari.
03:31When he became the president, he thought that he was from backward Bihar.
03:34He wanted to assert his authority. King Kesari was the cover.
03:38He was not happy with the government.
03:41He said, I am a supporter. I don't give my support. I don't give time.
03:44I don't give time.
03:45So, he was looking at how the government is falling.
03:47He kept the burden of the government.
03:49He kept the burden of the government.
03:51He kept the burden of the government.
03:52He kept the burden of the government.
03:54There was some kind of an ego clash between that too.
03:57And that led to Congress withdrawing support from the coalition.
04:01After that, then you were Gujral.
04:03You could do investigative journalism because you had time to do it.
04:06And television actually never did much investigation at that time.
04:11When Mr. Gujral was the prime minister, we had a Jain commission story,
04:16which Prabhu Chawla did.
04:18And that created another kind of impact.
04:22When I got this old report, I read the old report.
04:25It blamed the DMK.
04:26It blamed the DMK to be complicit in Rajiv Gandhi's assassination.
04:39After that, Casey saw me, if he doesn't drop the DMK minister,
04:43I will withdraw the support and give a letter of withdrawal.
04:46That is how the government fell on that day.
04:48We will say aye.
04:53Well, India has gone through a bit of a politically unstable phase,
04:57but the path of growth had started in the Indian economy.
05:01Satellite television was launched,
05:03and of course it exploded into a whole big industry.
05:08Cable operators who were throwing wires across roads
05:12and wiring up neighborhoods.
05:14Now you had a whole range of entertainment coming to you into your home.
05:19So, as soon as satellite television came,
05:21we moved on from there on to, in fact, Doordarshan for 20 minutes
05:26with a title called Aaj Thak, which was in Hindi.
05:32There were other competitions that came up as a weekly.
05:35So, we then decided to go weekly.
05:37We had launched a campaign saying, twice Fortnite, Jain.
05:40And I had a picture of me holding a banner.
05:45And I think it was a good decision.
05:47On the social front, of course, the middle class starts getting prosperous.
05:50So, there was this huge aspiring middle class
05:53that wanted the classic Indian dream,
05:55which was to have a house, get married, have children,
05:58live secure, good education.
06:00So, those were aspirational things that began to fructify in this decade.
06:05By the late 90s, liberalization and aspirations had taken root.
06:09Great changes were percolating under the vibrant cities and small towns of India.
06:14Where you had Indians sort of looking west, aspiring for a better life.
06:20They were also telling us in what direction Hindi cinema is going to go in.
06:23Essentially, the Khans were the poster boys for the new India,
06:28which is in post-liberalization India.
06:30They brought in a sense of aspiration and a certain amount of modernism.
06:35You know, Shah Rukh was a representative of the young Indian man who wanted to be cool.
06:41You know, in films like,
06:43You know, he's modern and he's cool, but then he embraces the Indian tradition and values.
06:49When you look at Salman in the 90s,
06:52whether it's hum aapke hain kaun and andaz apna apna,
06:54bears an innocence as a charm to him.
06:57The idea of a romantic hero also sort of took a huge rise in it.
07:02And Amir was sort of perceived as sort of the thinking actor, you know,
07:06that cannot be ignored.
07:07And he did Raja Hindustani, he did Rangeela, Sarfarosh.
07:10What these three actors did is they were also telling us what India was capable of.
07:19So it became a story to talk about so many larger things.
07:22Socially and economically, again, a lot of changes were happening.
07:26But politically, I think we were sort of at sea.
07:30When Vajpayee came, we had, that was the third time that he returned to power.
07:36There was a sense of stability and there was a sense of huge change that was happening.
07:51The first day when I worked with him,
07:53I asked Fr. Mr. Vajpayee what my instructions were or what should I do?
08:00He was perplexed by this question.
08:02Characteristic to Vajpayee, his eyes rolled over.
08:07And for a moment, there was hushed, silence for a second or two.
08:13And the eyes rolled up, twinkled, and said, Sab Kuch.
08:19He was confident of his position.
08:21Raj Kamal Jha once told me, he seems like a slow-moving poet.
08:28Once he had judged you and judged you favorably, he completely trusted you.
08:35Vajpayee's government had support from parties from the south.
08:39He was somebody who kept everybody together with his charm and his poetry.
08:45There was always a good feeling around him.
08:48What will happen to your government?
08:50He was a good king.
08:54The king was a good king.
08:57The king, the king, the king, the king,
09:00the king, the king, the king, the king, the king,
09:04the king, the king, the king, and the king.
09:08The coming of the first BJP government under AB Vajpayee,
09:16which was again defining politics,
09:18and a thinking in terms of foreign affairs of a kind,
09:21a more hawkish approach towards issues like nuclear.
09:28I mean, one of the most dramatic things that I've reported was the nuclear test.
09:31Nobody expected that he would test within three months of taking over as prime minister,
09:36because everyone thought he would sit in the saddle and do it.
09:38And all of a sudden, the photo researcher calls me up and says,
09:41Raj, have you heard that there's something about nuclear?
09:45And I heard it as exports.
09:46I said, but we don't do exports of nuclear.
09:49He said, no, nuclear tests.
09:51Today, at 15.45 hours,
09:56India conducted three underground nuclear tests
10:00in the Pokhose.
10:03After a grab of a go,
10:05two more tests were conducted simultaneously
10:08on 13th May 1998,
10:1012.21 hours.
10:13Decision to explore the nuclear weapon
10:16was to make our nuclear capability overt,
10:19to show that your neighbors and to others
10:22that you did have the kind of weapons
10:24that were necessary to avoid nuclear blackmail.
10:27I had met Dr. Epijet Abdul Kalam a couple of years earlier.
10:32He said, so when I build these weapons to deliver nuclear weapons,
10:34what I'm doing is, I'm ensuring nobody else will invade us as they did in the past.
10:41And therefore, these are weapons of peace.
10:43That, of course, was a defining moment for India.
10:45And then the entire story of how they brought the weapons in,
10:46where they all dressed up as army officers
10:47and so that to fool the satellites up,
10:48that they secretly fooled.
10:49And I thought,
10:50what was pretty much going on in this country?
10:51That was a very important part of the people
10:52in this country.
10:53In this country,
10:54I had met Dr. Epijet Abdul Kalam a couple of years earlier.
10:55He said, so when I build these weapons
10:56to deliver nuclear weapons,
10:57what I'm doing is,
10:58I'm ensuring nobody else will invade us
11:00as they did in the past.
11:01And therefore, these are weapons of peace.
11:02defining moment for India and the entire story of how they brought the weapons in, where
11:07they all dressed up as army officers and so that to fool the satellites up, let this secretly
11:14fooled some of the best CIA experts. And that became the incredible story about the bomb
11:20makers which made cover of India today. But it didn't end there. Once we declared ourselves
11:25as a nuclear weapon state that had an immediate reaction with Pakistan also trying to do tests
11:31or did tests, almost similar, maybe one more than what we did.
11:42And so there were two nuclear powers that were now overtly demonstrating or flashing their
11:47nuclear weapons. The rest of the world was looking at us with concern.
11:51If you talk about the turning points in a conflict situation, the same year in February, Prime
11:59Minister Atal Vyari Vajpayee had crossed over into Pakistan in a bus. It was called the
12:06bus diplomacy. It was the first time ever that a Prime Minister had actually taken a bus to
12:13go from Amritsar to Lahore. We're drafting history's first version. You needed to smell the earth, so to say. I was standing on the Pakistani side of the border when the bus rolled in. And there was this great bonhommie between Bajpayee and Nawaz Sharif. But Pakistan and its deep state,
12:30very uncomfortable because, you know, India and Pakistan, it's always tit for tat. So there were two Indian journalists who were given visas, me and Rajiv Saladassai. And both of us wanted the interview with Nawaz Sharif.
12:40Nawaz Sharif chose India today. It was such a big name. I went to his office to interview him. And somehow I had this great rapport. He was comfortable, very comfortable, very comfortable, very comfortable.
12:47speaking Punjabi. I speak Punjabi. And just as I had finished my interview when I was leaving, he said to me, why don't you take a bus to go to India?
12:54I can help you. India is not a safe place anymore. And I'm grateful.
12:57I really wanted to do my work. And as I had seen that I had even seen, you know, and I can't find this kind of guide as well.
13:01I have seen you in the world. I was done with the street with Rajiv Saladassai. And both of us wanted the interview with Nawaz Sharif.
13:08Nawaz Sharif chose India today. It was such a big name. I went to his office to interview him. And somehow I had this great rapport. He was very comfortable speaking Punjabi.
13:15I speak Punjabi. And just as I had finished my interview when I was leaving, he said to me, why don't you take Pakistani citizenship? I can help you.
13:21India is not a safe place anymore, and I'm like, I was so taken aback, I didn't know
13:26whether he was saying it in jest, or whether he was serious, and like, you've just done
13:32nuclear, you're telling me that you're safer than India is, and I said, thank you very
13:36much, I love my job, and I love my country, and back I'm going.
13:40Now remember, the bus went in February, Pakistani army had already occupied the heights in Kargil
13:45even before the bus reached Vagha, and they clearly had prepared for the Kargil war in
13:53the summer prior to 1999.
13:55India only discovered it when Indian soldiers started going missing.
14:05Kargil happened, he was very unhappy.
14:07He was scared.
14:09One of the defining moments of this decade was the Kargil war, because it was the first
14:27time this generation that had come after 1971 was witnessing bloodshed of the kind that hadn't
14:34been seen before, between two countries, and that was a grave danger, because you have
14:39two nuclear powers at each other as we saw at Operation Sindhur, you had to limit the war.
14:51Kargil war was the first war actually India to recover, and we had a whole lot of journalists
14:58within our group who were all fighting to go over there.
15:02Again, fortunately, I was allowed.
15:06By then, AP was like, here to jaegi.
15:09No point stopping her, and AP called me danger junkie.
15:13So, Raj was in charge, our DGMO.
15:16AP, of course, oversaw everything.
15:18The main thing was that the war was moving, and we were, by then, weakly, and we had to break
15:24it down and make it understandable for the people why we're fighting this war, what is
15:30the kind of strategy we're using, what is the counter that Pakistan is trying, and what
15:35are we doing to defeat that?
15:38So, we landed in Srinagar, and we drove up from Srinagar towards Kargil.
15:44The initial weeks were very, very difficult because the army regulars from the Pakistani side,
15:52who had occupied the heights of Kargil, had a clear advantage.
15:56They were perched on top.
15:58They could see Indian Army's movement.
16:01So, the convoys had to travel at night.
16:04You could not even light a matchstick because that would affect enemy fire.
16:10You can't engage him by fire because you can't see him.
16:14You can't lob a grenade because it has a splinter effect.
16:17It will cause casualties on your own men.
16:19It's really one of the arduous difficult jobs that we are doing.
16:23This was an extreme position.
16:24The infantry was going up, and they were getting shot.
16:27You know, I call them the barren mountains, which swallowed so many Indian soldiers.
16:32I think the death toll was more than 500.
16:35At the time, that's huge.
16:37One of the things that happened there was the use of the Bofors gun,
16:42which was so controversial earlier in terms of the scan that was there.
16:45But they made a huge difference to the war.
16:48Bofors gun was for sharpshooting the kind of camps that were there,
16:52that were occupying the heights.
16:54And a lot of them knocked the bunkers down there.
17:00Slowly and steadily, the Indian army fought back.
17:07I still remember the cover that I did when all in the thick of war,
17:11and people thought it was going to be more than, you know, three months, two months.
17:16And I had gone to meet Jasmin Singh, who was the foreign minister.
17:19He looked at me and he said, Mr. Chengipal, do you play chess?
17:23So I said, well, I do.
17:25So then he asked me, do you know the move Shugvang?
17:28And I was completely sort of baffled by what he said, you know.
17:32So he said, come here, I'll tell you what it means.
17:34Shugvang means that when you make the moves in a way that your opponent has to make the moves that you want him to make,
17:42and then you corner him and get checkmate.
17:45We are now at that stage.
17:47Shaniwaar, it's about 8 o'clock, and Bharatiya Sena has sent a direct assault on Tiger Hill,
17:52or direct assault.
17:54With multi-barrel rocket launchers and buffers,
17:57the last battle of Tiger Hill has begun.
18:00That tip-off, the way he described it, immediately we carried on the cover, Nawaz Sharif cornered,
18:18which meant that the war was going to end.
18:21You know, Nawaz Sharif had been summoned to Washington by Bill Clinton, who was the U.S. President,
18:27played a role, and read the right act out to Nawaz Sharif, and told him,
18:32the army better be withdrawn from the heights of Kharaviya.
18:35Pakistan was headed towards conceding that it had made a mistake and would have to withdraw.
18:43Pakistan.
18:44Pakistan.
18:45Pakistan.
18:46Pakistan.
18:47Pakistan.
18:48Pakistan.
18:49Pakistan.
18:50Pakistan.
18:51Pakistan.
18:52Pakistan.
18:53Pakistan.
18:54Pakistan.
18:55Pakistan.
18:56Pakistan.
18:57Pakistan.
18:58Pakistan.
18:59Pakistan.
19:00Pakistan.
19:01Kargil taught us many lessons.
19:03Many political lessons.
19:05Many lessons in diplomacy.
19:07Many lessons in how India should deal with Pakistan.
19:13We have confirmed this.
19:14We have recognized it, that we will not put in any way of liberation,
19:19We have also confirmed this, that we are a responsible path of which we have created.
19:24We always do what we do for the soul.
19:31So we had a series of covers. We've never done that many covers in one stretch.
19:37We had a tremendous team that came back with outstanding photographs and coverage.
19:44Vashpay announced elections a few months prior to when they were due.
19:57And he won because the country was riding a nationalistic wave.
20:05And that started the next phase of a very insecure period between India and Pakistan.
20:12In 1999, I think I dedicated day and night to India today.
20:19You had Kargil and you had Kandahar. I mean, it was just such a newsy time.
20:25This flight was hijacked from Kathmandu and taken to Kandahar.
20:30It was an Air India flight, IC814.
20:34And who was in power in Kandahar? The Taliban.
20:42The whole hijacking was aimed at securing the release of Masood Azhar because he was the most important man for the Pakistani deep state.
20:53I remember covering that hijacking and I remember we had no contact with the Taliban because when the Taliban captured Kabul, the Indian embassy closed.
21:02And there was no diplomatic representation.
21:07The demand of the hijackers was very clear.
21:10They were given a whole list of 30, 40 terrorists.
21:16In addition to Muhammad Masood Azhar, the release of 35 others, a payment by India of US dollars, 200 million.
21:28There were members of the family and the rest of the public outside the prime minister's house beating their chests and, you know, demanding that the hostages be released and whatever exchange they wanted.
21:41And I think media played a part in it to raise the kind of temperature of this.
21:50Farouk Abdullah was the chief minister in 1999 when this happened.
21:55And he was so angry.
21:58Farouk said, I will resign but I will not allow terrorists to be released.
22:02G.C. Suksena was the governor at the time.
22:05He opened a bottle of whiskey.
22:07This is what Farouk told me later.
22:09And sort of calmed him down and said, you know, the negotiators have tried their best.
22:16He brought them down to three terrorists.
22:19The government of India had surrendered.
22:22As a result of the negotiations with the Taliban and the hijackers,
22:29there has been an agreement for the release of all the hostages in exchange for three militants.
22:40We hope that by about 9 p.m. tonight, all the hostages should be here.
22:48The decade ended with the flight coming back from Kandahar to Delhi.
23:03I don't think it was a proud moment for India.
23:06And from then on, the person who was released created so many crimes against India.
23:13Then we went into 2000.
23:16It was the turn of the century.
23:22It was a season of hope.
23:24When you think of a young person is coming in modern India, computer age was arriving.
23:29I had a lot of hope.
23:30Hi, I'm Rohit Saran.
23:31I worked for India today for 16 years.
23:34Even when television became big, which was late 90s, early 2000,
23:38there was this thing that India today is the apex of journalism.
23:42If you say which is one place you would want to eventually work,
23:45and it was true for me, by the way, and everybody else of my generation,
23:49it was India today.
23:50Hi, I'm Kavee Bamzai.
23:52I was with India today in 1990 and 91.
23:55And then I returned in 2002.
23:58By that time, a lot of our older editors had left to be in other organizations.
24:03I was in a position that I could be invited to the meetings.
24:07It's difficult to explain how it was not a round table.
24:11It was in Mr. Puri's room in the old Connaught Place office.
24:14There were some of us like me who would very conveniently, I thought,
24:18seat themselves behind Mr. Puri so that if he had to really address you or look at you,
24:23he would have to crane his neck and look at you.
24:27So I used to find the farthest spot behind this chair and seat myself there.
24:34You had to fight for that idea.
24:35There are these like literally crocodiles in the lake coming at you.
24:39Why this? Why now? What will you do?
24:41And there was, of course, the big question.
24:44The big question of the day, where to order food from?
24:47True.
24:48So you had to really sharpen your idea before you go into the date meeting itself.
24:52Anybody could comment on your idea and tear it apart.
24:55And you can't even say, look, what do you know? You cover health.
24:57Why are you telling me about privatization?
24:59No, because Mr. Puri's point was she's going to be your reader.
25:01You know, I remember people pitching cover stories and Mr. Puri's usual comment was,
25:07but who cares? Why should I care?
25:12You know, and he would always tell us this.
25:14I'm not writing this cover story for that one kilometer radius of people that you want to impress.
25:20I want a story that matters to people, you know?
25:23I always look at it from the point of the reader.
25:26Average reader, right?
25:28How much is he going to understand?
25:30How is the story going to flow?
25:32Since I had a background of being an auditor as a chartered accountant,
25:36what an auditor does is ask questions.
25:39Keep asking questions till you get to the truth.
25:42So that was my training and that's what I brought to the stories.
25:47I looked at it from that point of view.
25:49And I used to use a red pen and those post-its had just come out.
25:54So it was wonderful.
25:55We just kept putting post-its and put all kinds of remarks on it.
25:59And, you know, that became a thing in the office.
26:01Have you got a yellow slip?
26:03Please do not even mention post-its.
26:05It was like getting your mark sheets from your most dreaded professor,
26:10her dreaded teacher, it would either be underlined in red
26:14or it would have words circled in red
26:17and then double underlined sometimes and question marks.
26:21And it was really quite intimidating.
26:24That yellow post-it was once in a special issue that I had done.
26:28And it meant that 35 pages were just cancelled.
26:33Cancelled.
26:34I mean, there was not even the possibility
26:36that one of those pages could be redeemed.
26:40Oh, please don't let me, don't make me relive that night.
26:45That level of intensity, that level of involvement,
26:48that level of detail was just not there anywhere.
26:51And it showed up in our work.
26:53There was a larger sort of joy of telling a story,
26:57but we were all aware, I think, at the back of our minds somewhere,
27:02that this would be read by Ms. Puri.
27:04I mean, I don't think we would get that kind of variety of stories.
27:08It was because the editor himself was interested in all this, you know.
27:12It was never tough pitching stories in that sense.
27:15And like I said, cricket was an easy sell.
27:17I've seen cricket, Indian cricket from the 90s through the now.
27:21In the 90s, they were treated by shit by England and Australia.
27:24It's almost like they needed a new face to be the captain and they found Saurav.
27:27And he came into the post-Azuruddin and the post-fixing kind of era.
27:32That sort of ripped into cricket.
27:34Famous names at the time, taking money to fix the result of a game.
27:39That really ripped apart what was built up in this great post-satellite television era.
27:45The vibrancy and the fun and everything of Indian cricket.
27:48It's almost like public faith in cricket sort of went.
27:51And it took some time for faith to come back.
27:53At that time, behaviour was a big thing in the field.
27:56Saurav represented that captaincy and that team and that kind of spirit.
28:00And it was just his contrarianness to everything we had seen in captaincy before.
28:05He had no hesitation about anything.
28:07And he would be punching his fist and he would be walking and fighting with the umpire
28:11and doing all kinds of other things.
28:13He was great to have a captain at that time because how you're able to stand up to the Australians.
28:17It's not just Tendulkar, it's all of the guys behind him that can do it.
28:20And what you see in Indian sport outside of cricket is that there is so much talent and the opportunities are so few.
28:27So that narrow window of opportunity, there's so many people trying to get through.
28:30So when Vishenathan Anand came on the scene in Indian sport, he was literally boundary breaking in so many ways.
28:37Literally, he was like at that really elite level, he was like the lone Indian guy standing there.
28:42So going to Iran was also a great experience because you didn't realise the power of Vishy and slash chess.
28:49It was a hall that we were in where this match was going on.
28:52So we go in and the hall is packed.
28:54And it's quiet because there's these two guys sitting on a table and playing chess and making moves.
28:57And then we had this performance where we said we have to go and do a story because it looks like he's going to win.
29:02He was ahead, he was going to win.
29:07We've always looked at what is happening in your environment and seeing how it is changing and trying to be ahead of the curve.
29:16But I think the atmosphere has changed with the launch of 24 by 7 news channels.
29:22We had to be in some kind of video, TV, satellite news.
29:27And that's where we ended up with Ajitak and the rest is history.
29:34It's an honour and privilege to welcome all of you to the launch of Ajitak and the new Akhtar
29:40as a 24-hour news and current affairs channel.
29:46Just a few weeks of Ajitak's launch, there was the Gujarat earthquake.
29:53Ajitak went live and reported it constantly.
29:59And I think that was a change.
30:01It was the fact they brought a whole lot of India into people's living rooms.
30:05I think television gives you an emotional response to what was happening.
30:12But magazines still have a role to play.
30:15So we bring in many senses that ability to understand India and keep you ahead of what is happening in India in a manner that's compact, easy to understand, quick to digest.
30:28Prime Minister Bajpayee did a lot of good things, right? Opened up the economy.
30:31India started becoming more internationally open.
30:35And the Indian economy started growing.
30:38And prosperity started happening.
30:40I think one of the significant acts which they did was start the ball rolling on disinvestment.
30:46Mr. Arun Shuri was the disinvestment minister and really started talking about getting the public sector companies out to private.
30:55It didn't go as far as it should have.
30:58But at least it started the conversation.
31:00The senior officers were having a good time doing nothing.
31:03And the companies were going on making losses and losses and losses.
31:07But there was no accountability.
31:09There were a lot of pressures and a lot of problems.
31:12But it was complete support of the Prime Minister so we could get these things done.
31:17And they've never been done after that.
31:19The only time they've been able to do it now is in the case of Air India.
31:24See, Bajpayee undertook some of the boldest reforms.
31:28How much bolder can you get in outright privatization?
31:30Some went through.
31:31Some privatizations totally failed because there were no bidders like Air India.
31:35I've worked on a multiple-month cover story called Mohammed.
31:38Air India was a brand that Indians wanted desperately to be proud of, but could never be.
31:43Jayadi Tata built up a world-beating airline for the longest time and ran it.
31:47Then the government took over and ran it to the ground.
31:50And it was a repeated reminder of how a great business can be destroyed and thus get indeed destroyed by government ownership.
31:57And when we did that story, Air India used to carry thousands of copies of India Today and its flights every day.
32:04So the very next meeting, Mr. Puri announced that Pravit, thanks for your cover story.
32:08Not a single copy of India Today will go in India in a fight.
32:12And we don't know how long this ban would last.
32:15There was never a sense that, okay, this created a negative impact, even had a business negative impact.
32:21So you should be careful about it.
32:23In fact, there was almost a celebration.
32:30Post-Kargil War, everybody thought that relations between India and Pakistan would never improve.
32:36So it was a great surprise when we got to know that General Musharraf was to come across to have talks with Mr. Wajiped Agra, the famous talks.
32:45But one of the challenges was, for us, was to understand Pakistan, the new Pakistan under Musharraf.
32:52Here was a man who seemed overconfident.
32:55You know, he was in the peak of his power, having overthrown Nawaz Shereen.
32:58He said, what do we need to talk about?
33:00What do we need to talk about?
33:02We need to trust.
33:03We need to trust.
33:04Musharraf called the press conference, called 20 of us, editors, including various people who were there.
33:09I was there, from India today, covering it.
33:11One question was asked,
33:12if Kashmir's issue will rise or not rise?
33:15Musharraf said, yes, how will Kashmir's issue?
33:17So if India expects that I should ignore Kashmir,
33:23then I'd better buy the Neherwali Havili back and stay there.
33:29All journalists were thinking that some kind of a joint statement will come.
33:33They sat on it in front of the hotel saying,
33:36the statement is coming in the next five hours,
33:39it will be a joint statement and so,
33:40and so it was done.
33:41I was on the phone giving to Ayita,
33:43that this will not be going to be done.
33:44Musharraf said, we will talk about Kashmir's issue here.
33:47If our government's issue was discussed,
33:50the case also discussed,
33:51then I felt that it was a mistake.
33:53So after that, talks broke,
33:55and he was supposed to go to administration,
33:57he didn't go.
33:58He went back.
33:59Tatar ji had told me,
34:00I wrote the story,
34:01and he did also.
34:02He made that big mistake of thinking
34:04that everything would be settled.
34:05He had to go back empty-handed.
34:07So when the declaration was not signed,
34:10disappointment was writ on every face.
34:14This is the only issue blocking peace.
34:19That's the thing about Pakistan,
34:20is that we have this very roller-coaster kind of relation.
34:23If we're up once,
34:24and just when you think things are at its worst,
34:26suddenly there'll be a breakthrough
34:28where these leaders meet,
34:29and it seems like things are going to get normal,
34:31and then things go bad.
34:33And then the subsequent terror attacks that happened,
34:36the parliament attack in 2001,
34:38in December, if I'm not mistaken.
34:40Five heavily armed terrorists
34:43from the Pakistan-based terror group Jaishya Mohamad
34:45attacked the parliament house complex in New Delhi.
34:48Six Delhi police personnel were killed in the attack.
35:00But all the terrorists were also burnt down.
35:03So the security environment,
35:07and the fact that the parliament was attacked,
35:09terror had become a big issue.
35:11So it was a period of great uncertainty,
35:14whether we would break out with a war with Pakistan at any time.
35:17We then go for a prolonged sort of standoff with Pakistan.
35:24In 2002, Godra happened,
35:27and it changed Indian politics in many ways.
35:30The burning of a train,
35:36the kind of violence that follows
35:38for the kind of massacres that were happening,
35:41and the shockwaves I felt of that.
35:43I went to Ahmedabad also covering it for India today,
35:50at that particular point,
35:51and it was very clear.
35:53It was a vicious riot.
35:55But it's something which mostly people didn't want to admit openly at that particular time.
36:04That the riot had a large degree of popular endorsement,
36:08and the sublimated sort of Hindu sentiment found expression in Modi.
36:15It was Narendra Modi who became the Hindu icon.
36:21He is certainly at one time seen by the people
36:25that to have dealt justice in the way it should have been done,
36:28but on the other side,
36:29he was on the dock for the massacres that were happening
36:32of innocent people who were not involved in that.
36:35Something that he would not have wanted directly,
36:37I'm sure, if these events were not there.
36:41There was a division within the party as to how to respond.
36:44I think there was no doubt about it.
36:47A very large section, particularly around Mr. Bajpayee,
36:53felt that what had happened after Godra was unacceptable,
36:58and that someone had to pay the price for it,
37:02and that politically Mr. Modi's head should roll.
37:06That was their feeling.
37:08On the other hand, it became very clear to the rest of the BJP
37:13that if you did that, you would risk your entire social constituency,
37:22which was firmly behind Mr. Modi at that time,
37:25who saw that there's nothing that Mr. Modi must not be allowed to pay a price for what had happened.
37:32Because the heart of the BJP was with Mr. Modi,
37:37but the head of the government had other ideas.
37:41Mr. Bajpayee's government was in its fourth year.
37:45I think they called the election in 2003.
37:47So there was a sense that we're doing so many good things.
37:51There were things like Golden Quadrilateral,
37:54the first ambitious highway, expressway building program.
37:58There were geopolitical initiatives with Pakistan that she was taking.
38:03India is truly shining.
38:04I think what was totally amiss is that a lot of benefits though were real,
38:10were not trickling down to the masses.
38:12So it was very easy to both right sell and wrong sell the reform.
38:16And Congress took full advantage of it.
38:19There was no great leader on the other side.
38:25There was Sonia Gandhi, that was it.
38:27And she was not really an established leader as compared to Mr. Bajpayee.
38:34Because when the next election happened,
38:37the mood of the Bajpayee government was very optimistic.
38:42Actually, we came to believe shining India.
38:46Because the middle class was growing, the economy was growing,
38:50but actually the bulk of the people were not feeling the benefits of the growth.
38:55And somehow that story didn't sell.
38:58They lost the election.
38:59No one expected Mr. Bajpayee to lose.
39:01It wasn't very surprising.
39:03The Congress returns to power.
39:05It was of course a coalition government,
39:07but the Congress was in a dominant position.
39:09And it is like a two-party democracy again.
39:13People thought Sonia Gandhi may be a Prime Minister.
39:15A lot of controversy surrounding it.
39:18But she surprised everybody by appointing Dr. Manmohan Singh.
39:25Or shall become known to me as Prime Minister for the Union,
39:31except as may be required for the due discharge of my duties as Prime Minister.
39:38UPA 1 and UPA 2 had a kind of a strange structure.
39:48It's still tenuous in the way it runs its business.
39:52And what happens is a couple of things.
39:54The middle class is prosperous.
39:56It begins to expect a lot, lot more out of what is happening.
39:59By the end of the next decade, the trust in politicians was at its all-time low.
40:06People didn't trust traditional politicians.
40:08Public politicians.
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