Book Review: Devil's Advocate: The Untold Story by Karan Thapar

Title- Devil's Advocate :The Untold Story

Author- Karan Thapar

Publisher- Harper Collins India

Genre- Memoir

Format-Hardcover

Rating-5/5 stars

Irish statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke once in a parliamentary debate stressed upon the importance of media by calling it the 'fourth Estate of Democracy'. Over the years we have seen many such instances that not only solidifies the statement but also restore our faith in the democratic functioning of the governing system. In India however, the situations have changed drastically due to many reasons. To some extent we have missed the goals of achieving democracy, once formulated by our constitutional forefathers. Though many reasons will arise on the surface if we analyse the genesis of the recent unrest with a critical mind, but most intellectuals would agree on the fact that media has played probably one of the biggest roles in damaging the democratic fibre of the nation. 

But thankfully, among this mayhem, we still have a few journalists who haven't compromised with their personal and professional ethics and provided us with quality journalism. Karan Thapar Sir certainly deserves a place among those journalists. He is one among the three journalist whom I admire the most along with Shekhar Gupta and Ravish Kumar Sir. 

As the subtitle of the work suggests, through the memoir, the author have tried to share with us those untold moments that influenced him to a great extent. In this work you will find the key to understand Karan Thapar Sir as you will go on a journey to his childhood days at the Doon School to the adolescent years at the oxford and the cucial years he spent as an correspondent at Nigeria and India which taught him some very important life lessons.

The memoir also contains the backstory of some important interviews done by him, some of them includs the unfinished interview with P.M Modi, the fiery sessions with Chief Minister Jayalalita, L.K Advani and Kapil Dev. 

This book is a goldmine for anyone who share a penchant for Journalism and Indian Politics. Even if you don't have any interest in these fields you can still enjoy going through the work. I have thoroughly enjoyed the work and highly recommend the book. I give this work 5 stars and encourage you to go through it.

Happy Reading