An Encounter with Sam Pitroda

It was at a press conference in the KPCC office that I witnessed firsthand the arrogance of Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda—better known as Sam Pitroda. As a correspondent for a leading news agency, I was doing my job, asking the questions that needed to be asked, questions that clearly made Sam uncomfortable. Though the exact words I used escape me now, I remember the impact they had on him. He was rattled.

Sam, visibly irritated, spat out, "I know where you're getting your questions from—your office. Don’t you have anything better to ask?"

Before I could respond, one of the other journalists fired back, standing up for me: “He’s Narayankar from country's leading news agency. He doesn’t need anyone feeding him questions like they do from TV newsrooms. Narayankar is known for asking stinging questions.”

And that’s exactly what Sam couldn’t handle—questions that weren't handed to him on a platter to bolster his convenient narrative. I had already observed his fondness for leading questions—those soft, cushy ones that allowed him to take jabs at the BJP without breaking a sweat. I was about to remind him that I wasn’t there to play nice. But before I could, he waved it off, clearly more comfortable dodging tough inquiries than addressing them.

But none of this surprised me. I had seen far worse during the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, when my father, a fierce critic of the government, had been targeted. The political playbook hasn’t changed much—dodge accountability, silence dissent, and cry foul when the tables turn.

And now, we have Sam’s protégé, Rahul Gandhi, crying wolf about press freedom under Modi’s government. What a farce. The same Rahul who stood by while a US-based journalist from India Today, Rohit Sharma, was harassed during his visit to the US. The hypocrisy is staggering.

So, when Sam and Rahul preach about the “stomping” of press freedom, I can only scoff. They’ve perfected the art of manipulating the narrative, pretending to be the victims while gleefully stamping out any inconvenient truth that threatens their fragile image. The irony? It’s thicker than the self-righteous air they carry with them.