On Mr Malik's changes of stance, candidness and kinesics: Looking at the interview by Mr. Karan Thapar

On 15th April, 2023, the editors of the world’s most frequently used dictionary portals (like Oxford, Cambridge, Collins, etc.) got the perfect example for their sentential explanations of the verb ‘undermine,’ when most Indian mainstream media channels as well as newspapers chose not to report on Karan Thapar’s startling interview of the former J&K governor, Mr. Satyapal Malik.

Even as strong tremors felt in Northern India from earthquakes in Afghanistan, Nepal, etc., become fodder for good 10-12 hours of repetitive media coverage, alas the “few earthquakes” created by Mr. Malik’s statement were not as potent as predicted by the percipient Mr. Thapar, and shook fewer chairs and unsettled fewer mainstream press and media, on which in its 18th April editorial, the Business Standard commented how this is “an indication perhaps of the depth of self-censorship that the media has chosen to impose on itself.”

As a communicator, trying to ferret certain objective points of interest out from this 'eye-opening'/'scandalous'/'enlightening'/'honest' (choose your adjective, readers!) interview, steering clear of the possible points of disgruntlement (or a troubled conscience, maybe?), it is actually a spontaneous interview (without a lot of preparation from Mr. Malik’s end). While Mr. Amit Malviya might consider changes of stance in an interview to be cues to question credibility, there is another interpretation where a person being unprepared with perfect, well-worded responses is a reflection of the person’s candidness. Too much preparation and too much linguistic precaution are unnatural and show how one is operating under some whip or chain of command or with some specific intention. As humans we are prone to saying things we do not mean at times and the nature of our language faculty (that we are also receivers of what we are relaying) enables us to go back and correct things too. There is nothing wrong in revising one’s answer and eventually sticking to a particular one by the end. One might also point out the fact that Mr. Malik took back what he had said about the Home Minister Mr. Amit Shah, after his meeting with the Prime Minister when the Protests were on against the controversial 2020 Farm Bills. Now, this is actually in tandem with our natural tendency to dramatise things because we feel instinctively that it will get more attention. Storytellers, narrators, and even commoners too, to some extent, use this strategy of benign exaggeration without any significant distortion. The Home Minister at that point of time might have, using very different words, suggested his frustration with how the Prime Minister may be being guided by sources of information, that he, as the Home Minister, may have found problematic. Mr. Malik while narrating about his meeting with the Prime Minister, which in his words turned quarrelsome after 5 minutes, in his flow of describing things and trying to quote the Home Minister may have, at an earlier point of time, added a few words or phrases that are benign exaggerations but capture the sentiment of the Home Minister. Understanding the significance of this revelatory interview with Mr. Thapar, Mr. Malik chose to take those back as he apprehends in his wisdom the microscopic scrutiny that will follow.

Also, if I were to talk about Mr. Malik’s kinesics, in my limited knowledge, I found him to be alternating between loose interlacing of fingers, right thumb on left thumb and loose hand clasping with loose covering of left hand fingers with right palm. There are also times when he opens his posture up. However, what is fixed and unmoving, apart from the moment when he drank water once, is his eye contact. Calm, composed eyes and ever so fixed on the interviewer. The loose interlacing of fingers, in my interpretation, conveys mild anxiety at times, and it should be so quite organically when delivering what could potentially be a life-changing (for the worse?) interview. The loose hand clasping with loose covering of left hand fingers with right palm indicates his authority and control over what he is saying and with how much conviction. For those who might find some defensiveness in his stance, it can be very well argued that defensiveness is not always a bad thing. Defensiveness is not always about inflexibility; it can very well be about conviction and certainty in terms of being able to defend one’s arguments. When there are no counter answers, the easiest way to challenge or attempt to deligitimise someone’s statements is to create a credibility issue. But the biggest flaw in this strategy emerges when Mr. Malviya realises that this is a senior person from his own camp. So, a possible retort to an otherwise outdated strategy is to question their own organizational credibility where such people whose statements, in Mr. Malviya’s words carry no credibility, are promoted (till, ahem, a point of time that they are useful or compliant?). And when are they criticized? Well, clearly when their statements, which are fully credible when in line with the organization, lose credibility because they expose some monumental blunders.