Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Debut Podcast Was A Stage Managed Show

By Sushil Kutty

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his debut podcast came out unlike a man possessed. None of his answers, revelations about his life and times, exploding like crackers. ‘Forgettable’ is the word that comes to mind after two hours of podcast. Podcaster Nikhil Kamath of Zerodha-fame, was “admittedly nervous” and Modi, being the generous subject, gave Kamath quarter by admitting that he, too, was in the same boat as it was his debut podcast.

That set the tone and the interesting part was when Modi cleared the air on his suspected immortality, declaring himself a “human” like everybody else, and admitting that he too made mistakes. Nikhil Kamath, a Kannadiga who broke the ‘Hindi’ ceiling by carrying out the podcast in the Hindi-belt lingo, was the best thing that happened to Prime Minister Narendra Modi after actor Akshay Kumar, who had also interviewed Modi.

Two non-journalists. No cutting-edge questions. No controversy chasing Modi from his chequered past. No Adani, nor Ambani questions. Modi’s debut podcast struck no hard note. But this will not fetch Nikhil Kamath the Ramnath Goenka for the best podcast of 2025. It, however, endeared Kamath to millions of Modi acolytes.

Everybody with an axe to grind or a favour to ask couldn’t stop praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi—including the captive television media, with some of the channels carrying the podcast in full — duty calls!

Nobody spoke of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s extraordinarily thick skin. Nothing asked why the Prime Minister never reacted to criticism. Modi’s mistakes weren’t questioned! Entrepreneur-podcaster Nikhil Kamath should have asked the Prime Minister why can’t he be in a room full of journalists, their pens bristling and cameras rolling?

Remember the time when “Chief Minister Modi” asked an irritating journalist to sit on a bus-bed and ask his questions? Nikhil Kamath, for all his bank balance and podcast practice, isn’t a journalist. Nikhil Kamath was chosen for not being a journalist, Nikhil Kamath was chosen for being a safe option— like in “Ek Hain Toh Safe Hain’, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s favourite novel slogan.

When Modi was Gujarat Chief Minister, he wasn’t comfortable taking questions from journalists. When he became Prime Minister, he still remained allergic to journalists. But he found a way to get around pesky journos who, he knew, wouldn’t draw a line between safe and tough.

So, he chose actor Akshay Kumar. The ‘Khiladi’ asked him inane questions including one about sucking on mangos. Questions which never cut home with vicious pleasure. And now this podcast and another non-journalist, who kept the questions minimally intrusive! The knives didn’t come out for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Kamath’s podcast.

Modi was the Cheshire cat— content, modest and non-controversial. The Prime Minister never had it so easy. A podcast is digital. It sticks to a theme and this man Kamath proved himself worthy of Modi though it is a toss how many of Modi’s grassroots constituency knew Kamath, by name or fame? Post the podcast, news broke ‘Modi Podcast breaks the Internet.’

It didn’t. That is the truth. But the captive media could not be denied—and BJP spokespersons—certified sycophants who kept their real thoughts to themselves while singing hosannas about Modi, knowing that sugary praise is a Modi weakness.

It always works. Nikhil Kamath did not do his research. Did he read about the time when Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee ambushed Gujarat Chief Minister Modi and Modi was reduced to a nervous wreck? Nikhil kept things safe — for Modi. The two-hour podcast stuck to the staid, and the straight and narrow—Modi’s early life, education, political career.

It was, conversationally speaking, not a serious interview. Anecdotes from Narendra Modi’s childhood revealed how the young Narendra was the laundry boy, washing the clothes of every family member—which was also his ticket to visit the village pond!

With answers ranging from ponds and laundry, Kamath kept the podcast interesting. Prime Minister Narendra Modi couldn’t have asked for more. The Zerodha co-founder, metaphorically speaking, will take this podcast to the grave—a Kannadiga conversing with Modi in Hindi.

One question asked, if something had happened to Modi during his childhood which had left an enduring impact on him, brought Modi out of his open-eyed reverie. “Matlab?” Modi snapped and Kamath explained rather innocuously. For a moment there, Modi’s mask fell. Thankfully Kamath wasn’t a complete dolt.

Who in Bharat isn’t aware of Prime Minister Modi’s life and times? The various aspects have been told and retold so many times, including about how Modi handles stress! The setbacks he had to overcome — his risk management abilities! Kamath steered clear of CBI, IT-Dept and the Enforcement Directorate, all of which fall in the category of risk management abilities!

Prime Minister Modi called his debut podcast “an enjoyable conversation… Do watch” and he posted it on ‘X’. Prime Minister Modi’s “modesty” was on display, a characteristic that could not have been established without planning it. “This is my first podcast, I don’t know how it’ll go with your audience,” Modi told Kamath.

Another candid revelation was about Chief Minister Modi inviting his friends and teachers to the Chief Minister’s residence and finding the “friends” unduly nervous. “When I became CM, I invited my old friends to the CM house, but I didn’t enjoy it because I was trying to find my friends in them, while they were seeing me as the Chief Minister.”

Then came the quip that made the day. “I am human not God,” Modi told Kamath. “I am a human, I may make mistakes, but I will not make mistakes with bad intentions. I made them my life’s mantras. It is natural to make mistakes, after all I am a human, I am not God, but will not do wrong intentionally.”

The flip-flop. How many remember Modi proclaiming himself “non-biological”, which had put Modi in the category of “aadmi nahi, farishta hun”? Congress leader Jairam Ramesh remembered: “This from a man who proclaimed his non-biological status just eight months back. This is clearly damage control.”

Common Indians have been a witness to Prime Minister Narendra Modi making himself a divine caricature— in a Kedarnath cave or at the ‘pran-prathista’ of the Ayodhya Ram Mandir. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is neither God nor is he a demigod and Modi has, like dozens of other politicians, made mistakes galore.

As for whether the mistakes were made with harmful intentions, it is for history to judge. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had wished “history will be kind to me”. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is one who would expect history to hail him. Prime Minister Narendra Modi made sure his debut podcast puts him in the right context.

Podcaster Nikhil Kamath must have been chosen after meticulous study of the man, his views and his works. To see eye to eye with Prime Minister Modi must have been one of the requirements. Kamath might be a genius entrepreneur and a start-up wizard, but that he failed to question Prime Minister’s many foibles is the biggest failure of Modi’s debut podcast.

Modi’s life and times is full of pits and falls; successes and failures that this once in a lifetime podcast could have probed and put the Prime Minister in the cast of world leaders of extraordinary note. Instead, we witnessed a rather boring bloke talking of “washing clothes” and his visits to the village pond.

“When I became the CM, in one of my speeches, I had said that I will leave no stone unturned in my efforts. Secondly, I will not do anything for myself. Third, I am a human, I may make mistakes, but I will not make mistakes with bad intentions. I made them my life’s mantras. It is natural to make mistakes, after all I am a human, I am not God, but will not do wrong intentionally” is nothing but a bland confession.

“I hit ground zero during (the) Godhra incident as a common man,” said Modi, which was a mistake. Modi should have hit ground zero as a Chief Minister and followed it up with tough decisions. Nikhil Kamath didn’t ask Modi about the movie ‘Sabarmati Report’, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi watched with his Cabinet colleagues.

Modi’s helplessness of 2002 is evident in his debut podcast: “I became MLA for (the) first time on 24 February, 2002. Just 3 days (later) and a train was burnt in Godhra. I decided to hit ground zero. Officers denied citing unavailability of the helicopter. They arranged one but said that it wasn’t for VIPs. I said I’m not a VIP, I’m a common man. I took a single-engine chopper of (the) ONGC despite the risk and reached Godhra. I saw those painful scenes, I controlled my emotions…I was the CM.”

Nikhil Kamath’s podcast cast Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a soft light but in the process it took away from the Prime Minister all the greatness assigned to him with the mainstream media in his pocket, leaving out the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains apprehensive about the media and is scared of facing the media straight out. Suffice to say that Prime Minister Narendra Modi outdid himself in his debut podcast! (IPA Service)