SHARANYA KANVILKAR writes from Bombay: Arun Shourie is one of the strangest cases on the Indian intellectual landscape if not its most disappointing. A living, walking, moving advertisement of how rabid ideology can addle even the most riveting of minds, stripping it of all its nuance and pretence; its very soul and humanity.
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Once a fiery critic of Reliance Industries as editor of the Indian Express, he was happy to deliver a eulogy at Dhirubhai Ambani’s first death anniversary; even changing the law as minister to benefit Reliance Industries, as alleged by the son of Girilal Jain, the former Times of India editor who held shares in the company, no less.
Once a symbol of middle-class integrity and probity for various scams unearthed his watch, his stint as disinvestment minister was pockmarked with allegation after allegation (although an unattributed Wikipedia entry claims he was ranked “the most outstanding minister of the Atal Behari Vajpayee government” by 100 CEOs).
A slow, scholarly, Chaplinesque demeanour hides a cold, clinical mind that piles the rhetoric and the stereotypes on the poor, the marginalised and the disenfranchised while taking up high faluting positions on terrorism, governance, internal security and such like, through long, meandering essays whose opacity could put cub journalists to shame.
And, as always, selectively twisting and turning the facts to fit his preconceived conclusion, and hoping no one will notice.
To paraphrase Ramachandra Guha, Shourie has become the Arundhati Roy of the right:
“The super-patriot and the anti-patriot use much the same methods. Both think exclusively in black and white. Both choose to use a 100 words when 10 will do. Both arrogate to themselves the right to hand out moral certificates. Those who criticise Shourie are characterised as anti-national, those who dare take on Roy are made out to be agents of the State. In either case, an excess of emotion and indignation drowns out the facts.”
But what should disappoint even his most ardent fans, and there are many young journalists, is how easily and effortlessly a pacifist penman has regressed from “a concerned citizen employing his pen as an effective adversary of corruption, inequality and injustice” (as his Magsaysay Award citation read) to a hate-spewing ideological warrior with fire blazing through his nostrils.
A son of a Gandhian who now openly advocates “two eyes for an eye and a whole jaw for one tooth” with barely any qualms.
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At a series of lectures in Ahmedabad on Saturday, Shourie bared his fangs some more:
“India is still a passive country when it comes to taking a stand against terrorism….
“It should, in fact, take an extremist stance and must prove that it can also create a Kashmir-like situation in Pakistan.
“There are many places like Baluchistan, where a Kashmir-like situation can be created but, “hum abhi bhi Panchsheel ke pujari hain (We still worship the tenets of Panchsheel)”….
“Pakistan has been successfully carrying out destruction in India for the last two decades and has still managed to escape problems, while India on every occasion has failed to present a unified response to terrorism and has suffered as a consequence….”
Really?
An eye for an eye? Two eyes for an eye? A jaw for a tooth?
In the name of Vivekananda, should India do unto Pakistan what Pakistan has done to us? Is this a sign of vision on the part of a man who some believe should be the next prime minister, or tunnel vision?
Is such barely disguised hatred and vengeance, hiding behind vedas and upanishads, going to make the subcontinent a better place to live in? Should the people of Pakistan, the poor, the marginalised, the disenfranchised, pay the price for the sins of the generals?
Should a great, ancient civilisation become a cheap, third-rate, neighbourhood bully?
Has Arun Shourie lost more than his soul and humanity?
Has Arun Shourie just lost it?
Photograph: courtesy The Hindu Business Line
Also read: How Shilpa Shetty halted the Chinese incursions
Crossposted on churumuri
Tags: Arun Shourie, Arundhati Roy, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Business Standard, Churumuri, Dhirubhai Ambani, Girilal Jain, Panchsheel, Ramachandra Guha, Ramnath Goenka, Reliance Industries, Sans Serif, Sunil Jain, Swami Vivekananda, The Indian Express
17 February 2009 at 11:26 am
Your views seem biased. Maybe your boss, Antonio Maino( Sonia Gandhi) is still upset with Shourie for exposing the fraud of her husband when he was PM. Arun Shourie is and will remain a hero for India’s urban middle class.
19 February 2009 at 9:37 am
rajinder: Shourie had an awakening – you are still feeling your way in the darkness. Wake up, read, listen, experience – and not only from polemicists like Arundhati Roy. Go to Pakistan, go to a madrasa, a mosque and do some serious writing.
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svegali: Poorly thought out and even more poorly written article. This is one of the worst sentences I have ever read:
“A slow, scholarly, Chaplinesque demeanour hides a cold, clinical mind that piles the rhetoric and the stereotypes on the poor, the marginalised and the disenfranchised while taking up high faluting positions on terrorism, governance, internal security and such like, through long, meandering essays whose opacity could put cub journalists to shame.“
What the heck?? Where did you learn to write?
Where is the source for the quote you attribute to Shourie : “two eyes for an eye and a whole jaw for one tooth.”
Other than your post and the questionable original post by the “eminent historian” Bharati Jaganathan there is no record that Shourie ever said that.
20 February 2009 at 10:16 pm
I think this is a biased write up. I think Shourie has been vociferous about how the nuclear deal is not good for Indian defence, and while you have singled him out on other issues, you have conveniently ignored his contributions to exposing Pratibha Patil (which were quieted down) and his contributions to creating the very free media you subsist upon to write this blog.
21 February 2009 at 11:19 pm
How is it a sad and pathetic decline if a journalist stands up for his own country while exposing what the enemy state has been doing all along?
23 February 2009 at 12:54 am
Looks like some die-hard BJP/Hindutva guys are miffed by this article.
I was in Mumbai when Shourie began his campaign against Antulay and had admired him. But, as time past by and his ideology reared its head, I have been disappointed as he is very partisan, always with an axe to grind and very openly and obviously one-dimensional in offering solutions to a country as complex as India. In other words, Shourie has sadly outlived his utility and relevance for India today.
27 February 2009 at 6:43 pm
one should not be biased dear writer!
How ignorant can you be if you are still dreaming humanity!
I say, Humanity starts at your own land, your own country! We cant stand attrocities in the fear of being called a bully. What about the people killed everyday in J & K? Are they not humans? The Kashimi Pandits (hell yeah, i am a rightist)and Kargil… dont they ring any bells for people (ostrich) like you. Pakistan has done enough damage and I dont think any other nation would have so patiently tolerated… Strategic strikes or International Pressure, wahtever it takes, people of this nation deserve a solution. And if Mr. Shourie has the guts to say it, i would rather appreciate that than hiding behind the fake curtains of humanity.
26 March 2009 at 6:25 pm
Decline? Shourie has only improved over time. You are not just biased but I must say you are completely ignorant.
I see that Shourie is a true nationalist and knows exactly how to keep this nation one.
People like you, are the one who pretend to be nationalists but actually are real jerks, intellecutally as well as philosophically.
13 November 2009 at 8:48 pm
what kashmiri pandits there were about 200 pandits killed in kashmir n indian army killed more than 100,000 kashmiri muslims among them children n women,but u cant c that b coz ur prejudice has blind u.kashmiri pandits where not chased,they left with there own free will becoz jagmohan told them to do so,his plan was to wipe out all muslim population. if kashmiri were so cruel there wouldn,t be still some pandit familys living here,wake up n shake urself up n dont justify of killing thousands of muslims in gujrat by saying that kashmiri muslims killed few pandits.
3 April 2009 at 10:40 am
Arun Shourie is a man even his opponents would not like to know. Apart from his social nitiatives, his views are for the benefit of country. WE have only heard constructive things from him and even the points on which you chose to criticise Mr Shourie, they make me proud and also safe that someone is there to speak on behalf of us ‘the ignored’ nationalist.
15 June 2009 at 2:17 pm
This writer is commenting on all and sundry using rhetoric and no facts and claims that shourie is indulging in rhetoric. Shourie is far too intelligent and learned about all aspects and you cannot really understand him. So please shut up.
Antulay is one thing while foreign policy on pak is another. Both need to be understood from the prism of INdia’s interest. Period.
13 November 2009 at 8:53 pm
he is so intelligent that he quotes religios scriptures out of context so he can fuel the fire n let the innocent hindu,muslims kill each other.
24 June 2009 at 12:33 pm
Arun Shourie has inflicted a festering wound on the psuedo seculars and the eminent historians. Hence such ad-homienem attacks against him. Shourie sadly for these people quotes facts extensively. He basically punctures the huge fals propoganda build up of the leftist (non)thinkers.
27 June 2009 at 12:01 am
Laughing my brains off. The person who has written this article could not have carried Arun Shourie’s suitcase! Shourie fought against the establishment in the infamous Bofors scandal, got fired from Indian Express by establishment pressure and came out a winner. He has championed against corruption and government inefficiency relentless and in the face of ugly and desparate attacks like this one. When someone is attacked by establishment propaganda, like Shourie has been in this article, people’s respect for that person goes up. Keep going on, the small people of churumuri
23 July 2009 at 9:20 pm
there is no objective argument against shourie in this article. its just rhetoric and vague allegations. apart from one point, about creating a kashmir in pakistan (which is quite debatable), there is no point against shourie. please make a more point by point analysis.
26 July 2009 at 2:35 am
shourie is the man! free market, nationalism, & sovereignty
26 July 2009 at 11:32 am
I just hope he gets some knowledge before he writes… especially about nationalists like shourie….
10 August 2009 at 1:12 am
Another blind man criticising Shourie.Yawnnn !
12 August 2009 at 11:56 pm
Dear SHARANYA:
You are a pathetic publicity hound. If you had something useful to say, you could have said it without maligning a true patriot like Arun Shourie. Instead, you had to malign his motives and twist his words in order to reflect some undeserved publicity to yourself. I hope this article provides some needed notoriety to your name rather than any positive respect for your opinions. Next time, try writing something original that would improve the country!
25 August 2009 at 5:41 pm
Dear Sharanya,
The overwhelming barrage of scorn poured on u,is not shocking or for that matter even a surprise. I hope you would be thouroughly enjoying it.Shourie fanatics in their enthusiism ,always end up giving a back handed compliment to the Talibans.it goes without saying that they are fully entitled for their views but then so are the other(s) who beg to differ with Shourie.Infact, if we go by the whole body of work of Shourie and more importantly the modus operandi employed by him to castigate individuals/organisations/institutions, almost all his work always ends up,throwing out, an equal amount of question marks on Shourie and his intentions.History & for that matter even contemporary issues can never judged in black & white.But in his perennial haste to create villians out of everything,save for the RSS and the people,politics & issues associated to it/employed by it,Shourie almost ends up(and that’s a habit), presenting to the other side an opportunity by default to get back to him.We have never read/heard him addressing such issues which the other side(s),have raised, in response to his.Shourie’s writings always have underlined the contradictions,of which we do not think,he would be unaware.His silence on the same,speaks moreloudly than he would have pains in explaining /justifying his writings.Sharanya, your example of the volte face of Shourie on Reliance, is just a tip of the iceberg.The responses,by Shourie fanatics,to u are not surprising,to say the least. While they have no qualms in throwing generous amount of barbs on the other side(s), however,they are everready to call blasphemy, of any attempt by the other side(s),to even remotely suggest/advise of the ‘new cloths” which their emperor is wearing (and which they claim,with such rabid pride as his pristine quality).Well, if the rule of the game is “to each his own’ than I think, Sharanya, u too are supremely entitled for the same.
25 August 2009 at 10:43 pm
The entire blog praises Arun Shourie !whatever you say he is HERO ! so this blog failed to taint Arun anyway ,,, suckup nipple and sleep tight !
26 August 2009 at 8:34 am
Nice try mate….better luck next time….in the process,dont worry about me,suck ur thing tight and yeah somebody will surely wake u up to tell the news!!!!!!!!!!!
26 August 2009 at 12:00 pm
Sharanya,
Your assessment on Arun Shourie is retarded! Having said that I am still mystified why the ’super patriot’ Shourie wrote against the Nuclear Deal !! That was the time I realized clowns like Jaswant Singh who actually fought hard for N Deal during Vajapayee’s Govt suddenly started disowning the Nuclear Deal. It was very hard for me to accept that BJP as a Nationalist Party would join hands with the Communists to torpedo the Nuclear Deal. From then on I lost respect for Arun shourie for peddling donkey twaddle on Nuclear Deal.