Magsaysay Award-winning former Indian Express editor turned BJP ideologue, Arun Shourie, in conversation with Mahesh Sarma:
How did you get the Indian Express editor’s job?
Emergency had passed [in 1977]. I had got to know [Express proprietor] Ramnath Goenka through many episodes. And the Janta Party had come to power. We were staying in Mr Goenka’s house in Bangalore.
He asked what I was doing and I said, “What do you mean what am I doing? I can’t find a job, I am writing a book.
He said, ‘Stupid, who is going to read your book? No one is going to read it. You are not finding a job, I can’t find any young man, you come. I’ll tell the editor to give you some big title.’
That is my letter of appointment.
Photograph: courtesy The Hindu Business Line
Also read: For the BJP, is the pen mightier than the trishul?
Who are the journalists running, ruining BJP?
Don’t laugh: do journalists make good politicians?
The sad and pathetic decline of Arun Shourie
