Arun Shourie occupies a complicated space in the minds of millions. He is undoubtedly an editor par excellence, who stood up to the Emergency, exposed Bofors and had Chief Minister Antulay sacked. He is a defender of human rights who campaigned for 40,000 undertrials. He is a man of unquestionable financial honesty. It is precisely why when Shourie opens his mouth, people hear him out.There is however, a logic as to why, loved or loathed, it is difficult to ignore Shourie. Before “sting operations” became a bad word, in the 1970s and 1980s, Shourie was the man behind some of the journalism-defining exposes of India. When he was the executive editor in the Indian Express, Ashwini Sarin, an Express journalist, bought a Tribal woman for a few pieces of silver. Her name was Kamala and the story shook India to its core. Another scribe—Arun Sinha—investigated a series of incidents in Bihar jails where yet-to-be-convicted inmates had acid poured into their eyes or had their eyes poked by needles by lawmen. That was the series of Bhagalpur Blindings and Express carried a series of close-ups of the victims’ eyes to drive home the point. The two incidents were not exactly Shourie’s exposes, but were brought under the spotlight under his editorial stint. The man in question was directly involved in the uncovering of the Antolay Scam, he was a part of the Gundu Rao interview, he was actively involved in the defeat of the Defamation Bill (which came into the focus thanks to him). Shourie is known for his scathing criticism of Christianity and Islam, which has given him the label of being a right ideologue. It would have been easy to dismiss Shourie if he was just that. Shourie has also penned a series of texts examining his own religion and faith. Today, he occupies a complicated space. He is undoubtedly an editor par excellence, who stood up to the Emergency, exposed Bofors and had Chief Minister Antulay sacked. He is a man of unquestionable financial honesty. It is why when he opens his mouth and spews venom (he does it ever so often in guileless rage), people hear him out.
Back to the first idea—journalists and their overwhelming “information baggage”; despite labels (some spot-on, and others, exaggerated), Shourie willingly embraces one. Asked to choose between his avatars (a routine question that journalists are fond of, like the weight-and-blood pressure checks before medical examinations), he emphasises that he is first a “doting slave” to his son. And he is a dutiful husband, son and a son-in-law. Then, depending upon his stint as India’s activist-journalist, columnist, economist or politician, he accepts all labels and enjoys them. He calls his life a series of happy accidents and one trauma. The first of the happy accidents was being born, the second was meeting his wife through mutual aunts. The third was meeting Ramnath Goenka, who took him under his wings and into Indian Express. Goenka is someone who Shourie does not hesitate to call his “pillar”. His second pillar is the former BJP supremo, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. “I was with the Tata Administrative Services, the management cadre of Tata Group. That stint lasted for three months after which I received an offer from the World Bank (WB). I resigned from WB as I wished to be closer home and work on Indian problems, which the bank disallowed. I came back to India anyway. It was during the Emergency. Here, I met Congress President and Minister for Petroleum, Mr Dev Kant Barua who offered a post as an economic adviser. But a famous economist of those times, Mr Sukumar Chakraborty, thought my stint with WB had ‘watered’ my socialist sentiments. The only job opportunity I had, was lost due to what Chakraborty thought,” Shourie reminisces with a gentle chuckle. Thus a jobless, soon-to-be-poor Shourie packed his bags (yet again) and left “with great reluctance” with wife Anita for the US—the country they had quit months ago to be home. “It was a stroke of luck that I came to know JP Nayak, the member-secretary of ICSSR, who sent a message and asked me to write a proposal—any proposal. I wrote one and qualified for the Homi Bhaba Fellowship. Finally, I could come home. Both he and I knew why I was really back; to write pamphlets and articles against the Emergency. When the Emergency got over, I was again jobless. The days of Homi Bhaba Fellowship were also coming to an end. As luck would have it, I met Mr Goenka who told me after a meeting, ‘main Mulgaonkar-ko (S. Mulgaonkar, editor, Indian Express) bolunga tumhe koi achhasa naam (designation) dey de. Tum office aajao.” The Emergency turned out to be quite the tumultuous time for Shourie. “I had heard of him (Goenka). His paper had been taken over and he was still putting up a fight. Mr Radhakrishnan, who was at that time the secretary of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, had just come out of Tihar jail. I wanted to know about the condition of the inmates and went to meet him. He was a large man. While I was talking to him an elderly person entered the room. ‘Arre Fatty! How are you Fatty?” They both seemed to be on great terms. After a while, Radhakrishnan asked me if we knew each other. When we both shook our heads, Radhakrishnan seemed bemused. ‘Arrey bhaiyya! you were asking me about the man who is putting up a fight through his newspaper. This is that man. And Goenka this is your young man, Arun Shourie, who you were asking about’.” Mr Goenka allegedly said, “Kya Fatty ke pass baithe ho, tum office aajao.” During the same period Shourie was to meet his second pillar: Atal Bihari Vajpayee. “Mrs Gandhi declared her plans for an election on the evening of December 18, 1977. Immediately I was sent off to Patna to write JP’s (Jayaprakash Narayan) statements on the impending elections. There I met several leaders and sat down to write the manifesto of the Janta Party. And I met Atalji. during a brief meeting in which George Verghese and I were given the task of collating data.” Shourie’s later stint as the Member of the Rajya Sabha was equally serendipitous; it happened thanks to the then BJP President, Kushabhau Thackeray. “I received a call from Kushabhau one day. He introduced himself as Kushabhau, and I replied as ‘yes sir, how could I be of service?’ He repeated, ‘this is Kushabhau Thackeray’. I repeated myself. That’s when he finally introduced himself; this is Kushabhau Thackeray, the President of the BJP. I was such a small fry and had never spoken to him. I could not place him at first. Kushabhauji called me to the party office. I had to ask for direction and address (10, Ashoka Road). At the office, he said that my name was chosen by party people for a Rajya Sabha nomination. Would you like to join the party, he asked? I said yes, promptly.” As a young man, Shourie did not have a voter’s registration card also when he was made the offer.
While the politician Shourie is a veritable book of information, dates and names, it is the editor Shourie who is a delight for of his candid confessions. “I fitted in with Mr Goenka and reporters and staff. I am afraid I can’t say the same about the editors,” he admits about his stint with a chuckle. “The reason I may not have gotten along with the editors was because of the way I wrote.” (A fact acknowledged by Vinod Mehta in his book Lucknow Boy in which he admits to not seeing eyeto- eye with Shourie on several occasions but admits that when the latter wrote, people read). “In those days certainly, there used to be a British inspired habit of making elliptical understatements (laughs). Surprisingly, at the end of the day, Mulgaokar—who was not so fond of me—was more supportive than many others,” says Shourie. Today, the former editor remains troubled by the relationship between the fourth estate and its subjects. “The sector is based on a completely incestuous relationship. Stories are not pursued, not enough. Look at the case of the 2G Scam. Not many newspapers took it up wholeheartedly. It was only Gopikrishnan (J. Gopikrishnan, editor, Pioneer) who, for two years, pursued the case with dedication. Dailies dismissed all of it as a corporate fight.” Another spot of bother: the increasing corporatisation of the media space which Shourie got to witness first-hand years ago. “Editors have been sidelined. A pioneering part was played by Sameer Jain, who was a reason why I quit TOI. It was no newspaper but became a sarkari system. His father was still around when a younger Sameer would come into the office. His attitude was that an editor and a bureau were incidental. He didn’t wish to see political news on the front page. He questioned why an Oped page was being placed right in the middle of the newspaper. He created a situation. Unfortunately, other papers began to follow suit. There were editors who succumbed to him; he would call them to his office to fill up birthday cards. Many answered to his fancies.”
Though on most part Shourie is like the favourite uncle who indulges the blunderings of a newbie scribe, it is when he talks of politics that he becomes bit of the professor-meets-thehistorian. Dates and years are important, as are names. And he has a habit of dropping them, taking knowledge of it for granted. Flattering? Yes. Frightening? Yes. “It (Indian Parliamentary system) has become like a single-party rule. It is just a little drama staged for tomorrow’s headlines. Everyone knows that their time will come as well when they will get to wield the sword and get favours. The ruckus raised is for non-issues and silence is maintained for real ones,” he says after a while. Media and politics are circular themes for Shourie and he hops between the two during the conversation. “When you get the Assembly adjourned, who does it help? It helps a guilty person. Story comes out of a certain minister’s son landing in a spot of trouble over the question of unfair land acquisition. For two days, instead of discussing that issue, the Parliament remains adjourned over cartoons published 20 years ago. The argument is the inconvenience of the moment that you give as your great rationalisation for destroying and undermining a great institution that all sides give,” says Shourie with the glimpse of the fire-brand thinker who has not shied away from slamming the party that he belonged to. “This is not a democracy at all, it is disarray. I have often described it as such. For the past 20 years, I have written that viewing the Parliament is like watching a very elongated, slow funeral rites of an institution. Perhaps it is an Indian way of discarding a Parliamentary system in favour of a Presidential system. Look at the States. Is there a Parliamentary system in it? We have now come at a place where perhaps the Assembly system will be discarded in favour of a Presidential one. This adversarial politics—just a singular aspect of democratic politics—has been carried out to a farcical level. Whatever you say I would shout at it. I will block anything you say or do; that is not how Assemblies work. Can a country be run like this where two parties block each other citing each others’ example of who did what and when?” Ask Shourie and he will tell you that the “State of India is the dead hand. The society is more innovative and resilient, and the government should stop interfering so much in the day-to-day affairs. By society I do not mean the civil society in the sense that Kejriwal and gang are suggesting—they are just appropriating a name. I am talking of the society of India.” “People say that I am an elitist. To a certain extent they are right; I am a strong believer in elitism. When I say elitism I mean meritocracy. You can’t have high sciences being done by everyone. Governance can not be performed by the aam admi on the street. It is a fatal fallacy in this country to think that people (MPs) should be representative of the people. So when we say 30 per cent of the people are illiterate, should 30 per cent of the MPs be illiterate as well? People don’t read books, so MPs should not either? Governance requires specialisation and expertise. There is a wonderful phrase by (Thomas) Jefferson that governance is the job of the aristocracy of talent and virtue. Perhaps, this is the reason why I am against reservation. Yes, the marginalised should get all the help they deserve, but when the race starts everyone should be equal. My statements are no reflection on the innate capacity of the people. Half the jobs, promotions should be reserved? Not really.” Yet another space where Shourie believes in meritocracy is the Indian higher education. The talk soon reverts towards it. “I know that Kapil Sibal makes a great many announcements—both in higher education and telecommunications. He has quite a few good ideas. We should use ICT (information and communication technologies) to overcome the short come in higher education. There was a lecture that I had given in the IIT which was later compiled into a book (We Must Have No Price, Indian Express). In which I had argued the same. We are far from promoting meritocracy in the sector. It is one sector where Licence Quota Raj is being continued. The bogey of privatisation is being raised, actually the people who are shouting against privitisatisation are those who have set up institutes and colleges and are collecting capitation fees. They don’t want competition, higher standards. We must have the best companies set up private institutions. There should be a movement towards de-affiliation, especially as far as the IITs, IIMs and better colleges are concerned. Best institutions are not affiliated. They are known by their alumni. Best companies, committed to excellence should set it up—liberate themselves from the salary scale and bring in experts.” His other ideas involve a higher scale of remuneration for professors and teachers. “The question is not whether a professor needs it, but the fact that he deserves it. Universities should be encouraged to raise their own funds from the alumni. Not many people would be focused on a university as an alumni would, they are the secrets behind the success of the Ivy League Varsities in the States.” “We talk the talk of demographic dividend. The words are phrases. All of it depends on what we do; after all they can become a millstone. Parents spend money on higher education. And then when the youth is all educated, he or she does not have a job, because at the end of the day we need millions of jobs to make a success of the demographic dividend. If you create good opportunities in India, I know that people will come back to their country not for the salaries, but because he wishes to be home.”
Shourie has penned 26 books. He is in process of writing his latest one. As we spoke we sat in his expansive study. It was one of the prettiest room with innumerable shelves adorning most of the walls. An open terrace right at the front lent a perfect light. The total effect was serene and calm which fitted the languorous afternoon quite well. However, the talk mismatched the languid effect of the entire scene. Before the interview, I was politely informed that he was not going to talk about the BJP, because it “fatigues him”. And at the end of the interview, as he leant back on his armchair, he opened up about it as well. Truly we were not there to talk about party politics—we were there to talk to one of the most prolific authors and a Magasaysay-award winning editor. When I happened to share the prospect of a possible interview with the man who had redefined Indian journalism, I was asked to quiz him on “how he chooses his books’ titles”. Some of them happen to have really weak ones. However, most of them are staggeringly meticulous. They are like knives that prise open difficult areas of thought. His critics call his work structurally weak and that he fits “evidence to a preconceived thesis”. However, it is difficult to wave aside words that pour out of him. Especially when they come from deep within his heart. One such book; Does He Know A Mother’s Heart? comes from the deepest core of his heart. “I may have received the most heartfelt reactions to that book. People said they were moved to tears. That it must have been painful and cathartic for me at the same time. Honestly the two chapters which were about familial life were the quickest ones. I finished them in two days. They are details of our daily life. The difficult bit was when I sat down to write about Gandhiji, I am worshipper of Gandhiji, but I felt his faith in God was misdirected. That he tied himself in knots when he spoke about karma. I am also a worshipper of Ramkrishna Paramhansa. Their explanations, as far as I see, do not stand up to scrutiny. That for me was the painful part.” As far as family is concerned, there was no catharsis, because for Shourie that is his life. “There could have been difficulties if there was less love. Zareer Masani’s And All is Said about his divided home must have been difficult to write. In my case, mine was a tale of love. For Nigel Nikelson, writing about his father, may have been problematic. I faced no such conflict. What I wrote about were facts. None of us believe that what we were going through was in anyway a reflection or judgement on how we were.”
Read all you will of Shourie’s love for his son, nothing prepares you for a face-to-face interaction. The meeting between the father and his son is an overwhelming sight. It is overwhelming because there is no melodrama in it. Shourie is not embittered. He has not used organised religion or mellifluous words to make sense of what was offered to him. He does not want, need or accept your endorsement of him as a parent. He is happy to be a father—to be loved and love in return. Once Shourie’s wife (Anita) met with an accident as their Fiat rammed into a jeep that lost control. Soon after the accident, Anita started to feel sensations on the left half of her body. She was later diagnosed with Parkinson. Shourie was not always calm about that incident as is evident in Does He Know A Mother’s Heart? Today, he is resolute. “You want the Mehdi Hassan cassette beta?” Shourie, like only a parent sometimes can, reads Aditya’s gestures and nods. Aditya, or Adit as he is affectionately called, was once the “darling” of an extended family. Now the family has shrunk, but Adit remains at its core. Shourie’s interactions with his son reveals a side to this fire-brand man often accused of being “too controversial” in his political writings: it also makes one rethink the necessity of acknowledging any other aspect than the tender and infinitely gentle love that you get to see.