Arun Shourie - Career

Career

In a series of exposés, many of which he wrote himself, Shourie and the Indian Express, where he became Executive Editor in January 1979, uncovered corruption in the highest echelons of the government and exposed several major scandals, including what has been dubbed “India’s Watergate.” Shourie started a one-man crusade in 1981 against Abdul Rehman Antulay, the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra State, who allegedly extorted millions of dollars from businesses dependent on state resources and put the money in a private trust named after Indira Gandhi. The story caused the eventual resignation of the chief minister and great embarrassment to Gandhi and her ruling Congress Party.

Shourie's exposés resulted in a prolonged labour dispute at the Mumbai offices of the Indian Express, where a labour organizer with ties to Antulay encouraged workers to strike for a minimum wage double than what was paid at any other newspaper in India. It also resulted in a government crackdown that included a host of legal cases launched against the Indian Express by various agencies. In 1982, the paper's owner Ramnath Goenka fired Shourie as a result of continued government pressure.

Between 1982 and 1986, Shourie wrote for various newspapers and magazines, at the same time as being General Secretary of the People's Union for Civil Liberties. He was appointed executive editor of the Times of India in 1986 but was lured back to the Indian Express by Goenka in 1987. Shourie launched an attack on then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi over the Bofors howitzer gun purchase scandal. This contributed to Rajiv Gandhi's defeat in the subsequent parliamentary elections.

Among the many battles Shourie fought for press freedom, perhaps the most famous was his crusade against the government’s proposal in 1988 to introduce a defamation bill. It was widely perceived that the bill had been introduced with unusual speed in the Parliament in an attempt to muzzle the Indian Express, and the entire media community joined Shourie and the Indian Express in condemning the move.

At one stage, there were 300 cases filed by the government against the Indian Express, and credit supply from banks was cut off. Shourie, however, continued his battle against government corruption until 1990, when differences on editorial policy forced him to resign from the Indian Express. The differences involved Shourie's opposition to the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report, that sought reservations in government jobs for Other Backward Classes (OBC), which were initiated by then Prime Minister V. P. Singh's government. After that, he devoted his energy to writing books and regular columns, which appeared in different languages in 30 newspapers across India. In 2000, he was named as one of the International Press Institute's 50 World Press Freedom Heroes of the past 50 years.

Shourie is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He has been a member of the Rajya Sabha and also held the office of the Minister of Disinvestment, Communication and Information Technology in the Government of India under Atal Bihari Vajpayee's prime ministership. As Disinvestment Minister, he led the sale of Maruti, VSNL, Hindustan Zinc among others. His position as Minister was a controversial one, but he and his secretary Pradip Baijal are much respected for kick-starting what people believe was a best-in-class process. In a poll of India’s top 100 CEOs in February 2004, he was ranked the most outstanding minister of Mr.Vajpayee’s government.

Shourie was one of the loudest voices opposing the nomination of Pratibha Patil as the President of India in 2007. Arun Shourie authored two articles published as a booklet titled 'Does This Tainted Person Deserve to Become President of India?' in which he discussed the highly questionable past of the Congress candidate. In a detailed interview with Karan Thapar, Shourie gave voluminous proofs accusing Pratibha Patil and her kin of embezzling funds from Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank,a bank which she had founded and was in charge of. Reserve Bank of India (RBI), revoked the licence of the bank in 2003 after it was found out that the bank had illegally waived interest on loans given to many of Pratibha Patil’s family members. Shourie also accused her of obstruction of justice and in a murder case against her brother G.N.Patil.

After the defeat of BJP in 2009 General Elections, Arun Shourie was one of the voices, besides Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh, within the BJP demanding introspection and accountability. Matters came to a flashpoint after the expulsion of senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh because of his book praising Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Shourie defended Jaswant Singh in his articles in the Indian Express and accused the former BJP Party President Rajnath Singh of high handedness using such choice phrases as "Humpty Dumpty" and "Alice in Blunderland".