Arun Shourie, the rabid ideologue

Arun Shourie represented one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated in the name of investigative and whatever journalism in India. He tried to pretend himself as a voice of down-trodden and masqueraded to champion against everything evil with the congress government of Indira Gandhi. It was a spectacle to see his mask come off so-easily and hard-cored chauvinistic features were in open display. Did Ram Nath Goenka know that his one-time protege is a literal wolf in sheep's clothing and that he would be one day a shameless defender of a criminal like Narender Modi. A slight deeper analysis would have easily revealed that given the chance Arun Shourie would be an ideologue of saffron movement par-excellence and given his way with words and his capability of distorting facts at some point he would have become more dangerous than the devil itself. Fortunately things didn't go the way Arun Shourie would have liked and after humiliation of sangh brigade in last election he even went to the extend of pleading with his RSS masters to bombard BJP head quarters. I remember in one of his holier than thou column in the Indian Express he had preached the idea of a limited democracy with an empowered chosen executive. My answer to his preachings would be that Indian nation should be thankful to the divine conjunction that people like Arun Shourie's wishes don't (always) come true. One of the biggest contributors to what some people think (including Arun Shourie) as economic boom has been the chaotic Indian parliamentary system. Even to the extent it has been this very system, with all its intrinsic flaws, that let country survive through difficult and turbulent periods when at times everything seemed to be lost. The country survived those times when prophets of gloom like Arun Shourie predicted nothing but doom. People like Arun Shourie occasionally come up with the idea of jettisoning the very system that has enabled country to survive. The sole agenda in such arguments is to assure survival of 'parallel' elitist India. So that what Arun Shourie calls an empowered executive can protect the vested elitist interests. The mere fact that a Dalit woman could become Chief Minister of the largest state in the country is by itself is an achievement, which people like Mr. Shourie treat as a threat to their agenda. In the world history examples are galore with consequences of strong executives. I am sure Mr. Shourie knows when an elected European leader in 1930s decided to do away with the parliament and rule his country directly with his henchmen. I hope Arun Shourie and his ilk don't have that kind of executive in mind. The problem in India is not its democratic system (legislative) but rather the attitude and doings of the elite class which Arun Shourie and his ilk would like to protect. Why don't elitist encourage their children to serve nation by joining politics. Certainly answer to that question is not in the removal of the system but rather in strengthening it. Experience of past decade has definitely shown with all it flaw the parliamentary system works even in the era of coalitions. One of the fundamental requisition for prevention of descent of a democracy into totalitarian system is built in grid lock that makes making any change in the constitution a herculean task. Any keen observer would draw satisfaction that finally Indian democracy might have arrived; the bill on women's reservation is an example. No government shall be able to push through any amendment without building a true consensus. That is a sign of a healthy democracy and not a sign of inefficiency as the ignorant elite may think it to be.

One of the common refrains that viciously circles elite living rooms is that everything connected to politics is unclean and every politician is a corrupt. The advent of mass media instead of spreading information has been as a matter of fact used by vested interests to spread ignorance. The emails detailing criminal cases pending against members of the parliament circulate among those who never pause even for a smallest moment to earn by any means. Is corporate corruption any lesser evil evil than political corruption or it just a difference that the latter are out in front of press and former get help from pliable accountants to cook their books and look savvy so that they can pass themselves as above any law. The last economic crisis was not caused by the corrupt politicians but by rather greedy corporates and their captains whose despite bringing down the entire world down still remain unpunished and what is even amazing they brazenly remain unfazed and given another chance they will repeat it all over again. Those are the very elites whose welfare bleeds the heart of men like Arun Shourie.