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Revolutionary THE COMMISSIONER OF LOST the 19-month Emergency.
Thus began a seesaw pub-
journalist CAUSES lisher-editor partnership
Arun Shourie
that totally transformed
PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE Indian newspaper journal-
O CITIZENS OF Rs.619 ism and prompted the post
a certain vintage Pages 582 Emergency magazines
Twho have outlived boom.
their prescribed lifespan In the pre-Shourie era,
of threescore and ten, and long form campaign jour-
who remember the era nalism conducted on the
before television and social World Bank in Washington An account of the front pages was unknown
media when the press D.C. How he landed author's tumultuous in mainstream media, and
was the sole purveyor of this coveted job, is not years as Editor of anti-establishment maga-
news and learned opinion, recounted. The author the Indian Express zines didn’t exist. All that
Arun Shourie, a former had just got married and under its legendary changed after Shourie was
World Bank executive Washington was a very publisher Ramnath plucked out of obscurity
who was parachuted to “fine green place”. The Goenka and appointed Executive
the top as editor of the job involved travelling to Editor of the multi-edition
Indian Express in the many countries. “But all Indian Express in 1978.
post-Emergency era, is a our relatives were in India his son Adit being born Suddenly, as he re-
legend. In short time he and all my interests were with a brain injury. During counts in this engrossing
transformed newspaper in and about India.” After his notice period, after autobiography, facts be-
journalism from a genteel intensive searching for much effort he landed a came more important than
profession in which grave, opportunities, he landed a job as a senior fellow at the opinions, young reporters
pipe-smoking editors Homi Bhabha scholarship Indian Council for Social started getting bylines and
with Oxbridge credentials plus a consultancy at the Research, and the Shouries the tradition of reporting
dictated learned, balanced Planning Commission, at moved into his father’s sensational news or scan-
editorials which were ac- Rs.500 per month. home in Delhi. dals one day and forgetting
corded high respect, into In the early 1970s, the After returning to about them afterwards
an iconoclastic medium Soviet-style Planning Com- Delhi in the midst of the went out of the window.
which went after govern- mission was dominated Emergency, Shourie began Shourie’s practice and
ment and politicians with by “Mrs. Gandhi’s circle writing opinion essays for direction to his reporters
ferocity and tenacity. of Kashmiris” in which “ev- Seminar, one of the few was “unearth the facts,
This memoire is an au- eryone of significance liked publications “continuing to and just don’t let go”.
tobiographical account of to think of himself as being write independent stuff”. Starting with exposure
Shourie’s tumultuous years to the Left of everyone An essay titled ‘Symp- of government holding
as Executive Editor of the else”. Soon enough Shourie toms of Fascism’ prompted thousands of undertrials
Indian Express under its was obliged to resign from the voluntary closure of in jails across the country,
equally legendary pub- the commission, and luck- Seminar rather than the the Express mounted a
lisher/proprietor Ramnath ily got his job back at the publishers — well-known sustained nationwide
Goenka (1904-1999) who World Bank thanks to his intellectuals Romesh and campaign exposing their
earned himself a place friendship with Pakistani Raj Thapar — submit- pitiful condition that
of honour in the Hall of economist Mahbub-ul- ting to pre-censorship as scarred the national
Fame of Indian Journal- Haq. required by Emergency conscience and forced the
ism as the only newspaper Back in Washington, regulations. The essay was Supreme Court to issue
proprietor who stood up it’s a measure of the man nevertheless cyclostyled elaborate guidelines and
to prime minister Indira that instead of thanking and circulated to politi- ensure that bail rather
Gandhi when she declared his stars that he was safely cians jailed by Mrs. Gan- than jail became the
post-independence India’s abroad when Mrs. Gandhi dhi, and led to an introduc- norm. Next he took up the
sole and infamous internal declared the Emergency tion to Ramnath Goenka cause of some suspected
Emergency (1975-1977). in 1975, Shourie was “even proprietor/publisher of criminals who were
The volume starts with more determined to return the Indian Express, the deliberately blinded by the
Shourie’s dissatisfaction to India,” and he gave sole newspaper that defied police in Bhagalpur, Bihar.
with his prized job at the notice to the Bank despite censorship rules during In turn this led to

94 EDUCATIONWORLD JANUARY 2024