Talk:Arun Shourie

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I removed these quotes as I found them non-notable:

[Consider Arun Shourie's rewording of the dominant paradigm:] 'Caste is real. The working class is real. Being a Naga is real. But 'India is just a geographical expression!' Similarly, being a Muslim, of course, is real (...) But Hinduism? Why, there is no such thing: it is just an aggregation, a pile of assorted beliefs and practices. In a word, the parts alone are real. The whole is just a construct.' [Numerous Indians including the Muslims for thirteen centuries have had no difficulty recognizing some basic cultural traits collectively designated as Hindu. If today's intellectuals cannot recognize these, the problem may well be in the eye of the beholder. Shourie, for one, does not believe in their good faith:] 'The beginning of reconstruction, therefore, the sine qua non for it, is to overturn the intellectual fashions set by these intellectuals, and defeat their verbal terrorism.'
- A Shourie: 'Parts talk and anti-ourselves talk', Observer of Business and Politics, 15-11-1996. Quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2002). Who is a Hindu?: Hindu revivalist views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other offshoots of Hinduism. ISBN 978-8185990743

Their deceitful role in Ayodhya ... was just symptomatic... How does this concern square with the guidelines issued by their West Bengal government... - "Muslim rule should never atttact any criticism. Destruction of temples by Muslim rulers and invaders should not be mentioned?

Muslim leaders and Stalinist historians were raising a howl about Hindu chauvinism when it came to the notice of Arun Shourie, the Chief Editor of the Indian Express at that time, that some significant passages had been omitted from the English translation of an Urdu book written long ago by the father of Ali Mian, the famous Muslim theologian from Lucknow. He wrote an article, Hideaway Communalism, in the Indian Express of February 5, 1989 pointing out how the passages regarding destruction of Hindu temples and building of mosques on their sites at Delhi, Jaunpur, Kanauj, Etawah, Ayodhya, Varanasi and Mathura had been dropped from the English translation published by Ali Mian himself. This was a new and dramatic departure from the norm observed so far by the prestigious press. Publishing anything which said that Islam was less than sublime had been taboo for a long time. I was pleasantly surprised, and named Arun Shourie as the Gorbachev of India. He had thrown open the windows and let in fresh breeze in a house full of the stinking garbage of stale slogans.
- Goel, S.R. How I became a Hindu (1993, revised ed.)

Arun Shourie had shown great courage. But he had counted without the secularist crowd which had access to the owner of the Indian Express. He told me on the phone that there was some trouble brewing. I have never talked to him about the nature of the trouble, and do not know if my articles had anything to do with his ouster from the Indian Express next year. All I know is that he had to slow down the publication of my next two articles.
- Goel, S.R. How I became a Hindu (1993, revised ed.)

Mani Shankar Aiyar totally condemns one of Arun Shourie's books, and then goes on to declare that he has decided not to read it : "Shourie gave the final touches to the manuscript of his book on Islam, a work so vicious and perverted that every English speaking Muslim I know was outraged... I decided then to show my solidarity with secularism by not reading the book." (The book he refers to, is apparently Shourie's Religion in Politics, a very sane and sober look at several Scriptures in the light of reason.)
- Elst, Koenraad. Ayodhya and after: issues before Hindu society. Voice of India. 1991.

The problem of book-banning and censorship on Islam criticism is compounded by the related problem of self- censorship. Thus, when in late 1992, the famous columnist Arun Shourie wanted to publish a collection of his columns on Islamic fundamentalism, esp. the Rushdie and Ayodhya affairs (Indian Controversies), the publisher withdrew at the last moment, afraid of administrative or physical reprisals, and the printer also backed out. Earlier, Shourie had been lucky to find one paper willing to publish these columns, for most Indian newspapers strictly keep the lid on Islam criticism. Hindu society is a terrorized society.
- Elst, Koenraad. Negationism in India: concealing the record of Islam. Voice of India. 1992

Arun Shourie was sacked as Indian Express editor, apparently under government pressure, after revealing that, in October 1990, Prime Minister V.P. Singh had aborted his own compromise arrangement on Ayodhya under pressure from Imam Bukhari, prominent member of the BMAC.
- Koenraad Elst. Ayodhya: the case against the temple. 2002