Arun Shourie, who else, is at it again. You leave him alone and he comes out with a book that he would have written on some nationalistic topic.
Yes, ‘nationalism’ – the ugly word that regional chieftains and now-a-days the national dacoits err, the UPA are most averse to. That is what Arun Shourie writes on. It could be arguing against the folly called reservation or deciphering the missionary activity or arguing against the existence of God or calling the shots off the communists.
What is needed to read Arun Shourie is your capacity to remain seated while reading him as you are most likely to suffer from a heart attack looking at the volume of evidence that he would have presented in his book.
One thing is a given in his books : The material would be authentic, first hand and with lots of references quoted at length along with the sources.
In ‘Bending over backwards’ he argues against reservations. Yes, I know that I was excited by the topic. But what I was floored by was the logic and the voluminous court judgments that he had painstakingly collected and researched to establish his theory. People could oppose his views but not his logic.
In his other books “Eminent Historians”, “Courts and their Judgments”, “Harvesting our Souls” and “The world of Fatwas”, one encounters an extremely scholarly interpretation of the different judgments, embarrassing government orders and ordinances and the way in which some of the laws of the land have been violated with impunity.
One needs to read his “Missionaries in India” to re-visit the 1800s and 1900s when the British government overtly and covertly resorted to mass conversions and how the British Parliament willingly let itself to be hoodwinked by extremely overzealous successive Viceroys.
“Worshiping False Gods” is one of his better known and most riled masterpieces. Reading this book at length would help one to get to know about Ambedkar, the demi-god and what he actually was, in his own words.
“Does He know a Mother’s heart?” is bound to convert a hard headed believer into an agnostic. Such a brilliant exposition of Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the different mystics like Ramana Maharishi has never been seen. And the way the topic of pain and its endurance and its handling by the different religions is written, is sure to floor anybody with a deep sense of philosophy and rational thought.
True to what he is, a thorough intellectual, he has propounded his views on China and the falling-at-the-feet of China by India in this new book.
The current book should probably talk about the circumambulations, the beatings around the bush and the pusillanimity of the current UPA dispensation at the Center when ever it needed to answer anything pertaining to China.
Waiting to lay hands on this treatise as has often been the case with all his other books.
Amaruvi's Aphorisms 