In an interview where he delights the audience with fascinating and revealing stories and anecdotes from his years as editor of the Indian Express, Arun Shourie has confirmed something that has been speculated about for over three decades. Giani Zail Singh, as president, had prepared letters to dismiss Rajiv Gandhi as prime minister before he was persuaded by Arun Shourie not to send them.At the time, Shourie says, Zail Singh believed there were five people from the Congress willing to take over as prime minister and they included V.C. Shukla, Arun Nehru and, most importantly, R. Venkataraman. At the time, Venkataraman was vice president. However, Shourie says Zail Singh’s favourite for the prime ministership was Vasantdata Patil, the former two-time chief minister of Maharashtra.In a 43-minute interview with Karan Thapar on his recently published memoirs called The Commissioner for Lost Causes, Arun Shourie says he is not sure whether Zail Singh was absolutely dead serious about dismissing Rajiv Gandhi or whether he was creating a great charade to frighten the prime minister and thus force him to pay greater attention and respect to Giani Zail Singh. However, the story as told by Shourie clearly seems to suggest that Zail Singh was serious.Recounting that day, Shourie was summoned to Ramnath Goenka’s flat in Sundar Nagar one evening and on arrival found him sitting with S. Mulgaonkar, who was reading a paper. Goenka told Shourie that Mulgaonkar had drafted a letter that Zail Singh would send to Rajiv as the letter of dismissal. He added that Vijaya Raje Scindia had already taken the letter to Rashtrapati Bhavan. Arun Shourie remonstrated and said this was not a good idea or the right thing to do. He said this would win support for Rajiv and resurrect the prime minister’s declining fortunes. Goenka understood what Shourie was saying and quickly changed his position. He asked Shourie to immediately rush to Rashtrapati Bhavan and stop Zail Singh from sending the letter. Since Shourie did not have a car, Goenka sent him in his own.On arrival at Rashtrapati Bhavan, Shourie found Zail Singh, wearing his trademark white achkan, standing in the PA’s room where the letter was being typed. Arun Shourie told him that this was not a good idea. He said Rajiv would mobilise 5 lakh people to surround Rashtrapati Bhavan and, then, what would the president do?In the end, Singh accepted Shourie’s argument but only after using the choicest Punjabi expression phite mun. After Shourie left Rashtrapati Bhavan, a phone call was made from the president’s house to Goenka to say the letter would not be sent.This is only one of many delightful stories told by Arun Shourie in this interview. There are others about how he was sacked twice as editor of the paper, something he says he is very proud of. Another fascinating story is about Ramnath Goenka blackmailing Indira Gandhi when she was planning to take over the Indian Express by threatening to reveal in public letters sent by her mother, Kamala, to Jayaprakash Narayan’s wife, Prabhavati, where Kamala complains about her ill-treatment at the hands of Nehru’s sisters, i.e. Indira’s aunts.
