Respected Arun Shourie sir,

You have always been my hero. Along with M.J.Akbar, you represented the best of Indian journalism known to me, taking firm principled stand backed by profound reason and undeniable logic. That’s what made you special!

You are one guy who fought the leftists with utmost courage and valor. Whatever the issue; Emergency or Bofors or The Muslim Women Act; you have always been at the journalistic fore to write with utmost integrity and honesty. That’s what made you different and a hero for lots of educated Indians like us.

Today those very educated Indians see India in a different light. After a long time most of the people of this great country see a great hope for its future under the leadership of Narendra Modi. This hope is undeniable, unquestionable, and this is our biggest strength of today. It is not just limited to India’s shores. There is complete change in India’s global image, thanks to the efforts of Narendra Modi. The world is talking about India, the next great hope of the world. There has been tremendous work in the areas of governance, infrastructure, power, railways, defense, education, cleanliness and more. If this is visible to me, it must be visible to you too Mr. Shourie, you are too good to ignore it. So what has happened now?

We are among the people who felt a little let down when you were not picked in the Union cabinet. We believed a person of your competence and knowledge could be an asset to the government. But that didn’t happen, well, it didn’t happen. But Sir, you are much bigger than that. You didn’t need to be in the cabinet to keep serving the country with same intent, if not the same enthusiasm.

Mr. Shourie, you need to learn from Subramanian Swamy, on how to stay positive and how to passionately keep putting your shoulder to the wheel. He is always loud and clear that he would have preferred to be in the cabinet. But in the same breath he says, it does not matter, I am fully occupied. That’s the kind of positivity that we expected out of my hero, alas, we were in for a shocker!

We looked at the TV screens with shock and dismay when you said with a condescending smile, that “present government is nothing but congress government scaled up plus cow”; “this is the weakest PMO”; ‘people are missing Dr. Manmohan Singh”. Each sentence was more outrageous than the previous one. We watched it like a horror movie clip and the very next moment our mouth was filled with bad taste and it left us nauseating. What has gotten into this guy?

It was you Mr. Shourie who explained us that that A. Raja was not following any policy in the allocation of 2G Spectrum. It was you who told us that that the documented conversation between A. Raja. Dr. Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram prove that Dr. Singh and P Chidambaram were fully aware of 2G Scam in progress.

Now you say that people are missing Dr Manmohan Singh? Oh! Really? Which scam in particular people are missing or are supposed to be missing Mr. Shourie? Sorry, we are not missing the 1.76 Lakh Crore scams. We are not missing, PMO running out of 10, Jan Path.

If you Mr. Shourie chose to genuinely criticize the government on specifics, despite being exaggerated, we all would have taken note and debated. Even policy makers would have discussed that and considered. If you had talked about foreign policy or financial policy or defense policy or anything specific, everybody would have welcomed it and debated it with an open mind. But what is this?

"There's a clear belief now that managing the economy means managing headlines about the economy".

Citing the tussle with the judiciary over the appointment of judges, you said: "The kind of arguments that were put forward on behalf of government in the court, it has never happened that even very gentle judges had to take the AG (Attorney General) to task". Point noted sir, but the choice of the phrase that “a confrontation had been engineered" is too malignant and in bad taste.

I am sure it must have hurt you sir, when a biased journalist like Sreenivasan Jain of NDTV gave a satirical remark at the end of your opening speech: “This is what happens when you keep Arun Shourie out of cabinet”. We were hurt.

It was you Sir, who taught us that “not what exactly you say, but with what intent you say matters most”. But it seems, you have stooped down to the level of Shekhar Guptas and Rajdeeps in your discourse, no specifics, only rhetoric, not even intelligent choice of words, that too with a sulking face and a condescending smile. Where is your reason, where is your logic?

If you would have been a true well-wisher of the Modi Government, then you would have reached out to Modi with your ideas. I am sure Mr. Modi would have listened to you. But no. Because, anger generally destroys objectivity.

In an exclusive interview with ET Now before Modi became the PM, sir, it was you who had ruled out big ticket privatization that the markets were betting on if Narendra Modi comes to power. Sir, many believed at that time that you may be the next Finance Minister also. You spelled out broad economic agenda of Narendra Modi and how his focus will be to implement and not ideate too much on economic policy. What clarity you had about Mr. Modi’s priorities. Hear yourself sir:

Now, you are asking where are the reforms? Sir, every single point that you expected and were convincing others on Modi’s agenda, his Govt has focused on.

While addressing the Canada-India Business Forum, ICICI Bank’s CEO and Managing Director, Chanda Kochhar debunked your argument saying: “India is moving in right direction, (but) results take longer in a complex country and there are already some green shoots that are visible”. I still consider, if she understands, you understand it too.

We all know that you are not a political person who is never a mass leader by any stretch of imagination. Your strength lies in your knowledge, in your wisdom and not in political maneuvering. Yet the whole rant of yours during the NDTV managed book launch reeks with unbearable stench of rotten political conspiracy. Within a matter of few minutes, sir you destroyed what you so painstakingly created for over decades, which is strength of your character. In words of Col Frank Slade (Al Pacino) in ‘Scent of a Woman’, “Integrity and courage are the stuff that leads to character and that’s what our leaders should be made of”.

At a time when there is huge churning in India for setting the correct national discourse, when there is a battle going on with media who are trying to hijack the developmental agenda of the government and narrate its own divisive agenda, we expected Arun Shourie to show courage. I expected you to speak with same honesty and fight with same vigor against the divisive narrative. What we find instead someone succumbing to the very kind of journalism that he fought his whole life. This is a time when we expected you to back the hope and aspiration of a progressing India, but sad that you identified your goal to something much less important - a ministry. You chose your personal ambition over the party, government and most importantly the country. This is most unfortunate, that it seems you have got no integrity left. No courage, no integrity, no character sir, it’s tragic to see my hero go down so embarrassingly!

The fall is too quick and too steep. What have you done?

We with pain will tell you what you have done. You have wiped your name off the mind space of the very people who thought of you as a hero. You put your personal ambition over the country. You are no different than a Shekhar Gupta or Late Vinod Mehta.

In the hindsight it seems Mr. Shourie, that you proved why Prime Minister's decision to keep you out of his cabinet was the right decision in the Nation’s interest.

Your legacy is destroyed and people like us will not forget or forgive you for this. We only ask ourselves one awkward question, were you faking your character all these years for your personal ambition, and it could be, it could very well be!