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A' Special Memorial Issue' for the quarter October-December, 2005 has been published and sent to our members, and other important persons. Due to certain constraints, it has not been possible to publish therein all the condolence messages received from members and other dignitaries paying tributes to the departed soul. We express our gratitude to all those who have sent their heartfelt condolences eulogising the contributions of Mr. Shourie in taking up public causes. A few more write-ups are reproduce below; the constraint of space does not permit to reproduce all the messages we have received. However, names of all these who had sent condolence messages are published at the end of this section.
Selfless Common cause crusader
JAGMOHAN
"H. D. SHOURIE was the king of civil servant who is hard to find now —honest and dedicated. His contribution to public causes is immense. Shourie was the embodiment of selfless work and is an inspiration for this generation.
Shourie was a man of vision and a first-class organizer. He filed several public interest litigation petitions on issues affecting the common man. He believed in transparent, honest and effective governance and was the chairman of the group which studied the Right to Information Bill. He thought that providing information to the public was the only way to fight corruption.
Though he was not a qualified lawyer himself, he often appeared before court personally and impressed the judges with his logic and reasoning.
I met him just last Sunday and we were talking about my book Soul and Structure of Governance in Indiaa subject close to his heart. He looked a little unwell then and I asked him to take time off from work, but he told me that there was a lot to be done.
He gave me a copy of his recent bookA Romance with Public Causes in which he has enumerated all the public causes for which he had been fighting. Issues like illegal encroachments, unauthorized constructions, property tax, water shortage, commutation of pension and rent laws were close to his heart.
He was fond of going on long walks and was an excellent photographer.
He served Delhi till the very end. His work for the Common Cause will be written in golden words in the history of this country."
A tribute to the memory of
Shri H.D. Shourie by a close friend
B.S. Manchanda, I.A.S. (retd.)
"Shri H.D. Shourie (Just `Hari' to his numerous friends, privileged to call him so) kept the following favourite lines before him as an inspiration and guiding star for his life:
My candle burns at both the ends
It will not last the night -
But while it burns,O my friends and O my foes-
It gives a lovely light.
Hari devoted himself to exhaustion in the interest of common people, and who can be blind
to the glorious light he shed all around by his untiring work? He had no enemies - no foes - only friends and admirers - thousands of them - and lakhs of ordinary persons whose life he `touched' to raise them from depths of despair and financial distress through his many Public Interest Litigations especially those relating to pensionary benefits. (This was taken note of by the Guinness Book of Records with the observation that no other single case in the world had directly benefited such a large number of persons through one decision.)
Although he is best known by his 25 year long dedicated service - not just selfless, but more importantly very purposeful and result-oriented - he lived a multi-dimensional life. An excellent photographer (photographs taken by him were a regular feature in the well-known magazine, LIFE) and a painter of flowers and scenic beauties to boot, he was also a lover of Urdu poetry, and always carried a fat pocket book in which he scribed hundreds of its best. He wrote out a few pages in Devnagri script and passed them on to me on account of my limitations in reading Persian script. He had a great sense of humour; every issue of Common Cause carried a number of hilarious Jokes - some of quite `adult' variety. He was regular in calling up friends to exchange jokes, information, bits of Urdu poetry, and to enquire about the well-being of their families. True, he felt shattered after the demise of his wife Dayawanti ji in October last and often referred to the vacuum created by her loss. But his grief was not of the juvenile kind and he carried on gamely with the tasks he had set before himself.
How does one evaluate the greatness of this great man? By his humanism, or by his unshackled mind? By the range and depth of his concerns for common people or by the dynamism of his relentless energy? By the determined manner he pursued his goals or by his sheer modesty and a firm resolve to shun showmannish self publicity? By his love for beauty and aesthetics in all realms and forms or by his deep involvement in the hurly-burly of everyday life. All this and more... Here was a MAN as Shakespeare would call him who set high standards for himself and others which anyone would be proud to emulate. A most remarkable person, a really rare type. Let us hope and pray the country would produce a few more like him to hold the baton, and carry on with the unfinished work which remained his obsession even during his last moments."
THE SHOURIES
Khushwant Singh
"AMONG THE most remarkable Indian families I got to befriend are the Shouries, notably the father H.D. Shourie, founder and sustainer of Common Cause, his son Arun (once Editor of The Indian Express, winner of the Magsaysay award, MP, minister in the Vajpayee Government), his wife Anita (to whom I dedicated one of my books), Deepak and Nalini Singh. There was a time when we were in each other's homes at least once a month for dinner. When Arun started churning out books against Christian missions and Muslim bigotry (not a Muslim monopoly), our meetings became less frequent. When he embraced Right-wing Hindu communal parties, they came to a stop. However, I continue to respect his ability and honesty; I do not believe a word of what is being said against him. He may be communal but is not and cannot be, corrupt.
As I said, of the family the one I admired most was the father, H.D. Shourie. He was a couple of years older than me, in better health and more active. He was a man of many gifts. He was an excellent photographer and a painter. He had a passion for flowers. He first took pictures of flowers in his camera and then painted them on canvas. He gave me one which adorns my study. After he retired from government service, he set up Common Cause, to bring relief to people victimized by red tape and unjust governmental regulations. I was among its founder members. He filed more Public Interest Litigation cases in the Supreme Court than anyone else. Instead of hiring lawyers, he argued every case himself and usually won. He edited the monthly journal of the organization. A year or so ago, he decided it was time for him to take vanprastha or sannyas. He looked for someone to take over Common Cause. He found no one willing to take over the burden. So at 93, he decided to continue working as long as he could. One PIL that has been admitted for hearing is the ever mounting arrears in our courts. He was to argue the case himself. He wrote to me about it. I quote his letter written a week before he died on Tuesday, June 28, 2005:
"On glancing through my book, A Romance with Public Causes, you may have correctly guessed that I was calling this selfless service; consequently I am still carrying on, in my 94th year.
"These days, for instance, I am grappling with the problem of cases pending in the courts. You may be aware that there are more than 3 crore cases pending in the courts; 2.27 crore in the district and subordinate courts; 35 lakh in the high courts and 25,000 in the Supreme Court. Computing on the basis of 4/5 members of the family involved for both sides of a case, about 12 to 15 crore persons are involved in pending cases. Some concrete efforts need to be made to see what judicial reforms can be effected.
"Another problem I am grappling with is the mind-boggling position regarding 250 million people below the poverty line, predominantly in rural areas: 20 million children are yet out of school, in spite of the government's project of primary education for all. Many of them are girls on whom poverty and discrimination converge. About 100 million children are underage workers; a large number of them bonded; they toil in inhuman and hazardous conditions in workshops, beedi-making, glassware, carpet-weaving, construction work and drain cleaning. Even more heartrending is the fact that millions of them are silent victims of sexual abuse, and large number of girls are tricked, flogged and coerced into prostitution. Up to a million of them inhabit the underworld, along with the children born to the five million prostitutes in the country. Children of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward classes face even more problems.
"These are problems which one cannot disregard, despite the toll of age of 94th year. I continue to exert even though in writing the book Romances I had envisaged that I was giving up Common Cause."
Is there anyone who did as much for his country as H.D. Shourie ? Now that he is no more, should not the people of India demand that the government bestow on him the highest award it can"
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