In a candid session with fire-brand journalist Barkha Dutt at the Times Literature Festival 2023, on his recently published biography, 'The Commissioner for Lost Causes', former Union Minister Arun Shourie made some cutting revelations about Indian politics and the state of democratic affairs in the country. "Politics currently is in a rotten and dangerous phase and much of the politics is as it must be in North Korea”., he said. In a spellbinding discussion, Shourie from an insider's lense shared some interesting incidents that took place behind the closed doors of the North and South Block.
A former minister in the Vajpayee government, he narrated the story of why he was nicknamed 'the commissioner for lost causes' which is also the title of his new book. When after a thorough investigation led by him, close to 40,000 under trials were released, ace journalist and founder of The Indian Express, Ramnath Goenka called him the commissioner for lost causes as he thought that Shourie was the advocate of the lost and the forgotten. Shourie said that he regards this comment as a huge compliment.
