It is unusual to profile a man six years after he passed away. But thanks to your editor, you see here a remembrance of Hari Dev Shourie, who in our view has few equals in his dogged representation of the faceless Indian.

We have a common causer in author Khushwant Singh. Singh once said that Shourie deserves the Bharat Ratna: he has done more for the people than all our politicians and bureaucrats put together. I see logic behind this seeming hyperbole. Though he worked for the powerless, Shourie managed to eschew the logical temptation for personal wealth and/or political office. He never queued up for a gubernatorial assignment or a Rajya Sabha nomination; he never contested an election, or even leveraged Common Cause, an NGO he founded when he was 70, for anything more than institutional land at Delhi’s Nelson Mandela Marg.

Even there, true to his spirit, Shourie ensured that none of his three accomplished children, Arun, Deepak and Nalini, became his heirs on the governing council. Deepak, now heading BBC Entertainment, remembers that whenever the future of Common Cause was brought up, the father very politely deflected the question. But unlike many public spirits, he had scripted a fairly clear succession plan.

Vikram Lal, former boss of Eicher, was made the man in charge. Eminent common causers like policeman Prakash Singh, lawyers Prashant Bhushan and Jyoti Sagar and scholar-commentator Madhu Kishwar serve on the council.

Entrepreneur Lalit Nirula in Anand Niketan remains the nearest someone is to Shourie’s West End home in south Delhi, where Arun, a former minister, author, and editor, and Deepak live. A solid management structure has ensured that “the romance with public causes,” that Common Cause uses as its motto didn’t die with the founder.

It is nice to see the robust line up of public interest litigation (PIL) and causes the trust continues to engage in. They span an entire range: the violence and filth being shown on our television; the Lok Pal Bill; the need for two time zones (flagged eloquently by your magazine too); and the tricky terrain of judicial reforms on its website.

This first appeared in January 16-31 issue of the Governance Now magazine (Vol.01, Issue 24).

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