Arun Shourie Set Of 6 Books : The World of Fatwas or the Shariah in Action (Paperback)| Worshipping False Gods (Paperback) | Courts and Their Judgments (Paperback)| Preparing : For Death (Hardback) | The New Icon: Savarkar And The Fact (Hardback) | Two Saints (Paperback)

1)The World of Fatwas or the Shariah in Action :

Passed by a recognized authority, a fatwa is considered as the ultimate decision which followers of Islam are expected to abide. In the book, The World of Fatwas Or The Sharia In Action, the author gives a detailed view into the world of fatwas. Every law or decree has a tremendous impact on the people it is imposed on. Similarly, fatwas have had tremendous impact on Islamic followers since generations. The author probes into the political, social and religious contexts of fatwas along with their implications. with a number of fatwas listed in his book, he investigates the reasons as to why women are considered as the ultimate source of pain and distress in Islam. The book also explores the reasons that made cow slaughtering a great act in the name of Islam but which ironically has no traces in the holy Quran. The author compels Islamic believers to probe into the hidden meanings and implications of these fatwas and the urgent need of the followers to adapt to the changing times. The World of Fatwas Or The Sharia In Action is a well-researched book, meant not only for the believers of Islam but also for interested non-believers. This book was published by Harper India in 2012 and is available as a paperback.

2)Worshipping False Gods :- Over the last couple of decades, B.R. Ambedkar has come to be idolized as no other political leader has. His statue is one of the largest in the Parliament complex. Political parties have reaped rich electoral dividends riding on his name. A decades-old cartoon of him in a textbook rocked Parliament for days recently, causing parties across the political spectrum to run for cover and call for the withdrawal of the ‘offending’ cartoon. In Worshipping False Gods, Arun Shourie employs his scholarly rigour to cast a critical look at the legend of Ambedkar. With his distinctive eye for detail, Shourie delves into archival records to ask pertinent questions: Did Ambedkar coordinate his opposition to the freedom struggle with the British? How does his approach to social change contrast with that of Mahatma Gandhi’s? Did the Constitution spring from him or did it grow as a dynamic living organism? Passionately argued and based on a mountain of facts that it presents, Worshipping False Gods compels us to go behind the myths on which discourse is built in India today.

3)Courts and Their Judgments: Premises, Prerequisites, Consequences :- ‘An outstanding effort’ – Chief Justice Venkatachaliah ‘An extraordinary book’ – Fali S. Nariman ‘Unputdownable’ – Ashok Desai First published in 2001, Courts and Their Judgments soon became a pioneering work on the subject. It raised important questions on the functioning of our judiciary – questions that continue to be as relevant today. Do judges merely enforce and interpret the law? Or do they at times interpolate words into statutes, even into the Constitution? Where does interpretation end and rewriting commence? How is it that in one judgment a court declares that it is the right of ministers to determine how far and in what direction a criminal investigation shall be carried, and in another the same court, indeed the same judge, decides to as good as monitor an investigation? How is it that in some cases a court delves into detailed facts that do not just bear on the case, but on why a law was passed, and in another the same court lays it down as a principle that facts need not be considered once the legislature has passed a law? The failure of other institutions to discharge their duties has compelled the courts to step far outside their traditional role. In doing so, have they stretched the law and Constitution too far? Has the intervention been effective? Courts and Their Judgments looks at judicial activism through some brilliantly argued cases and at the need for and pitfalls of such overreach. With its searing answers, evidence, dissection of judgments on these and other issues, the book remains a must-read for strengthening the country.

4)Preparing : For Death :- The one certainty in life, the one appointment which each of us will just have to face, is the one for which we do the least to prepare-death. From the lives and last days of the Buddha, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Ramana Maharshi, Gandhiji, Vinoba; from our religious texts; from the teachings of great meditation masters; from santhara to sannyas to practices by which we may tame our mind-leavening all these by his personal experiences-Arun Shourie presents clues to ensure that we face our end with equanimity. In the process, he lays down what we must do if rituals, pilgrimages and mantras are to help us. He leads us to ask whether texts such as The Tibetan Book of the Dead are for the dead, or do they set out lessons for us, the living? He leads us to see through the sedatives that we are fed. Even as we are being frightened by accounts of ‘hell’, are we not actually being lulled to sleep? Does the fact that we will face extreme tortures in hell not mean that in some form we will survive death? To experience them, after all, we must be present. Religions entice us into the great questions. Is there a soul that is never born and never dies? Is there life after death? Is there rebirth? Is there God? What is real and what is just maya? The greatest teachers and mystics have come up with different answers. Each of them has had direct experience of what she or he has proclaimed to be the truth. How, then, are we to proceed?

4. The New Icon: Savarkar and the Facts

Did Savarkar battle a stormy sea when he attempted his legendary escape at Marseilles? Did Gandhiji and he stay together ‘as friends’ in London as Savarkar claimed during Gandhiji’s assassination trial? Did he turn against Muslims because of the cruelty of jailers in the Andamans? What is one to make of his ‘mercy petitions’ to the British? Did he pledge to be ‘politically useful’ to the British and accept conditions for his release that even the British had not demanded? During the Quit India movement, did Savarkar promise ‘whole-hearted cooperation’ to the British? What did he seek from the British? Was Savarkar the one who showed Subhas Bose the path that Netaji then followed?

What did Savarkar think of Hinduism, about our beliefs and ‘holy cows’, about the texts Hindus hold to be sacred? Have our people been suffused with Hindutva as Savarkar maintained? What sort of a State did he envisage? Is Savarkar being resurrected today to erase the one great inconvenience—Gandhiji?

In The New Icon, Arun Shourie delves deep into Savarkar’s books, essays, speeches, statements to answer these and other questions. He exhumes archives of the British government. He takes us through contemporary records. And unearths facts that will surprise you.

5. Two Saints:

The life of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa ‘enables us to see God face to face’, Gandhiji wrote. Similarly, when someone in his circle was distraught, the Mahatma sent him to spend time at the Ashram of Ramana Maharshi. The Paramahamsa and the Maharshi have been among the greatest spiritual figures of our country. They have transformed the lives of and have been a solace to millions. Their peak, mystic experience is what we yearn to have. But what if several of the experiences they had occur in other circumstances also?With the rigour and painstaking research that mark all his work, Shourie probes the lives of two of India’s greatest spiritual masters in the light of the breath-taking advances in neuroscience as well as psychology and sociology. The result is a book of remarkable vigour: an examination – and ultimately reconciliation – of science and faith as also of seemingly antagonistic, irreconcilable worldviews.