U R Ananthamurthy is a lifelong anti-Congressman: Ram Guha

Assertion

Cricket historian, writer, and commentator Ramachandra Guha in response to a tweet, said this:

 

Guha

Facts

U R Ananthamurthy has made no bones about his being an arch Communist in his heydays. He was in fact part of the Communist intellectuals/academics team that was invited to China. He was also associated with the Ram Manohar Lohia brand of socialism for a number of years. After the fall of the USSR,  and especially after Communism became an ugly word, he resorted to calling himself a socialist.

As for Guha's claim that URA was a lifelong anti-Congressman, the more accurate description would be to call him a lifelong BJP/RSS/Sangh Parivar-hater. Almost every award, powerful position, and freebies (land, Government-funded housing, etc) that he has received has been bestowed by the Congress.

More recently, here are some events which puncture Guha's claim about URA:

  • In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, U R Ananthamurthy openly requested both the Congress party and the Janata Dal (Secular) to support his candidature.
  • In 2006, he lobbied relentlessly to get elected to the Rajya Sabha. The parties and people he courted includes the Congress, MLA Vatal Nagaraj (a Kannada activist), Siddaramaiah (the current Karnataka Chief Minister), and some rebel JD(S) MLAs.
  • In November 2008, he shared the dais with JD(S) honcho H.D. Deve Gowda and called for an alliance of “secular parties” to defeat the BJP which had just come to power. JD(S) had shared power with the selfsame Congress between 2004–2006 in Karnataka.
  • Post the 2013 Karnataka Assembly polls in which the Congress won, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, formed an advisory think tank, which includes U R Ananthamurthy
  • And just three days ago, on 23 September 2013, Ananthamurthy thundered thus: “Congress is like a Ganga, which never dries up and hence creativity is possible. May be, all the muck flows into Ganga, but it is still flowing and we can hope for new waters to flow in. Congress is the only party with a memory.”

Verdict

Either Ramachandra Guha assumes his readers to be ignorant and/or ill-informed or he himself displays one or both of these traits. Going by Guha's credentials of scholarship and reputation as an academic and (of late) historian, one finds it hard to believe that he's ignorant or ill-informed. Indeed, Guha is the man who wrote a laudatory piece on URA peppered with personal anecdotes about the novelist's life.

That leaves us with no alternative except to call Ram Guha an incorrigible liar. 


Deprecated: file_exists(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($filename) of type string is deprecated in /home/indiafacts.org/public_html/wp-includes/comment-template.php on line 1617

6 Comments

  • v.k9121@gmail.com'
    January 5, 2014

    VKskills - Vinayak Ranade

    I consider History as His Story may not be facts, his story is based on his ability to grasp facts, his story is based on the authority who is funding him……..I look at these present Historians with doubt……..

  • vnilesh1984@gmail.com'
    October 16, 2013

    Nilesh

    This Guha once told in some official overseas public meeting that “There are even extremest Jains in India”. Was silent about Islam and Xtianity though!

  • […] we see, this is the second time Guha has featured on our Fact Meter. The first reading showed him as an incorrigible liar. This time too, it shows the same […]

  • pruthviraj.ds@gmail.com'
    September 29, 2013

    Pruthvi

    Nor to forget the fact that he was one among the “intellectual group” which openly asked people of karnataka to vote for Congress in 2013 state elections….all the prominent newspapers carried that AD.

  • samraj24@hotmail.com'
    September 26, 2013

    Rajalakshmi

    Thanks for exposing these pseudo intellectuals bent on dividing the Country

  • tabusharma@gmail.com'
    September 26, 2013

    Amit

    Guha should be challenged in court not for the moronary he displays but for the distortions he has done in his writings.