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LETTERS
It's in Our Nature
"Your opinion poll explains why we have been
slaves for years: we like a master who orders and not a leader who works
as the first among equals."
—Rjiv Agrawal, Varanasi
The Iron Lady
India is badly
in need of a strong and progressive leader like Indira Gandhi ("Missing
a Leader", August 20). Despite widespread condemnation of her decision
to clamp the Emergency on the country, it remains a fact that efficiency
in every sphere of work was high during the Emergency. Democracy alone
never works-certainly not in India where a government takes charge on
the decision of 40 per cent of the polled populace. The worship of Indira
Gandhi is not born of frustration but out of the realisation of human
and national dignity during her era.
—Amitava Banerjee, on
e-mail
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Heads and Tails
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I appreciate
the concern of Minister for Social Justice Maneka Gandhi for race
horses ("Horse Power", August 20). At the same time, I
would like her to see the issue in a broader perspective and ensure
that slaughter of innocent animals for human consumption is stopped
altogether. Moreover, if she considers that suffering alone is the
criteria for cruelty and not the actual killing, I would request
her to ensure either that the prison conditions in India are improved
or the inmates are eliminated to get rid of the cruelty faced by
them year after year.
—N.M. Paliwal, Jaipur
Maneka Gandhi
is championing a fine cause but there is a flip side to the story.
Animal protection has turned to animal pampering. The meagre scientific
output of this country has been reduced to a trickle by the SPCA
which demands an approval before anyone embarks on an animal-model
scientific project. I don't see any reason for banning animal dissections
in schools. Thank god she wasn't around when comparative anatomy
was being written or the rabies vaccine was being tested on rabbits.
— Dr Mir Shovkat, on
e-mail
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Indira Gandhi was
"Durga" because she won a decisive war, made the army her first
priority and came out with the slogan of Garibi Hatao. She knew the pulse
of the majority community and won their hearts. In recent times, A.B.
Vajpayee has also been a top-class leader because he is the only one who
knows where to take India in the new century.
—Colonel (Retd) Yashvir V. Tuli,
on e-mail
She may have stood
up to the US and won us a war but that doesn't mask the fact that Indira
Gandhi was the worst prime minister India has ever had. With her arrogance,
insecurity, resistance to change, lack of understanding of political economy
and an impeccable sense of how to play around with public sentiments,
she was the worst thing to have hit independent India.
Vishnu Gopalakrishnan, on e-mail
Indira Gandhi was
assassi-nated on October 31, 1984, which makes her death an incident that
occurred almost 18 years ago and not 28 years as your cover story mentions.
—Deepali A. Pawaskar,
Delhi
The printer's devil is regretted. —Editor
Writer's Licence?
Arundhati Roy occasionally
dabbling in public activism could be ignored if she had not dared the
wisdom of the Supreme Court ("Diva of Contempt", August 20).
Her nonchalance is intriguing. We consider the apex court as the epitome
of the Indian sense of justice, and the people sitting there represent
the best of this sense. By showing disrespect to the apex body, she has
not only insulted the court and its wisdom, but has also put India to
ridicule.
B.K. Bhattacharya, Delhi
I disagree with the view that Arundhati Roy's
reply to the Supreme Court implies that her motive is "to win a new
constituency at home and a domestic popularity way beyond the reach of
a fiction writer". The idea that Roy is trying to gain popularity
is laughable. Anyone who has read about her or her literary pieces would
refuse to believe that she needs any more popularity or notoriety-she
is intelligent enough to know that anybody who speaks her mind so bluntly
can never be successful in Indian politics.
—Gautam Bhattacharya, on
e-mail
Looking Ahead
Your edit caught
me by surprise ("Now the Vedic Bogeyman", August 20). You seem
to have totally missed the main issue which is whether it is proper to
make astrology a part of the university curriculum. The UGC has the right
to teach anything it thinks fit in the universities. But what is of concern
is the attempt to teach a proven non-science like astrology-Vedic or otherwise-as
part of the science curriculum.
—Biman Basu, on
e-mail
Your editorial was perspicacious. While we Indians
love to debate, it is important that we don't get lost in them. Let the
opinion-makers sit down, sort out and try to find solutions to the country's
numerous problems on a priority basis instead of kindling controversies.
—C.B. Dyuthikar, Bangalore
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