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LETTERS
Journeyman's Milestone
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Mouse To Man
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The eloquently written essay talks of Osama bin Laden as the
new age Che ("The Osama Chic", October 22). This is New
Age writing. For all the snipes print journalists take at their
television counterparts for having done great disservice to the
profession by reducing it to "soundbite journalism" where
form takes precedence over content, there are these great sounding
lines, "... in the last century, the most photogenic protest
was personified by another bearded revolutionary ... Ernesto Guevara
de la Serna...". Calling bin Laden the new age "Jehovah
immortalised by Al Jazeera" is like doing a W.B. Yeats on Dawood
Ibrahim. It makes great reading, music even to the tired ears. But
here's the pitfall-a very dangerous one. Che lived and died for
a cause: anti-imperialism. Bin Laden's anti-America rhetoric is
that of a squawking pig backed by no ideology. By mentioning Che
and bin Laden in the same breath, even when we are good enough to
point out the differences between them, we're giving bin Laden the
biggest victory of all-a belief that he's really fighting a "revolution".
—Revati Laul, Delhi
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Nobel Laureateship
is an annual honour to writers who stand apart from the rest at a given
point of time but each has his individual greatness that endures beyond
time ("A Prize for Sir Vidia", October 22). Sir V.S. Naipaul's
cosmopolitanism is forthright and his daring to take on the evil in Islam
in India is strongly stressed in Half A Life. The award coincides with
the murky developments in our part of the world. If the Swedish Academy
finds our voice of protest in Naipaul, then both the Academy and Naipaul
stand lauded for the discovery.
B.K. Bhattacharya, on e-mail
Committed to his homing instinct, Naipaul is
apprehensive that before he can perfect his slow pilgrim's progress towards
the dreamland of his forefathers, there won't be any place to return to.
His despair is based on a distorted version of Islam which has tremendous
resilience. It is amazing that a perceptive traveller like Naipaul missed
Islam's diversities-probably he was not looking for signposts. If his
Nobel Prize does not further rob him of his flickering visionary eyesight,
he should embark on another journey into the world of Islam. Maybe this
time he will find his ancestral homeland-the lost paradise-ensconced in
the peaceful and caring lap of Islam itself.
— Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
Precursor Of Evil
The column was as pretentious as its writer,
Tavleen Singh ("Unsecular Faith", October 15). It seems Singh
lives in some safe Hindu upper-class paradise which believes that India
is the most tolerant country in the world. But doesn't she know that we
kill Christians, burn churches, destroy movie theatres, murder Dalits,
rip apart "unbecoming" paintings and demonstrate outside the
homes of respected Muslim actors? Before turning her nose up at Afghanistan,
Singh needs to be reminded that we beat them to it-we demolished the Masjid
before they demolished the Buddha.
— Roopa Dhawan, Delhi
Tavleen Singh has hit the bull's-eye. It is
time Muslim fanatics in India realised and admitted the freedom and security
they enjoy in this country, taking advantage of our politicians' pseudo-secularism.
Muslim fundamentalists and the shameless political parties that support
them for petty votes at the cost of our neutrality should be given a taste
of the Taliban. Indian Muslims should realise that they cannot have the
best of both worlds-be a devout Muslim of the Taliban brand and enjoy
the perquisites of a liberal and secular democracy. Our Government should
take stringent action against any person who dares to preach sedition
and glorify the cause of the Taliban which is a curse to the human society
before it is too late.
—Indrani Sen, on e-mail
Wrong Prescription
While everyone is entitled to his opinion, a
former Union minister's blatant endorsement of human-rights violation
as an inevitable side-effect of our campaign against terrorism is shocking
("War Begins at Home", October 8). Further, the labelling of
people not subscribing to his viewpoint as "regressive" makes
one feel relieved that P. Chidambaram does not hold office any longer.
The column advocates terrorism to counter terrorism and one wonders if
he perhaps forgot to use the latest metaphor: "collateral damage".
— Dr Sandeep Sen, Delhi
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