Fear of flying

• Apropos of ‘Flying over rules’, it is a tragedy when anyone dies in an accident. What I do not understand is why the deaths of four people in India in a small airplane crash becomes such big news. If officials are concerned about accidental deaths, they would be tens, or hundreds, of thousand times more effective to call for restrictions on automobile drivers. Would you accept regulations that would require you to inform a government agency every time you wish to drive your motor vehicle and accept a government agency monitoring every minute of the time you spent on your auto, motorbike or moped? Of course not. It is very easy to call for regulation and restrictions on aircraft operations. But I would suggest you devote as much newspaper space to each auto death, each death by disease, each death by neglect or death by carelessness, instead.

— F. Wedemeier On e-mail

Hindu heritage

• There was a recent report that Prime Minister Vajpayee preferred the expression ‘Bharatiyata’ to ‘Hindutva’. Recalling that the Supreme Court itself defined Hindutva as a way of life and the cultural backbone of the Indian subcontinent, I am wonderstruck at the necessity and timing of making such a statement which has definitely aroused many pertinent questions in the minds of Hindus all over India. Why India — or Bharat — as defined in our Constitution, is not Hindustan is totally not understood by me and many more like me. The word and definition of Hindutva itself contains the totality of the concept of what is called secularism. The timing of such a statement, coinciding with elections in the offing, surprises all the more because India — as Annie Besant and Max Muller put it — without Hinduism is unthinkable.

— R.V. Bhasin Mumbai

CM to PM?

• Mulayam Singh Yadav has been the defence minister of India and was involved in central politics. But as soon as he got the chance of becoming the chief minister of UP, he resigned from the membership of Parliament and became the chief minister of UP, and subsequently sought election as an MLA. Now again he is thinking of participating in elections to Parliament, hoping, no doubt, to increase his chances of becoming a PM.

— G.S. Naik Amroha

Understanding Atal

• With regard to ‘Vajpayee, up close’ (IE, April 20), you can understand him better if you see from where he started and where he has arrived. He emerged from a middle class family of pandits and his ‘sanskar’ must be troubling him when he realises how changed politics is today.

— I.R.Sharma On e-mail

Tailpiece

• The real name of the BJP must be changed to Bollywood Jhatkas Party (‘Dharmendra embraced Islam to marry Hema’, IE, April 19).

— Chang Alan On e-mail