Letters to the editor

Sixty years ago, on August 15, 1947, at the stroke of midnight, when the world was asleep, India awoke to redeem its tryst with destiny.

Redeeming that tryst

8226; SIXTY years ago, on August 15, 1947, at the stroke of midnight, when the world was asleep, India awoke to redeem its tryst with destiny. We can only hope that as we commemorate 60 years of freedom we have at least partially redeemed our tryst with destiny 8212; which was the dream of our Father of the Nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He enunciated his philosophy of non-violence, Ahimsa. He expected India to be a land of justice, equality and egalitarianism. A country whose rulers would have sympathy and empathy for every single Indian. Today, we must move away from just paying lip service to his ideals and evolve for ourselves a 8216;moral code of conduct8217;. India may appear a united and democratic nation but every day brings fresh evidence of cleavages and fissiparous tendencies within society. If the poor and destitute do not come to enjoy the fruits of freedom, the country itself may soon end up as a divided nation facing unmanageable situations of civil strife and anarchy. We need to ourselves to Gandhi and his vision.

8212; Shahabuddin Nadeem

Bangalore

Call their bluff

8226; SHEKHAR GUPTA8217;S article in The Sunday Express of August 12 really touched upon the core issue: that of Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi needing to stand up to Prakash Karat and his gang of Leftists and pseudo-leftists. Karat never expected the mouse to roar. His threat that Congress will have to face the nation must be accepted by that party, which must now go in for snap poll and fight the election on the issue of reforms for the country. Let the nation decide whether India should go the North Korea way or become prosperous by following South Korea. Karat will have some surprises coming.

8212; R.P. Desai Mumbai

Timeless truths

8226; THE article by Ranjit Kumar Dash on the Rigveda and the deep as well as universal meaning of the Vedic corpus should be inspiring and instructive to the lay reader who has an open mind 8216;Rigveda belongs to world, not just India,8217; IE, August 10. The power of the contemplative mind of the seers of the yore and the result of their efforts to generate and describe a vision for mankind as a whole have been delineated very well by the writer.

What a difference between this approach to the universe, God and man, and the petty-mindedness of 8216;my God is superior to your God8217; and 8216;salvation is possible only if one goes through my doorway8217;! And what a further fall it is to

maintain that 8216;if you say something against my prophet or God, it is blasphemy and the only way to deal with it is to kill you8217;! How hypocritical and

ignorant is the common cliche that 8216;all religions are the same and say the same thing8217;!

8212; R. Venkatanarayanan

Secretary, Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha

No crusade this

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8226; DO we call an act of attacking a lady a crusade? This is the big question that arose from the incident when three MLAs of the Majlis Ittahidul Musleem in Hyderabad stormed a book release function for the Telugu version of Taslima Nasreen8217;s book, Lajja. And all this was being done in the name of Islam as if Islam stands for such hooliganism. In no way was this a demonstration of love for Islam. It was a demonstration of love for power, pure and simple. The party leadership thought it a good opportunity to strengthen and widen its electoral base. Human behaviour, especially political behaviour, is extremely complex. Politicians, while acting in self-interest, invoke high ideals in order to cover up their utterly selfish motives.

8212; Md Ziyaullah Khan

Pune