Apropos of the letters on Gandhi carried in your letters column (IE, October 7), it strikes me that October 2 has become just a ritual. This time, we read that a new Gandhi biography, written by Narayan Desai, son of Gandhi’s long-time secretary and biographer, Mahadev Desai, was to be launched that day. The entire first edition of 1,000 books has already been sold out. What one noticed with dismay is that only 1,000 books were printed. This shows that Navjivan Publications, set up by Gandhiji himself, had no hope of being able to sell more than 1,000 books. It obviously does not think Gandhiji is marketable in Gujarat since the book is in Gujarati. The Gujarat CM is fond of boasting about the five crore of people of Vibrant Gujarat. He is however responsible for denigrating the Mahatma. In the last two months, he has sought to replace Gandhi with an unknown exilee named Shyamji Krishna Varma from Kutch, who was admittedly a staunch nationalist but played absolutely no part in the freedom struggle as he was abroad for the major part of his life. The CM has virtually invented a new father of the nation to replace Gandhiji. — A.S. Mehta, Vadodara Great JP I am just beginning to learn about Jayaprakash Narayan through articles like this (‘The man who refused to go quietly’, IE, October 10). I recall reading an Amar Chitra Katha book on his life and times as a little boy. Given the limitations of that, it was good to get some perspective this time around. The greatest human beings are also the simplest. To quote Rabindranath Tagore: “It is very simple to be happy, but very difficult to be simple.” May many more draw leaves from the lives of our selfless leaders from the past and present and be inspired to become better citizens. — Ambrish R. Kochikar, On e-mail Girls under threat This is with reference to your editorial, ‘Elite or bestial’ (October 10). No matter how much we try to establish that we’ve become civilised, the rising graph of rapes, molestation cases, etc, tell a different story. If girls were in danger earlier, then they are much so now that they dare to compete with men. This incident, besides being a case of violence against women, is a betrayal of the trust one had in our security forces. This heinous crime is proof enough of why the Kashmiris don’t trust them. — Reema Sahay, On e-mail Carry on copying Given the attitude of the authorities (‘For US author, it’s a copy but in NCERT it’s a tally’, IE, September 10), why don’t we simplify our whole education system by allowing students to take their textbooks to the exam hall and copy down the answers to the questions. When the “learned” authors say it is not plagiarism, then what is wrong with such a suggestion? — Ramesh Lahoti, On e-mail I am a little amused by your report on the NCERT textbook issue. I think it is important to consider one point: textbooks are not novels. History is a subject that cannot be changed. I am not backing the NCERT authors who are certainly wrong in “copying paragraphs” from a different textbook. But the fact remains you cannot change the history. I teach science in India, Japan and the US. Often, I have come across similar paragraphs in different textbooks. So don’t hang the authors, but they should be careful next time. — B.V. Rao, On e-mail
