On reservations

• The solution does not lie in providing quotas but in creating jobs. And no one should get a job on the basis of caste. If we want to be a developed nation, merit should be the criterion for everything. Rather than providing quotas, other avenues should be investigated to help backward sections of society — schemes like tax exemption, free education and assistance in getting loans.

—Sachin Rai New Delhi

• Reservations in secular India should be on the basis of income and not on religion and caste any more. Let us have accurate data on BPL families in the country and help them.

—R. Ganesan New Jersey

• Kancha Ilaiah talks about the responsibility of the private sector. What about the government? Why are government schools so bad? Why shouldn’t they teach English?

—Saket Kakkar Los Angeles

Survival drills

• It was horrifying to read about the needless deaths of so many young children in Kumbakonam. Whilst questions must be asked about why no teacher was injured, it is more important to investigate why the children were not evacuated promptly. Stopping cooking of meals, removing thatched roofs and installing fire extinguishers will not save lives. Evacuation exercises (fire drills) that teach students and teachers to leave a building immediately on discovery of a fire or potential fire save lives.

—Mandy Mani Mumbai

Identity crisis

• So thick is the friendship and affection between politicians and criminals that it is difficult, if not impossible, to differentiate between the two. For instance, there is the recent arrest warrant issued against a Union minister of the Congress-led UPA government in connection with a 1975 massacre in Jharkhand. The chief minister of another state, which sends the largest contingent of MPs to Lok Sabha, has provided a ministerial berth to a person involved in 32 cases. The list could go on and on. The days of politicians cajoling and mollycoddling criminals are gone. The tail is wagging the dog now!

—Pisipati Sriram Prasad Hyderabad

Own goals

• The way the Indian Hockey Federation is run is shocking and pathetic (‘Athens less than month away, IHF pulls plug on Rajinder’, IE, July 20). I think the Government of India should step in.

—G. Puru Noida

Write Back

• There are some factual inaccuracies in ‘‘History of India can’t be History of India’’ on the front page of The Indian Express dated July 16, 2004. The story deals with the report submitted by the committee of historians appointed by the HRD Ministry to examine the new NCERT history textbooks.
The report has an allegation by Prof J.S. Grewal (the medieval India expert on the committee) against Medieval India for Class XI written by me. The allegation is false and shows that Prof Grewal has not read the textbook.
Grewal’s allegation as reported in The Indian Express — For example, in the Medieval India Section for Class XI, the panel says ‘‘Kabir appears very briefly in this book…Only one sentence is devoted to him: ‘The nirguna school was best represented by Kabir considered the spiritual preceptor of all subsequent north Indian panths.’
The panel says: ‘‘Complete silence is thus maintained over his (Kabir’s) profession (weaver) and Muslim origin, his rejection of both Hinduism and Islam, his denunciation of the caste disabilities and ritual and his popular vibrant verses. Ravidas, the great Dalit, the Sain, the barber, both disciples of Kabir, and giving vent to similar idea, are totally ignored. The omission of such a vital aspect of our cultural heritage is clearly part of (Meenakshi) Jain’s (author) design to exclude all integrative or critical elements from our history.’’
While Pages 125-6 of Medieval India say: ‘‘An important group of sants flourished in the Hindi-speaking north between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, devoted to the nirguna (attributeless) divinity. Among them was the weaver Kabir, often regarded as an ‘apostle of Hindu-Muslim unity’. Born in Banaras, and brought up in a Muslim family, probably towards the end of the fifteenth century, Kabir was opposed to all forms of orthodoxy, whether associated with the mosque or the temple,. His works, composed in an old Hindi dialect, are found in the Adi Granth, the Pancvani (the book of the Dadupanth), and the Bijak. Kabir is thus considered the spiritual preceptor of all subsequent north Indian panths.
His younger contemporary, Raidas, also lived in Banaras. He was a leather worker by profession. Several of his sayings are preserved in the Adi Granth and the Pancvani. (RAVIDAS and RAIDAS are the same)
Further, the reference to Sain (also called Sena) is on Page 124 in the section entitled Saguna Bhakti. Indeed, there is hardly a saint of any significance left unmentioned, including Chokhamela. I would be grateful if you could ensure that the damage inadvertently done to me by your report is rectified.

—Meenakshi Jain, author

Doomsday scenario

• Our attention has been drawn to the piece written by Mr Arun Shourie and published in your issue of July 21, 2004, under the heading: ‘‘This is not Mr Advani speaking’’.
Mr Shourie, in his article, has built up a theory based on ‘‘what if’’ and portraying almost a Doomsday scenario on the political future of Eastern India. What is of concern to us is in portraying so, Mr Shourie has drawn Bangladesh, a friendly neighbouring country of India, into this. We are dismayed and indeed shocked that an eminent person of Mr Shourie’s stature, who was until very recently a Union Cabinet Minister of the Government of India, could come out with preposterous ideas such as the ‘‘creation of a Greater Islamic Bangladesh’’.
May we remind Mr Shourie that Bangladesh is an independent sovereign country, having a democratically-elected government, with all democratic institutions fully in place. It has been our consistent policy to foster and develop good neighbourly relations with India. The existing goodwill and people-to-people contact between the people of Bangladesh and India are eminently visible in the traditional social, cultural and historical ties. Moreover, India is Bangladesh’s largest trading partner in the region with the former enjoying a huge balance in its favour. These are facts and not based on ‘‘ifs’’. We are therefore amazed as to how Mr Shourie could implicate a friendly neighbouring country with irresponsible and malicious innuendoes and accusations.
The fact that the piece that Mr Shourie wrote could find a place in the Op-Ed page of your esteemed daily has done a disservice and dealt an insult to the friendly sentiments that the people of Bangladesh have for the people of India. His type of writing can only generate hatred and instigate bitterness and acrimony among the people. Bangladesh is a peace-loving country. It certainly does not have any hegemonistic ambitions or designs as he suggests might happen or will take place. However,
we take satisfaction that neither the Government of India nor the people of India share Mr Shourie’s nightmares.

—M Anwarul Haq, Minister (Press), Bangladesh High Commission.