• The CPI(M) party’s protests against the Indo-US joint air exercise bear the stamp of religious ritual. Its protests come not only at the costÿof the time, energy, money,ÿand hardship to people who do not subscribeÿto its dogmatic faith, but also embarrassment to India and the US, as the invited guest. Thatÿthe same party organising these protests to oppose the USA hasÿmanyÿstalwarts/supporters who have been educated — or whose progeny are being educated — in the US, is another matter altogether. With the consent ofÿthe party, a Bengal minister is now going to the US to attract entrepreneurs to invest in in West Bengal! — A.K. Das Kolkata Dangerous game • Apropos of your editorial, ‘Five Per Cent Trouble’ (IE, Novemer 9), the five per cent reservation quota fixed by the Andhra Pradesh government has been struck down by the Andhra Pradesh High Court but the AP government now wants to go in appeal against the verdict. The AP government does not realise that it is playing with fire. A reservation quota for Muslims would lead to similar demands from Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Bodhs, Parsees and Jews, and may be a few other groups, on caste reservations within particular religious groups. The whole country would thus end up being divided on communal and caste lines. This can even lead to the Balkanisation of the country. So my appeal to the AP government is this: please do not play this cynical game. — Satbir Singh Bedi Delhi Just one point • Everything was fine with the article, ‘The other 9/11’ (IE, November 8), even the utopian ideas expressed in it. That is, until the writer comes to Narendra Modi. The reference to him appeared more like a personal vendetta against him, than anything else. How come the names of people like Arjun Singh, Ram Vilas Paswan, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Y.S.R. Reddy, not mentioned? — Rohit Gupta Mumbai Corrupt Congress • As expected, the Congress Party is very lenient towards the corrupt. K. Natwar Singh has only been stripped of the external affairs portfolio. He continues to remain as minister. This is of a piece with the Congress party’s history. Immediately after Independence, the Congress ruled the country for decades on end. It should, therefore, be held responsible for the present state of affairs, in which shameless and corrupt people work with impunity and without any fear or shame. Thus, the precedents set earlier have become the system. The quality of our leadership has fallen to new lows. There was a time when great stalwarts — like Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad, Valabhbhai Patel, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur — set the standards of public life. Sadly, things went rapidly downhill after that. The history of the Congress party is riddled with scandals and corruption. It may be the jeep scandal that got Krishna Menon, the Sugar Scandal that blotted Indhra Gandhi’s tenure, or the fertiliser scandal of the Narsimha Rao years. The list is endless. We can even say that the Congress party has single-handedly done the most damage to the fibre of our nation. — S.P.Sharma Mumbai
