• Shekhar Gupta's interview with Harkishan Singh Surjeet (‘Mulayam should have been rightful PM.’ IE, January 13) was a good one. This is what I understand from the interview with the comrade: One, the communists wanted to remove Congress from power in nineties as they had “monopolised” governance. Two, that when Jyoti Basu could have become a PM, the communist party declined the opportunity and later called it a “historic blunder”. Three, now the communist party is ready to “work” with the Congress party to remove the BJP from the power because it thinks that the longer the BJP governs, the worse it is for the country. My conclusion then is this: communists never want a stable government in India. — Arun Govindan On e-mail Divide demolished • This is with reference to your editorial, ‘Setting the chessboard’ and the interview with Harkishan Singh Surjeet (IE, January 13). Contrary to national and international opinion about the laudable advance of the country during NDA rule, the Congress president is going around declaring that it has miserably failed on all fronts. Surjeet foresees a “very disruptive effect on the body politics of the country” if the BJP were to remain in power. As Shekhar Gupta told Surjeet, the younger generation is not given much to the ideologies of political parties. The secular-communal divide created by the anti-BJP camp was demolished with the formation of NDA and the people now know very well that ideological slogans are only a matter of convenience for the politicians and political parties. — M.C. Joshi On e-mail Get it right • Apropos of Kuldip Nayar’s article, ‘A demanding peace’ (IE, January 13), I fail to understand this constant and incessant harping by him and others in the press on how India and Pakistan are two sides of the same coin when they are not. Let us accept that there is no way but to acknowledge Pakistan as a neighbour. We have to live with it, but let us stop romanticising our “brotherly” feelings towards the people on the other side of the border. — Harish Krishnan On e-mail Anti-egalitarian • In modern forms of an egalitarian society, there should be full freedom for citizens to pursue their religion and wear the attire they choose (‘The right to the turban’, IE, January 13). Turbans, for example, may appear a trivial aspect of formal wear, but to some sections of society, they may be a token of faith. It is surprising to find the French government contravening such an established norm. — Ashish Kumar Panda Ghaziabad Pakistan’s tiger • As expected, S. Parthasarathy has hit the nail by pointing to the disgruntled elements in Pakistan army as the chief suspects in the attempt on Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s life (‘Shadow over Musharraf’, IE, January 20). But the ISI is even more menacing. It is the man-eating tiger of Pakistan. Yet there is no one in Pakistan who can take on the task of slaying this blood-thirsty tiger, so Musharraf has to live with it for the rest of his tenure. — S. Iyer On e-mail
