Opinion In translation
Shekhar Guptas article On the wall,off the road made valid points against Mulayam and Paswans ideology...
• Shekhar Guptas article On the wall,off the road made valid points against Mulayam and Paswans ideology but unnecessarily makes fun of Lohias ideology by calling it the most dangerous (confined to rightwing xenophobia),simply because Lohia maintained that for poor people in the country to be able to wield real political power regional languages must have ascendancy in states and Hindi at the national level he was insistent that the Centre would correspond with Tamil Nadu and West Bengal in their regional languages. He was not a Hindi chauvinist as is being wrongly projected.
I am sorry to find Gupta in the category of those Indians who still feel that our development and prosperity depends on the four per cent of moderately English-knowing population only but refuse to tell us how the erstwhile USSR,with less percentage of English speakers,was the first to send Sputnik into space,much earlier than the English-speaking US. Was it the English-speaking minority in France and Germany which made a comeback from the ruins of World War II? Lohias emphasis was empowering the poor and deprived section of society,because the continuance of English would keep all political and social power with the tiny English-speaking elite. Of course,I agree that the idiotic suggestion of Mulayam Singh to ban the use of computers was certainly deserving of ridicule.
Rajindar Sachar
New Delhi
Odd couple
• Before the declaration of the Lok Sabha election results,nobody would have thought that bitter political enemies like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati,who kept spitting venom at the Congress all through their campaigns,would get into a competitive race to the presidents door in order to support the UPA and would waste no time in submitting letters of support to Manmohan Singh.
Ratan Sharga Lucknow
To be PM
• Indian democracy has again proved to be dynamic,vibrant and free,fair and peaceful. But alas,the sad reality is the political monopoly that is fast developing,with scions emerging everywhere,not just among the Gandhis.
We,therefore,have to foster qualities of leadership right from kindergarten. Let every child be taught that it is his or her fundamental right to be the prime minister of India.
M.R. Mayya Mumbai
States of BJP
• This refers to your editorial Soul searching. In fact,the BJPs central leadership is plagued with nostalgia for the Ram temple movement that had catapulted the party to the power at Centre. But that very Hindutva agenda boomeranged on the party in the general election.
Unlike the central leadership,BJP state leaders like Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Raman Singh sought votes for development and won a substantial number of seats. In this regard,you have rightly advised the BJP leadership to listen to state leaders because they know well the peoples mood and aspirations.
Manoj Parashar
Greater Noida
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