Opinion Perverse logic
You have not disappointed with your editorial comment on the Independent Peoples Tribunal.
• You have not disappointed with your editorial comment on the Independent Peoples Tribunal. Living far away from the capital where the Tribunals worthies held forth on Operation Green Hunt,I felt quite enraged that an ex-DGP proclaimed that the grave threat to Indias security is its consumerist middle class. India is a pluralist society and a democracy. Therefore,differing voices enrich it. So the audience at the tribunals proceedings were treated to perverse,if not precocious,ideas,and sympathy to the Dantewada victims was expressed just as an afterthought.
Prasad Malladi
Nidadvole
Doing good
• The editorial Tribunal & tribals correctly points out that development is the key to tackling the problem of starvation,lack of education and employment of tribals,which the agrarian model with which the tribunals anthropologists/ environmentalists remain infatuated cannot address on its own. In the era of efficient and cost-effective mechanised farming,surplus labour can be absorbed only by industrial activity,handouts under schemes like NREGA being a poor substitute for real action on poverty.
An entrepreneur,however,doesnt risk his capital for purely philanthropic reasons; reasonable return on investment and profit are his deserved reward. The tribunals do-gooders would do well to not demonise these entrepreneurs who bring prosperity to areas they operate in by generating employment and adding value to unexplored assets.
Ajay Tyagi Mumbai
Healing touch
• Human rights activists like Arundhati Roy claim that modern society has deprived tribals of their civilisational roots and has been exploiting them. Are the Maoists doing something better? Surely,locals are not fighting the CRPF with bows and arrows. If the use of sophisticated war wares doesnt hurt their ethos,how does the exposure from a half-clad existence to a life of education and better amenities do so? Besides,are Maoists also not exploiting locals to serve their own agenda by destroying bridges,schools and railway tracks,pushing the tribals back to eternal poverty? The Naxal menace is a cancerous growth that needs a surgical process,to be immediately followed by the healing touch of socio-economic activity.
Y.G. Chouksey Pune
Mocking activism
• Im amazed at just how conservative and right-wing the Indian media has become. Im not quite so surprised at television going that way given the kind of people it employs,but that the print media is following suit is surprising and disappointing,and I think not in the public interest. Your editorial on Naxalism,Tribunal & tribals,is a case in point. Its mockery of activism (which,like Naxalite sympathisers is routinely put in inverted commas as if it is some weird species),its eagerness to toe the establishment line,and its silly Avatar-like interpretation of the tribal situation is deeply disturbing.
Sherna Gandhy
Pune
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