Thanks for Saba Naqvi’s piece on the BJP-Sangh parivar’s fictionalisation, often ridiculous, often semi-mythical, of Indian history (The Early Bloomers, Nov 25). It somehow reminds me of the story that the NDA’s HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi—supposedly very learned and a former teacher of physics—once made an hour-long presentation on zero or shoonya. It so brimmed with semi-mystic statements like “shoonya encompasses everything in this universe” that his colleagues were left wondering if the minister had gone totally cuckoo.
Kishore Das Munshi, Calcutta
Now, now, our post-modern concern for the human rights of evil persons, terrorists and rapists is both unnecessary and masochistic.
Sivender, Bangalore
How desperate you seem in your attempts to vilify Modi. For you, some unsavoury facts: Leftist historians are anti-national; the Sangh parivar alone embodies patriotism; the Congress is corrupt, communal and anti-national; and Outlook is a Congress magazine.
Senthil Selvan, Chennai
Saba Naqvi’s piece is politically biased and exposes her ignorance of history.
Dr K.K. Kshirsagar, Pune
Ms Naqvi has only put on display her meanness towards our national icons!
V.N.K. Murti, Pattambi, Kerala
Habitual Congress lackeys like Ms Naqvi should worry less about Narendra Modi’s slips of the tongue and more about the thinning crowds at Rahul Gandhi’s rallies.
Gandhar, on e-mail
It’s debatable who manufactures more fiction, the Sangh parivar or the UPA. The one question to decide that is: who has access to spooks who tell them of ISI agents approaching alienated Muslim youth from riot-hit Muzaffarnagar?
Dinesh Kumar, Chandigarh
I wonder if Ms Naqvi and Outlook are secretly funded by the BJP. Articles like hers only go to naturally consolidate the BJP vote and even make neutral voters swing their way.
Dipto, on e-mail
The need of the hour is for all those who aspire to prime ministership to be put through a gruelling general knowledge quiz either in English or in any of the languages which appear on the reverse of a 100 rupee note. The one elected eventually would know what he is talking about.
Soli Canteenwala, Mumbai
The long and short of Ms Saba Naqvi’s pious evisceration of Modi and the Sangh parivar is: the Congress’s version of history is less bunk and therefore must be ignored; the Sangh parivar’s version is more bunk and therefore deserves to be berated with random quotes placed out of context.
Priya Mahadevan, Rochester, US
NaMo’s gaffes only prove that he and the Sangh parivar are going to be busy manufacturing history. So the Constitution will be safe from their meddling. And nobody will believe their history anyway.
Viswanath V., Peta, Kurnool
In every country, politicians are ace peddlers of gaffes. An American vice-president supposedly said, “I was recently on tour of Latin America. I regret having never studied Latin in school.”
H.N. Ramakrishna, Bangalore
You speak of history seen in the USSR through the “analytical lens of Marxism” and in China through the “worldview of Mao Zedong”. Of similar colour, though a noticeably different shade, is the glass through which the Congress looks at the world and manufactures its own history.
M.K. Saini, Delhi
