A one-word answer to the question you raise on your cover— Is the Majority Always Right Aug 25)? No. Else the people of Germany who elected Hitler would have been right. As are the people of Israel for electing Netanyahu and of Gaza for electing Hamas, and for Singham and Dabangg to be in the reckoning for being considered classics of cinema.
Rakesh Agrawal, Dehradun
Your I-Day special had an interesting bunch of articles, and an eye-opener to a generation which wants immediate change with the highest efficiency. They also reminded one of the dangers of the widening gulf between communities and the strengthening walls of inequality when development is uneven and lopsided.
Ponneinselvan M., New Delhi
With the victory of the BJP in the recent elections, democracy has been rechristened numerocracy. Numbers have become dirty, they now represent dirty majoritarianism. It is this secular hypocrisy which has reduced secularism to such a pathetic state in India.
Pradip Singh, Stafford, UK
Thoughtfully written and well argued. The premise of the article is shown to be correct by the fact that so many comments in response to it online have called it an attack on Hinduism.
Mukul Dube, Delhi
What bunkum! All Muslims in UP voted against the BJP, yet the margin of victory in western UP remained only 30,000 and 80,000. It’s only because Hindus were united for the first time that the BJP could win seats. Sardar Patel used to say the minority needs the goodwill of the majority. Indian Muslims have never earned it. They will vote for a crook from the SP, BSP or Congress, but not for a BJP candidate. The Hindus had had enough this time.
Anshul, Indore
Outlook never learns. This fearmongering did not help in the last two years, it will not work in the future. People do not really care about armchair pseudo-intellectuals. You are irrelevant. You can whine, you can cry.
Maha, New Jersey
I’d like to draw your attention to what Alexis de Tocqueville said in his book Democracy in America, Vol II, Book 4, Chapter 6. He refers to ‘soft despotism’ which, unlike hard despotism, is not obvious to the people. If despotism were to take root in a modern democracy, it will be much worse than the oppression that led to the birth of the term. Tocqueville compares a potentially despotic democratic government to a protective parent who wants to keep the children—the citizens that is—forever in a state of perpetual childhood. And rather than break people’s will, it guides it, much like a shepherd tending a flock of timid animals.
S. Shiva Ramu, Bangalore
Your stories on majoritarianism mostly revolved around the utterances of rss men and their effect on polity. But what about minorityism and casteism, of the kind Mulayam Singh Yadav and his ilk practise? Or what is happening in Kerala, where the iuml is getting disproportionate power in the name of religion and maximising its leverage.
Krishna Kumar Saboo, on e-mail
Majoritarianism wasn’t seen as an evil till the BJP has come to power. I am no fan of Narendra Modi but do give him credit for rising from a humble background to become the prime minister of the country. And this without any godfather backing him.
G. Venkataraman, Mumbai
Trouble with English-educated jholawallahs is that they think they are right and they can fool the natives just because they can quote some westerners or fellow brown sahibs.
Ravi Jain, Hyderabad
An instructive tale. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, a German aristocrat prior to World War II said, “Very few people are true Nazis, but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come.”
Mickie Sorabjee, Mumbai
Last I checked, it was the rule of a minority that was called dictatorship!
Pankaj Hedaoo, Kuala Lumpur
Secularism in the West means two things: separation of state from religion, and equality of all people before the law, irrespective of faith or the lack of it. In India, secularism did not mean exclusion of religion from politics. That explains the existence of dozens of religion-based parties. The state provides subsidies for religious educational institutions, for going on religious pilgrimages and controls Hindu temples. Parties in power shamelessly use religion and play one religion against the other.
Ram, Halifax, Canada
Majoritarianism is pressing on delicately on this democratic country of ours in pompous mischievous silence.
Xavier, Panjim
Where in the world do numbers not matter?
P.B. Joshipura, Suffolk, US
