This is with reference to your cover story, The Ugly Indian (April 10). I would like to say, as a school master and head of a few residential schools for more than four decades, that rowdy MPs and other discourteous and rude people are not so much to blame as their parents and teachers, who probably failed to teach them respect towards fellow human beings and good manners. I taught my children and pupils these basic things all my life and they are a credit to me, but more so, they are assets to their alma mater, their families and to our country at large. That particular MP, involved in the rowdy incident, should ask himself what concept of freedom is it that leaves him free to be selfish, lawless and a brute.
Vijay Bhatnagar, Gurgaon
By standing up for Air India’s sixty-year-old employee, who was assaulted by Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad, the airline has sent a firm massage that such behaviour will be met with zero tolerance (The Boss Who Stood Up). The person responsible for ‘grounding’ the rowdy politician (Gaikwad was barred from flying altogether, the decision was only revoked after he apologised) is AI chairman Ashwani Lohani. It was impressive to read that despite being entitled to several privileges at AI, Lohani chooses to stick to the rules meant for all other people. It is commendable that the civil aviation minister has also stood by Lohani’s action in the Gaikwad case. This is not the first time that politicians have exhibited such behaviour and it is time that certain ‘guidelines’ are framed to keep the entitled rowdies in check.
H.R. Bapu Satyanarayana, Mysore
Kudos to Air India CMD Ashwani Lohani who had the rare spine to stand up against Shiv Sena’s Ravindra Gaikwad, whose ‘slipper attack’ on an AI official showcased the typical audacity that stems from unbridled power and its trappings. India badly needs more people like Lohani to put people like Gaikwad in place.
George Jacob, Kochi
MP Ravindra Gaikwad’s brazen act of assaulting an Air India employee and justifying it on camera may have shocked the country, but not his party, the Shiv Sena, which is standing by its MP. The hardline party is claiming that Gaikwad ‘stood’up’ to the ‘misbehaviour’ of the airline staff and Sena functionaries in the MP’s home district even called for a one-day bandh to protest ‘injustice’ against their leader. The matter should not be allowed to rest here in my opinion. Gaikwad needs to be made to face the consequences of his gross behaviour.
Padmini Raghavendra, Secunderabad
Outlook’s cover story, with Shiv Visvanathan leading the brigade of writers, came as a tirade against our feudalistic administration that makes our democracy seem like a joke at times. L’etat C’est Moi (I myself am the nation) is the tenor of all public servants in government undertakings. As they say, with power should come responsibility, but here, with power only nuisance value seems to come. Asking the high-on-power bureaucrats and politicians for humility and honesty has become an exercise in futility. They can only be exposed for what they are to the public at large, which your cover story does.
J.N. Bhartiya, Hyderabad
Shiv Visvanathan’s column does a fine job of picking out the DNA of Indian VIPs’ appalling behaviour (The Republic’s Pet Gourmands, Apr 10). VIP culture is demeaning in that it creates a ‘superior’ class, where a small section enjoys special privileges. So-called VIPs have taken over our aircraft, airports, sports arenas and bodies, luggage limits, temples and all public places. Sirens and beacon lights of the ‘siren Brahmins’ descend on our roads with amazing regularity. Left to their own, the elite will always do what they can to safeguard and protect their own sectional interests, at the expense of everyone else.
H.N. Ramakrishna, Fairfax, Virginia
I would like to state that the Air India incident involving Ravindra Gaikwad thrashing an official is somewhat unprecedented. It is wholly unbecoming of a parliamentarian in a democratic country. More shocking is that the political party to which the MP belongs has neither condemned the act nor regretted the same. On the contrary, another Sena MP sought support for the act in the Lok Sabha. It is high time the people’s representatives behaved so as to uphold the sanctity of their positions. It is also time for newly elected MPs and MLAs to undergo some sort of briefing about their responsibilities and expectations of them.
Lt Col Ranjit Sinha (retd), New Delhi
Power is known to corrupt people. Apparently, it makes them dumb too. Ravindra Gaikwad’s barbaric assault of an Air India staffer should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with his party, the Shiv Sena. Remember, this MP had also found himself in the eye of the storm back in 2014 as part of a group of Sena MPs who tried to force-feed a Muslim employee at the Maharashtra Sadan over the issue of the quality of food served in the canteen. The people of this country, majority of whom are poor, are literally paying for the upkeep of the parliamentarians (their salary, allowances etc). But no law seems to apply to the representatives of the people.
J. Akshay, On E-mail
The cover story is reflective of the inherently ugly and power-hungry ways Indians of any prominence have taken recourse to. There will always be top dogs and underdogs, and Gaikwad of Shiv Sena thought he could get away with anything. No one these days seems to value restraint. At times, many women, themselves the target of high-handedness almost every day, feel they can be rude to men. Power can corrupt just about anybody. And isn’t the writer of the article, so punishingly scathing about entitled men acting badly, keeping himself safely away from the line of fire? It seems he is quite a rude person himself!
Aditya Mookerjee, Belgaum
Had Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad been disciplined after his involvement in the sordid 2014 Maharashtra Sadan incident, perhaps he would not have behaved the way he did after landing in New Delhi on March 23. The solidarity shown by private airlines to Air India in boycotting the Sena bully is commendable. Imagine what kind of laws such lawmakers would be wishing to make for the people! People’s representatives should always treat people with dignity so that the people respect them and the legislative bodies. Let’s hope Gaikwad and the Sena leadership understand this basic principle.
K.P. Rajan, Mumbai
It seems power has gone right into the Shiv Sena MP’s head. Political leaders are expected to behave cordially with everyone, wherever they go and at all times. But they often think of themselves as monarchs and feudal lords even though the days of monarchs are long gone. They take pride in being revered as demi-gods and are happy when party workers clean their boots. Their tribe is growing by the day.
M.Y. Shariff, Chennai
Politicians who hijack power rather than winning people’s hearts, often create nuisance.
D. Kumar, On E-Mail
I write in response to the thoughtful editorial note—on society’s double standards on ownership of one’s bodies on the basis of gender—by Rajesh Ramachandran (Whose womb is it? Apr 10). When a pregnant woman is compelled by law to deliver a child with Down’s Syndrome, or any other problem, for that matter, on the plea that the foetus is older than 20 weeks, the government should take full responsibility of catering to the child’s special needs. Indeed, if it can dictate on this sensitive matter, it should rise up to look after such people—born of their intransigence—all their lives.
Parshuram Gautampurkar, Sawai Madhopur
Since the country was under colonial rule for a long time, colonial traditions are embedded in our military organisations. The sahayak system is one such tradition (Where Only Brother Officers Close Ranks). The army should have embraced modernity with the changing times and got rid of such traditions. After all, good relations between officers and men are key to an army’s fighting prowess.
R.S., On e-mail
Rajeev Dhavan condemns Justice C.S. Karnan for his “unbecoming conduct” (Let The Gavel Fall Softly, Apr 10), but till today one hasn’t come across a write-up that probes the veracity of the remarks by the controversial judge. How much of truth exists in his claims that his status as a Dalit has earned him insult from fellow judges? And, are the judges of high courts and the SC corrupt? An investigation into such claims by the judge can make a significant difference in the way the public perceives the issue.
Augusto Pinto, Bardez (Goa)
Most of us feel the Justice Karnan issue could have been handled in a refined manner. India is no banana republic; we have a great Constitution. An impeachment (of a judge) could well have been a saner option, but it would be painfully tedious. English statesman Warren Hastings (1732-1818), when acquitted of all charges in a case, remarked sarcastically, “I would have been better off had I pleaded guilty.” But our Parliament completed impeachment proceedings (in August 2011) against Justice Soumitra Sen in three days in the upper house. For now, it’s a legal burlesque going on in the apex court.
Col C.V. Venugopalan, Palakkad
It is a cruel irony that J. Jayalalitha won the last Tamil Nadu assembly elections only to eventually let her aide rule the state—though from outside its geographical borders (Frozen Leaves in Search of a New Spring, Apr 10). Chinnamma would continue with Amma canteens; we’re told that even Karnataka wants to run them with “better quality”. Tamil Nadu seems set to introduce more welfare schemes in Jayalalitha’s name. Overall, the Jaya legacy is set to last for long.
N.S. Raghavendra, Mysore
Refer to the interview with BJD leader Tathagata Satpathy (‘Dangerous if foreign firms can donate funds to parties’, Apr 10). The Aadhaar card is not foolproof to misuse. Sadly, if a Supreme Court direction is not in the government’s interest, the ruling party/coalition introduces a Bill in Parliament and gets it passed. The government’s move to link PAN card with Aadhaar for filing of income tax returns doesn’t hold water if the aim is to eradicate black money. It is absurd to force Aadhaar against the SC’s earlier observation to not make it mandatory for people who enjoy the benefits of government welfare schemes. If passwords can safeguard internet banking, how can they be risky in the case of filing I-T returns? It’s just the personal ego of certain ministers that has led to this friction between the legislature and judiciary.
Mahesh Kumar, New Delhi
This refers to Brewing Racism Blows Up (April 10). What former BJP MP Tarun Vijay told Al Jazeera in the wake of attacks on Nigerian nationals in Greater Noida—“If we were racist, why would we have the entire south, which is complete, you know, Tamil, you know Kerala, you know Karnataka and Andhra, why do we live with them? We have black people around us”—reflects the views of the Sangh Parivar as a whole. Tarun Vijay is no ordinary BJP member but part of its think-tank. He was editor of the RSS weekly Panchajanya for 22 years. Perhaps he had ‘white Aryans’ in mind when he said “we”. Hats off to his magnanimity for allowing the indigenous people to live in their own land. His ill-disguised view of south Indians as inferior beings throws a monkey wrench at the BJP’s efforts to gain a toehold south of the Vindhyas.
D.M., On E-Mail
It’s unfortunate that the long-running “skull protest” by the bare-chested Tamil Nadu farmers with half-shaven heads at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar has not elicited a sympathetic response from the central government so far (There Isn’t Even A Straw Left, April 10). The skulls displayed at the protest site were real. They belonged to farmers who had committed suicide in the state. The TN farmers suffer problems faced by most Indian farmers and they also face problems unique to the state. They are debt-ridden and have to struggle hard to scrap a living with the reduced purchasing power on account of reduced subsidies for power, seeds, fertilisers and pesticides and without the promised increase in the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for farm produce like their counterparts in the rest of the country. The worst drought in 140 years has put the farmers under great stress. As a lower riparian state, TN often goes without getting its due share of water and is driven to adapt to the shrinkage of the insurmountable problems. The much talked about inter-linking of rivers remains a scheme on paper. The silty soils that used to reach the Cauvery delta are now deposited in the reservoirs of the upper riparian states due to frequent closing of the shutters. The irrigation channels in the Cauvery basin have fallen into disuse and they should be improved or reconstructed to ensure the flow of water to agricultural fields. Another disadvantage is that the flat plain of the Cauvery delta is not amenable to the construction of dams. Unfortunately, the central government has taken a complacent and callous attitude to the desperate plight of the farmers in stark and striking contrast to its pandering to big industrials on the pretext of incentivising growth. The insufficiency of Rs 1,793 crore released by the Centre, for drought from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) as against the requirement of Rs 40,000 crore was best brought out by the reaction of the Jantar Mantar protesters.
G. David Milton, Maruthancode
Along with the fake lawyers, the malady facing the judicial system is the lobbying in the higher judiciary (Amicus Curious, Mar 17). One has to roam the corridors of high courts and the SC to understand that face of legality—especially in high-stake cases.
Rajiv Chopra, Jammu
