Apropos the cover story (Towards a Cleaner Poll, February 23), a lot of these corrupt politicians belong to the BJP, a party most vocal about character, culture, high morals, patriotism and other such hollow ideals. It’s discouraging to see Outlook too highlighting this fascist party and projecting A.B. Vajpayee as a likely PM, when he’s patently a pastmaster in doublespeak, a pseudo-liberal, a spineless, boneless chicken.
Abhinav Chaturvedi, Ghazipur
It seems CEC Gill’s strict ruling on the selection of ‘unfair’ candidates for the 12th Lok Sabha fell on deaf ears. West Bengal seems to be the only state which has fielded genuine candidates. Hats off to CM Jyoti Basu and opposition Trinamul Congress’ Mamata Banerjee for selecting candidates as per Gill’s directives.
T.R. Anand, Calcutta
You’ve done a commendable job by publishing the list of 72 candidates who have criminal cases against them. I suggest you also publish a list of communal people wearing the mask of secularism like Mr I.K. Gujral. He’s hand in glove with the BJP merely for a parliamentary berth. So far, he hasn’t made any statement the BJP in this election.
Amulya Noor, New Delhi
Your cover story was an eye-opener. Indian democracy has been reduced to a mere exercise for choosing criminals. Corruption and murder no longer stigmatise our ‘political leaders’ as villains.
Periya Muraleedharan, Kasargod, Kerala
Your cover story points to the weaknesses in our system. The law tends to favour muscle-men and proves its inequality for all. The existing rules don’t even help the ECin checking the entry of dubious characters into Parliament. We need to have a national debate not only on criminalisation of politics but also on the amendment of state laws as a whole.
S.S. Saar, New Delhi
Congratulations for focusing on 72 criminals who ‘ought not to contest elections’. May I request you to hold mock trials for some of these individuals at a venue like Rajghat? I’m sure many eminent Indians will be willing to function as judges, prosecutors, defenders and even witnesses for these trials.
Rr adml Satyindra Singh, New Delhi
The issue of ‘criminalisation of politics’ stands much debated without any conclusive result. Your effort is indeed praiseworthy. The fact that 72 out of a sample of 500 Lok Sabha candidates were found to be facing criminal charges means our next Lok Sabha may have 14.4 per cent criminals as our representatives—a threat to the very root of our democracy. Yours is a job well begun. The thread must now be picked up at the regional level and such panels should scrutinise the remaining 4,193 candidates.
Onkar Chopra, New Delhi
Outlook has moved another step ahead of other magazines with this cover story. If our country and democracy itself has to be saved, it’s imperative for the government or the EC to take proper steps to disqualify such candidates from contesting future elections.
Ajay, Kollam
Our political system needs a complete facelift. Or else India faces complete ruin. It’s time for educated people to come forward and choose the right leader, with a clean record. Only such a leader can take our country to prosperity.
Romit S. Katdare, Received on e-mail
I couldn’t help but feel that Outlook has some deep-rooted bias towards the Nehru-Gandhi family after reading the profile on Rahul Gandhi (The Man Nobody Knows, February 16). Is it unpardonable to be an average student? Is there anything wrong in studying abroad? Is it a sin to have a Colombian girl-friend? And finally, as your correspondent has made it out to be, is it inexcusable to have ambitions?
Your profile of Rahul was vicious, immoral, false, inaccurate, misguided and unpardonable. Almost 99 per cent of Indian politicians’ kith and kin receive favours and positions on a platter. This family, on the other hand, has lost everything and not gained much. It sacrificed two precious lives on the altar of Indian politics. Don’t they deserve a little more dignity?
Roshan Kattassery, Bangalore
What a touching piece! This ‘Rajivji ki moorat’ has surely been sent by God to solve all of India’s problems. So what if he has been a below-average student? There’s no dearth of scriptwriters for him. I’m sure, in a few months’ time, he’ll become the soul of India as his illustrious ancestors did in the past.
N.S. Sharma, Delhi
I was filled with impotent rage after reading Stubbed Out Sticks (February 16). Beedi-rolling is a lucrative business; why can’t labourers be paid at least moderate wages? What happened to MP’s political stalwarts like Rajmata Vijayaraje, V.C. Shukla, Madhavrao Scindia or Arjun Singh? Are these things no more in their political agenda? Justice Shah, enquiring into Emergency excesses, observed: "It is man’s inhumanity towards man that is more shocking." It’s worth repeating even today.
D.V. Madhava Rao, Chennai
We have labour departments both at the Central and state level, but mandarins here have done little to solve problems. Labour officials often themselves act as patrons to beedi barons. They tighten their grip further by taking advantage of loopholes in the law. The various chapters of our labour laws need amendments. Such amendments, especially to the 1947 Industrial Disputes Act, would make a lot of difference.
A.R.M. Ismail, Bellary
The article Dante’s Inferno (February 16) is inaccurate and total-lly baseless, primarily because the information gathered is from secondary sources like the foreign media and the shipbreakers’ association. If you can come down to Alang, I can show you the big difference there is between your report and the reality. In fact, all development reports relating to Alang are being sent regularly to local dailies in Ahmedabad, which have published the same in the local editions. Reports from two independent agencies—the Gujarat Ecology Commission and the Metallurgical & Engineering Consultants (India) Ltd, also establish that the environmental aspects mentioned in Outlook are far from the truth.
K. Kailashnathan, Gujarat Maritime Board, Ahmedabad
You seem to have astigmatic vision with regard to the BJP (Rumblings at the Top, February 16). First, you mention Advani had announced Vajpayee as BJP’s prime ministerial candidate as early as 1995. Then, you claim,the Sangh has other thoughts. If the Sangh’s dicta prevails—as is assumed by you, would Advani have done so? The policies of any party are a result of deliberations among its top leaders, and cannot be one-man shows.
Bipin Jhaveri, Jamnagar
In a photograph used in the article Spot the Fake One (November 3), the brand Tosiba owned by Tosiba Appliances was inadvertently shown as part of a collection of counterfeits. We regret the error.
You’ve carried an overload of political stories in the last few issues which have made Outlook a bit boring. Sonia’s face is becoming a trifle stale to look at on your covers. Can’t you deal with ‘real’ issues like corruption, etc that are the scourge of India today? Also, every time you report on a problem like the Alang shipbreaking yard, you should take up the issue with the officials concerned and publish their comments.
A. Srinivasan, Received on e-mail
I had become an avid reader of Outlook, subscribed by my father, because of its wide variety of news content. But in the last few issues, your magazine seems to have become a purely election newsmagazine, with all its pages devoted to only election-related items which I, as a 13-year-old, find repetitive and boring. I suggest you change your focus fast or you’ll lose a reader like me to another magazine.
Shruti Dhingra, New Delhi
Mr J.N. Dixit has taken up the cudgels on behalf of the version of the incriminated person—his colleague Sagarika Ghose (No One’s Above the Law, March 2). It’s necessary to remind him that the freedom of action of any diplomat is restricted not only by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961, cited by him, but also by the legislation of the country of origin and of posting. It’s this flaw that Mrs Ghose has tried to take advantage of, by using her privileged status of a journalist and giving the incident an exaggerated dimension by taking recourse to stories which proved to be all made up, as against solid testimonies from eyewitnesses.
Taking the plea that it was a holiday for violating the law is unpardonable, and the logic she invokes to explain away a serious offence—disregard of traffic rules as by law established—devoid of sense. We leave it to Mr Dixit’s judgement who pretended to be above the law: the one who respected the single-way rule, as made out under law, or the one who entered the way from the opposite side.
When short of argument and anticipating the arrival of the police called up by the spouse of the diplomat, Mrs Ghose put forward the argument of diplomatic immunity in order to reverse the situation and present herself as the aggrieved party.
Abdelhamid Senouci Bereksi, Algerian Ambassador
No less a person than J.N. Dixit, a former foreign secretary, found the Algerian envoy’s wife guilty of assaulting Sagarika Ghose. I feel the press usually doesn’t take note of incidents of misbehaviour involving foreign diplomats and their family. So, it was a pleasant surprise to see some newspapers reporting on the episode.
Visiting a vet in south Delhi some years ago, I found an Italian diplomat saying Indians weren’t dependable because the vet was late for his appointment. An Indian woman who’d come with him threatened to unleash her dogs and said the diplomat was fully justified in abusing India and Indians; that she was ashamed to be one. Fortunately the vet arrived by then.
I wrote to the MEA about the incident but got no response. I also wrote to a few prominent Delhi newspapers but to no avail. Earlier, when I was working in a Bombay newspaper, I noticed a foreign missionary addressing a crowd at Azad Maidan. He was extolling the virtues of Christianity, which was legitimate, but then he went on to dissuade his audience from following Lord Krishna saying that "even as a child Krishna stole butter churned by his own mother and later he was surrounded by women of loose morals". I protested at his remarks at which he asked his aides to throw me out. Not one Hindu in the audience stood for me. I went to lodge a complaint with the police where I was told to put the news in my own paper. I gave the story to my chief reporter who asked me "what’s the news in it?" and did not publish it. As a people, we swallow too many insults from foreigners. I’m glad Sagarika Ghose stood up for Indian self-respect.
K.R. Sundar Rajan, New Delhi
Apropos Jamila Varghese’s letter (Laughter is not a Bitter Medicine, March 2), as a reader who does not belong to any political party, I found the February 2 cover repulsive. Cartoons are one thing, distorted images quite another. I am a connoisseur of cartoons but see little humour in ‘morphing’ (if that’s the term) photographs.
C. Kesi, Chennai
