How can one say that the BJP lost Election ’04 when they actually secured 129 seats, a few short of the Congress (Back to the Good Lord, May 24)? The lesson for the BJP is it should go it alone the next time rather than carry useless coalition baggage. Also, the BJP did not lose because its government did not do any good but because the good it did was not enough for our large population. No party can bring prosperity to ‘all’ Indians in a five-year term.
Rajesh Chary, Brighton, UK
Vinod Mehta is giving undue credit to the people of India (You Can’t Buy the People of India, May 24). He seems to suggest that it was a conscious decision on people’s part, of which he knew all along. If people’s intentions were so obvious, the exit polls would have made a more accurate prediction. Truth is, the results actually surprised everyone; even the media did not know which way the wind was blowing. Mr Mehta can stop pretending otherwise.
Vijayender S., Hyderabad
I wish the country’s ‘awesome’ verdict was truly the result of considered evaluation by "the poor, the illiterate, the voiceless and the underprivileged of the earth’s largest democracy" that Vinod Mehta talks of. It was, to a large extent, the product of a calculated campaign of the rich vs poor struggle initiated and driven by politicians who had nothing more positive to offer than promises of entitlement.
K. Girishankar, Marlton, US
Mr Mehta is right, the BJP camp must have realised you cannot buy the people of India. The lady cannot and will not sell India. If the BJP pundits and Mahajans read our own history, they’ll know that Indians don’t need outsiders to sell India, they specialise in it themselves.
R.G. Deshpande, Mumbai
Vinod Mehta says the world must learn from Indian democracy. What? That you vote for a particular symbol in return for a free sari or bottle of liquor?
Abhilash Thadani, on e-mail
Apropos See You CEO (May 24), I still believe Chandrababu Naidu had a genuine long-term objective for AP’s development. Yes, the one area he badly ignored was the corruption in the administration and in his own party. Things won’t be easy for YSR either. The promise of free power brought him to power, it will also sink the state exchequer and him with it.
T. Laxminath, Hyderabad
Our politics is so much like a Bollywood film...loud, vulgar, violent yet so gripping and entertaining.
Abhijit Ghosh Dastidar, Manama, Bahrain
Dr Manmohan Singh is a nice and competent man (The Ascent of Man, May 31). I wish him the best despite my aversion to Congress-style dynastic politics. One just hopes he does not end up following in the footsteps of Giani Zail Singh in terms of his relationship and servility to the new avatar of ‘Madam’.
Kumar Sambhav, New Delhi
A doctor at the Safdarjang Hospital in Delhi, I had, on this particular day, finished the rounds of my ward when I found a pleasant surprise awaiting me outside my room—Dr Manmohan Singh and his wife. They were there to see me on a colleague’s reference for consultation. I spent some 30-40 minutes with them. Throughout my interaction with Mrs Singh, Dr Singh sat quietly, listening attentively to the medical discussion. The consultation over, I got up to see them off but Dr Singh stopped me, saying, "I insist you stay. Please attend to your other patients." Prescription in hand, this great ex-minister, ex-rbi governor and what not left as any ordinary citizen would. India is indeed lucky to have a scientist as president and a top economist as its prime minister.
R.S.K. Sinha, Delhi
Dr Manmohan Singh’s ascent to prime ministership coupled with A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s presidentship could be described as the best of India Shining ever.
Rina Mukherji, on e-mail
The current promoters of India Inc—Sonia and her children—have decided, in the best traditions of modern capitalism, that ‘ownership’ and ‘management’ are two different things and ‘management’ is best left to ‘professionals’ like Manmohan Singh. Hope this results in ‘greater value’ for all ‘shareholders’ —we the people of this country.
Arun Chillara, on e-mail
Like other armchair intellectuals, Swapan Dasgupta (The Inner Voice of Sonia, May 31) too asks where Sonia’s inner voice was when she claimed she had 272 MPs in ’99 and why she waited till the last moment to refuse the PM’s post. To the first, I’d like to say that just because Sonia made that claim in 1999 doesn’t mean she would not have refused to become PM later. As for her refusing the post only after all the allies had agreed to her candidature, it was only to prove a point—that she was as Indian as anyone else. Since we don’t have a system to hold a referendum over the citizenship issue, this was the closest way to achieve it.
Anand Jadahi, Chicago, US
Sunil Rangaiah in his letter to the editor (May 31) writes that since Jews in America are "never preferred for the top job", it follows that Sonia Gandhi, incidentally an Indian citizen, too should not become the PM. Would he have a problem if an America-born Jew was democratically elected to the top job? He also attributes the recent turn of events to the Indian public being uneducated. Would he rather that the illiterate (and hence gullible) public had believed all the stories of religious hatred spread by fanatics and voted the BJP to power?
Walter Phillips, on e-mail
Thirty years ago, there was this clown on the political scene who answered to the name of D.K. Baruah. The immortal contribution of this granddaddy of Congress-style toadies was the slogan ‘Indira is India, India is Indira’. Baruah seemed to have spread his seed all around. Little Baruahs are sprouting up everywhere now, like thousands of baby Olive Ridleys breaking free from their shells all at once and marching unitedly towards the sea. And they are all croaking in concert to say, ‘Sonia is India, India is Sonia’. Poor Baruah. He didn’t live long enough to see the culture of sycophancy he invented go mainstream.
Raghu Reddy, Bangalore
We have in the BJP leaders who are so crass that their behaviour is devoid of any personal dignity, so racist that a few thousand deaths in Gujarat mean nothing to them. The Outlook cover too screams "person of foreign origin" (Foreigner is an Alien Concept, May 24). I’d like to ask: who is truly Indian? We are a melting pot of myriad cultures created by diverse settlers—we are descendants of Caucasian, Mongol, Arab, Syrian, African, Chinese, Macedonian Aryans of Germanic races, Australasians and what have you.
Chitra Panicker Amarnath, New Delhi
Vajpayee would’ve been nothing without Advani. You seem to forget that elementary fact. It was Advani who led the BJP from two seats to 89. If his Rath Turned Turtle (May 24), it was after he came under Vajpayee’s influence.
Rajendran Kumaran, London, UK
Whoever said Sonia was one more ‘Gungi Gudiya’? It’s amazing how many aces one victory has left in her hands. By choosing to make a Sikh the prime minister, she has also redeemed the sins of her late husband who during the ’84 riots had said, "If a big tree falls, the ground shakes."
R.S. Muralidhara, on e-mail
I am glad that a democratic India chose to elect Sonia as PM even if she chose not to take it up. An able person should not be deprived of her political right and leadership privilege simply because she has a dynastic background.
Soihem Panmei, Lamshang, Manipur
Sonia’s move is reminiscent of two events and two personalities in Indian politics. One, Mahatma Gandhi in 1947. When the Union Jack was lowered and the tricolour hoisted on the Red Fort, the Mahatma, under whose leadership freedom for India was won, was nowhere around. Mission accomplished, he handed over the country’s reins to Nehru. Second, JP in 1977. He was the man responsible for restoring democracy in India after it was derailed by Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. The result was an electoral win for the Janata Party but JP, the architect of this ‘doosri azadi’, was only a spectator at the swearing-in of the ministers.
Mookhi Amir Ali, Mumbai
In his May 10 Delhi Diary, Vinod Mehta wishes death on the cliche. Yet he is evidently not averse to using them himself. In this very diary he uses well-worn chestnuts like ‘spin doctors’, ‘whizkid’, ‘whistlestop tour’, ‘you live and learn’, etc. Tulsidas had said long ago, Par updesh kushal bahutere (There’s no dearth of people advising or admonishing others). Mr Mehta, please note.
Ramesh Shrivastava,Korba, Chhattisgarh
Apropos ETmail: Can You Read This? (May 24), why wait till 2009 and go all the way to the Himalayas? If you want to see aliens, go to Allahabad and watch our ex-HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi.... With his crackpot ideas on astrology and the iims, he has proved that he comes not just from a different planet but also from a different time (read 4000 BC).
A.M. Saied, Melbourne, Australia
For a Malayali who hasn’t seen a single Kannada movie of Dr Rajkumar, what matters to me is the man’s music. Somehow your profile (Princedom in Sanyas, May 24) misses this. The thespian has produced several excellent albums of Carnatic music, especially Purandaradas kritis, which have greatly enriched our cultural tradition.
Satish Babu, on e-mail
Rajkumar was never a great actor. The reason he survived for so long was because others were too mediocre.
Sam Siyappan, San jose, US
The term ‘mercenary’ has a negative connotation, with the individual interested only in the money he can obtain from a situation. As such, the reasoning R. Srivatsan expresses in his May 17 letter (not surprisingly from Newport, US) is flawed. His ‘right’ to work as a mercenary is akin to the ‘right’ to be a criminal—call it an exercise of ‘free will’ by a free person. But when aspiring mercenaries get pensions from the Indian taxpayer, indicating the bonds with the State have undergone only a metamorphosis, then logically the State has the right to take suitable action. Government policy—that the army shall go into Iraq only under UN—can’t be shamelessly flouted for love of money by its pensioners. Tomorrow, the boot could be on the other foot. Then they won’t get protection even under Geneva Convention.
Air Commodore S.N. Bal, Pune
As a ‘mother’ of a four-year-old lab, I know the deep bonding humans can have with pets and the therapeutic effects their company can have on us. Reading about dogs with jobs (When Paws are Props, May 24) only confirmed this.
Brinda Upadhyaya, on e-mail
Why should Old Man Khush always be right? Why should he say Vinod Mehta quotes a limerick wrong when he talks of a St John’s student wanting to "make love" to the swans and he actually wants to bugger them (Delhi Diary, May 10), I think Mr Mehta’s version of the limerick (Delhi Diary, Apr 19) is the right one. For, if as Dil-Khush says the b-word is the operative one, then why would the Head Porter offer his daughter? Why not himself?
Jayakumar Menon, Mumbai
