Your cover story on Kerala ...And He Can Keep It (July 12) was quite impressive. However, you let the state’s communists off the hook too easily. The party hogs all the credit for the state’s development indices, but does not accept responsibility for its current mess. They invented competitive unionism, still the primary blocker of all initiatives. Nabokov once said that the communists are the apostles of mediocrity, and if they could have their way, they’d raze all mountains to the ground and fill up the valleys to create a just and equitable desert. It’s pretty much what they’ve managed to do to Kerala.
S.C. Menon, on e-mail
You hold the photograph of people reading newspapers at a Kottayam bus-stand mischievously as an example of the lazy Malayali whiling away time in the Kerala afternoon. But the lighting in the picture and the downed shutters of shops clearly show it to be an early morning photograph. No chemist shop will be closed at noon. And rather than wasting time, these people are utilising it by catching up on the day’s news. As for the legend—"36% and 34% respectively of the rural and urban population in the 15-29 age group are unemployed"—it ignores that 70 per cent of the youth are still studying between the ages of 15 and 21. Including them among the unemployed for the sake of inflating your statistic is unfair.
Manjush Reghunath, on e-mail
Yes, God can keep his country. But you have only scratched the surface, other things missed your radar. Like drugs—including heroin and cocaine, mostly around Kozhikode and Kochi—and related crime like bank heists and petrol pump holdups; sex rackets, abuse of minors, sex tourism and flesh trade; Islamist extremism, especially in the north, and spreading; money-laundering and drug smuggling; dams about to burst, because the state can’t repair them; plundering of forests and disappearing fishing courtesy the entry of mnc trawlers.
P. Chandra, Portland, US
Distrust of the ‘outsider’—both foreigner and non-Keralite Indian—is rising, thanks mainly to the Leftists who see them as ‘exploiters’. The result is that industrial development has come to a grinding halt. What we have instead is a money-order economy with local banks bursting at the seams with deposits of over $350 billion. This means idle capital on the one side and free cash for the youth on the other, who have taken to the bottle and illicit sex with a vengeance.
K.S. Menon, Thiruvananthapuram
Your article on Kerala begins by saying, "If statistics were all that mattered...", and continues the discussion on the basis of statistics alone. Bald numbers cannot be validly interpreted without reference to the process behind it. Kerala has a better record of documentation of crime, because of its socially aware population. The fall in the number of girls in a year (962 is still ahead of the all-India average) cannot indicate increased foeticide, unless the trend is studied over a period of time.
S. Balachandran, Mumbai
There is an old saying in Malayalam which roughly translates as this, "Mosquitoes will look only for blood even if they land on a cow’s breast." So it is with your cover story. If the statistics regarding suicides, unemployment and crime rate are high in the state compared to others, it’s only because they’re reported exhaustively. I could agree with you on the per capita consumption of alcohol. But then there are many who think Kerala is a heaven precisely for that reason!
Ramesh Kumar, Kozhikode
I wish the people of my state were a little less politically aware than they are now. Their politicisation begins early, at school level, where children are politically polarised right from class one and learn to see strikes and bandhs as a way of life. The political slogan "Avakashangal nedi edukkum" (we will fight and get our rights) gets ingrained so deeply that people forget their responsibilities. If Kerala has to be rescued from the mire it is in, politics has to be banned from schools and colleges. If Keralites work hard outside their state, it’s because the expats do not have any opportunity to play politics.
Philip P. Eapen, Bangalore
Being a Malayali, I feel most maladies Kerala confronts today stem from the high level of hypocrisy, vanity and foolish pride that are the inherent traits of my tribe. Unbridled, competitive consumerism leads them into a debt trap, then to alcoholism and ultimately to suicide. Similarly, unemployment is acute in Kerala not because there are no jobs but because the Kerala youth is unwilling to take up any available job other than a white-collar one.
Annur K.V. Ravindran, Payyanur, Kerala
The load of exaggeration that has gone into embellishing your story! Why make a hue and cry over a poster of a bride decked in gold and use it to generalise your assumption about our society? I am outraged.
Neelima Kiran, on e-mail
Though touted to have 100 per cent literacy, children have to look to neighbouring states for quality vocational and professional education. Only recently has the Kerala government allowed the setting up of private medical colleges. As for industry, everyone knows that most industrialists do not dare to set up capital-intensive ventures for fear of politically influential labour unions. Money in most places in Kerala comes from nri relatives who are Grade III employees in the Gulf, the UK and the US. Kerala is a dream gone horribly sour. Hope your story will serve as an eye-opener.
Parthasarathy B., Chennai
If Kerala is hell, then most other places in India merit some higher, infernal definition. The only problem I can actually perceive is the fondness of the average Malayali male for liquor. But then where else in India do you have total government regulation in the distribution and sale of imfl, which is responsible for at least ensuring a much lesser frequency of people going blind or dying on account of spurious liquor.
V.V. Pillay, Kochi
God’s Own Country never was. It was just copy-writerly imagination going wild. Kerala was always god-forsaken country.
G. Krishnan, Karukutty, Kerala
A very North Indian perspective! You correspondent seems to have paid a flying visit to the state, and, armed with some statistics, proceeded to write a story on the state without a basic understanding of its ethos. A manufactured quote from a bus conductor goes, "A decade ago, even matriculates wouldn’t stoop so low in the job hierarchy...." But she should know that matriculation has been the minimum qualification for a government bus conductor for many decades. She also attributes the rise in ultrasound centres from 100 to 850 in a decade to "a sharp rise in sex-selective abortions". An increase of 750-odd ultrasound centres in 10 years isn’t anything unusual and can be linked to a rising health consciousness in the society.
P.A. Radhakrishnan Nair, Kayamkulam, Kerala
Kerala, the land of lakes, letters and latex once upon a time has now become the devil’s own den through liquor, lunacy and labour unions.
Dr B. Sudhakar, Changanacherry, Kerala
I was sickened by the Outlook story on Kerala. By piecing together half-truths and naked lies, the magazine has proven its mastery in scurrilous journalism. If you call Kerala "actually a hell", then other parts of India should be "hell twice over".
Augustine Joseph, on e-mail
So, it took an Outlook to call the bluff of the Kerala Model of Development and say that the emperor has no clothes on him. Marxists repudiate nature’s principle of the survival of the fittest and substitute it with eternal privilege for the numerical mass. But their dead weight leaves them floundering in the swamp of proletarian misery which is what Kerala is going through now.
Dr M.S. Prasad, Chennai
Perhaps of all states, Kerala has the highest percentage of people employed in government. This huge votebank has ensured no government can ever touch them. More than 75 per cent of the state’s revenue is spent just on monthly salaries. This large babudom has not only fuelled large-scale corruption but also bred a cavalier attitude towards work. Urbanisation and literacy have brought with it drug abuse, a thriving pornographic industry and prostitution.
Dr Matthew Joseph, Kollam
One aspect you have missed out on is the impact of Gulf money on the Malayali’s attitude, his drinking and depression. When the Gulf job market dries up, Kerala will be worse than Bihar as its impressive social indices will become unsustainable in this crumbling economy.
V.K. Venugopal, Kochi
Living in Kochi, I never knew Kerala was worse off than Bihar, j&k and Gujarat. While Kerala can put Modi’s Gujarat to shame for its communal harmony (the state has 24 per cent Muslims and 19 per cent Christians), Outlook has proven once again that it can do the same to Bush’s propaganda machinery.
Rohit C.J., Kochi
Your cover story was bold and informative but it missed out on one of Kerala’s biggest hoaxes: politics. In the recent LS elections, the Congress-led udf and the Communist-led ldf fought each other bitterly. After the polls, ldf MPs are providing life support to the Congress-led minority government. In Kerala, the Muslim League is communal but at the Centre they are supporting its minister!
K.R. Kumar, Udupi, Karnataka
The problem with Kerala is there are as many political parties as there are issues.
Ajith Nair, Konni, Kerala
God’s Own Country? What a joke it turned out to be.
Siddharth K. Raj, Madurai
I couldn’t help but laugh at the blatant propaganda in the Congress mouthpiece that’s Outlook (G-Whiz’s Brain Bank, July 12). Before bragging on about Team Rahul and the educational qualifications of its members, you could have started with the qualifications of the Gandhi scion himself. No one knows how he got into Trinity College as he never mentions any bachelor’s degree.
Ankan Kumar, Columbus, US
Contrast the irony of a superb library virtually out-of-bounds for scholars (No Dog-Ears Here, July 12) with the shocking fact that the capital of India has no public library comparable to the welcoming and richly endowed New York Public Library or the Library of Congress. The badly-funded Delhi Public Library, a sturdy old warhorse, is still providing excellent service but it cannot cope with a city of Delhi’s size and consequence.
Narayani Gupta,Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi
This is regarding your story on Trap(s) (Barefoot Broadcast, July 12). It should be understood that what trai has proposed is a simple device which will enable consumers to choose between free-to-air channels and pay channels as a group. However, traps and filters are not an obsolete or regressive technology, they’re still being used in the US, Canada and South America. Trap could be a cost-effective solution since it would cost a mere Rs 300-500 approximately against the cost of a set-top box which would cost up to Rs 5,000 for a digital box and Rs 2,500 for an analogue box. Also, contrary to your report, one doesn’t need to instal 20 traps in one house, just one trap can block all pay channels. In Chennai, 97 per cent of the households have opted out of watching pay channels.
Pradip Baijal, Chairman, TRAI, New Delhi
Vinod Mehta’s concern in Delhi Diary (July 12) about Dr Manmohan Singh not getting enough media exposure is misplaced. With editors like him and magazines like Outlook around, it is hardly likely that would ever happen.
S. Vaitheeswaran, New Delhi
Vinod Mehta’s concern in Delhi Diary (July 12) about Dr Manmohan Singh not getting enough media exposure is misplaced. With editors like him and magazines like Outlook around, it is hardly likely that would ever happen.
S. Vaitheeswaran, New Delhi
Long back (June 28), I was leafing through Glitterati when I saw the tattoo on David Beckham’s arm which had his wife’s name, written "in Hindi". Well, the script may have been Devnagari, but it was written in Marathi because it read Vhictoria, not Victoria, as it would be in Hindi.
Prasad Bhangale, New Delhi
I read your article on Tamil vs Kannada (A Question of Antiquity, July 12). I was a student and then a colleague of A.K. Ramanujan and knew him quite well. Though he cherished Kannada and its literature, he never referred to it as ‘classical’ whereas he always spoke of Sangam literature as classical Tamil. What makes Tamil a classical language is that its literature is demonstrably older than that of any other Indian language except Sanskrit (and some Prakrits and Pali), that it has an independent (of Sanskrit) tradition and that it has an extraordinarily rich body of very early literature. The fact that it came from proto-Dravidian is immaterial, since all ‘classical’ languages derive from ‘proto’ languages (Sanskrit, Greek and Latin are from proto-Indo-European). Kannada, for all its richness, does not possess an independent tradition—it owes too much to Sanskrit—and it does not have a substantial body of literature as old as that of Tamil. Sangam literature dates from the 1st to the 3rd century AD.
George Hart, Prof of Tamil, Univ. of California, Berkeley
It’s astonishing that spoken Kannada contains words like uhiru for fingernail which is found only in old Tamil literature and is now extinct in spoken Tamil. When the Greeks and the Romans traded with south India, they landed at ports like Puhaar in the east and Musiri in the west which were Tamil territory. Early Sangam literature is acknowledged to belong to BC.
Dr R. Narasimhan, London
K.R. Narayana’s comments are appalling. Tamil is a common language that has no caste barriers, only regional dialects, just like any other language. His suggestion that Tamil is divided on casteist lines is misleading. In that case, is Kannada too divided along caste lines?
Divya Manian, Singapore
Rather than chauvinists on both sides hijacking and exploiting the issue, independent scholars of linguistics should deliver the verdict on whether Tamil or Kannada is the classical language. K.V. Narayana is intuitively right when he attributes different dialects of a language to castes rather than regions.
Murali Asadha, Mugaiyur, Tamil Nadu
I think it’s plain jealousy that’s making Kannadiga intellectuals link the request for making Kannada a classical language to the status of Tamil. It is well-known and proven that Tamil’s Sangam era coincided with the start of the Christian era. The Tholkappiyam, in fact, was written at this time. So even if Tamil is not the original parent language, it is the oldest of all surviving Dravidian languages. Let Kannadigas accept that as a reality and learn to live with it.
Shankar Subramanian, Warsaw
Kannadigas suffer from some inscrutable inferiority complex especially when it comes to the Tamils. They look at Tamils as their enemies—primarily because of the Cauvery water issue; riparian states assume the role of "givers". If the case of Tamil is taken up, it is not to prove a point over any other language but to its own cause.
Tamil Selvan, Bangalore
You claim Tamil and Kannada linguists are "arrayed" on "opposite sides to lay claim to a classical status". Well, they weren’t till you made them. Anyone who knows his/her subject does not doubt the classical status of Tamil.
Gowrishankar E. S., London
While I as a Kannadiga don’t grudge the granting of a classical status to Tamil, such a move by the government will give more ammunition to those Tamil activists (and there are many) who have nothing but contempt for other languages.
Yashovardhana Kote, Columbus, US
The Tamil language is beyond comparison, not just among the four Dravidian languages but also with respect to any other Indian language since it has been a contemporary of most ancient languages such as Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Mandarin. Its value and reach are so that it has been recognised outside India in four countries as one of their national languages (Singapore, Malaysia, Mauritius and Sri Lanka). I speak Telugu.
Arun Prasanna, Chennai
I think Kannada too should be dubbed classical. It meets the one important condition: that it is extinct. I don’t think anyone outside India’s heard of it!
M.S. Sankar, London, UK
Speaking about Tamil and Kannada in the same breath is like juxtaposing Outlook with Debonair.
Krishna K., on e-mail
In the article The Tube Gets to Tenali (July 5), an image of Toonz Animation India’s Adventures of Hanuman was wrongly attributed to a Pentamedia show. Also, Mr Bill Dennis, quoted as Toonz’s ceo, is not with the company any longer. The error is regretted.
