Letters

Readers respond.

Genocide in Gaza

The cover package unravelled the Israel-Palestine conflict in all its unvarnished authenticity (Cover Story, November 17). The Editor’s Note was a candid summary of the “madness of primitive hates”. One cannot agree more with Tabish Khair’s words in his article “Hatred wins”: “To argue that Israel needs to exist because it is there is a secular argument, and I will make it strongly in any company. But then, this argument applies to Palestinians, too, and I will make it just as strongly.”

Ayyasseri Raveendranath

Aranmula, Kerala

I WISH Frontline had published photographs of horrified Israeli citizens too. It is lamentable that the UN resolution calling for cessation of hostilities in Gaza has not said a word against Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel. With Israel being surrounded by many hard-core terror outfits, the Jews will have to fight hard to preserve and protect their sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Kangayam R. Narasimhan

Chennai

Your cover story package is a dispassionate study of the Palestine-Israel conflict, especially post October 7. Both history and geography clearly adduce to the legitimate existence of Palestine, and Israel’s “Operation Iron Swords” will negatively impact its interests in the long run.

Israel has only itself to blame for the series of setbacks against it in the past and for the present mess. The Jewish lobby’s influence in policy formulation against Palestine in the US—declaring disputed Jerusalem as its capital from Tel Aviv with the connivance of Trump and its perpetrated siege of Palestinian territories—continuously sustain the trigger for resistance against Israel.

Contextually, India’s stand on Israel confirms the glaring fact that the present regime suffers from policy aberrations, unmindful of the commitment of India to human rights, justice, and fairness.

B. Rajasekaran

Bengaluru

The ceaseless procession of deaths of civilians in Gaza is conscience-shattering, and the world’s empathy should not be lost to the semantic jugglery of “humanitarian pause”. It is neither the hypocrisy of the US-led Western liberalism nor the squeamish binaries of conservative illiberalism but the absence of the moral order which leads to bloodshed and trauma, increased exploitation, violent polarisation, and large pockets of anarchy, as the wars in Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Gaza show.

What is required is accountability and the application of international law consistently and unambiguously. We need moralpolitik, instead of realpolitik, to ensure the establishment of moral order.

Sudipta Ghosh

Jangipur, West Bengal

The UK, the US, and the UN erred with their Partition plan for Palestine in order to serve their own trading, economic, and global interests. As a result, Israel and Palestine have been at loggerheads for over 75 years, more so after October 7. It seems that no one can douse the fire ignited by the Western powers anytime soon.

The Israeli leaders and the West seem to be desirous of creating a “Greater Israel” out of Palestine after forcibly displacing all the Palestinians from the region by means of air attack and land assault, thus making Palestine totally free of Palestinians and also erasing the name “Palestine” once for all.

M.Y. Shariff

Chennai

The article “The question of Palestine” by Tariq Ali and other allied articles were unduly critical of Israel and have missed out several important facts. Contrary to the views expressed in the articles portraying Israel as the aggressor, it is pertinent to mention here that Israel has undertaken several peace initiatives in the past.

Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert met with the then Palestine Liberation Organization chiefs Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas respectively in 2000 and 2008 at Camp David and offered them a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 94 per cent of the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its capital. This was repeatedly turned down by the Palestinian leadership.

Tariq Ali seems to be oblivious to the fact that Israel has repeatedly been forced to retaliate for its own self-defence and survival as a consequence of the coordinated and the relentless sustained aggression it had to bear as a direct consequence of Islamic fundamentalism.

Terrorists across the world speak and act only in one language: that of violence, bloodshed, and hatred. Israel has caught the imagination of a vast number of people across the world because it continues to respond in the same language and not otherwise as contended by the author. The bare fact is that the security and interests of its citizens are paramount for the state of Israel unlike ours, where vote-bank politics and armchair critics of human rights violations dominate the headlines.

B. Suresh Kumar

Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

To sir, with love

I WAS deeply moved and inspired by the photo essay featuring the primary school teacher Deepnarayan Nayak who has turned the village streets of Namo Jamdoba into open-air classrooms with mud-wall blackboards and even provided students with afternoon snacks to combat malnutrition (“The 3G teacher”, November 17). Stories like Nayak’s, which highlight the transformative power of education, deserve more recognition.

Nibin Daniel

Kolkata

Sudha Bharadwaj

The interview with the social activist Sudha Bharadwaj (“A lot of democratic space has been lost”, November 17) was informative. Her courage to call out the government, her conviction to restore the rights of Adivasis, her commitment as a lawyer, and her perseverance despite her incarceration will surely inspire us youngsters to stand up and speak up for justice.

Terry Infanto Thomas

Kolkata

Bihar caste survey

Hats off to Nitish Kumar for taking a legendary decision to release the results of the Bihar caste survey in spite of stiff opposition (Cover Story, November 3). According to the survey, 112 castes that fall under Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) account for 36 per cent of the State’s population. The survey results will become a game changer if an EBC Chief Minister comes to power.

Alen Joseph George

Kasaragod, Kerala

Kota coaching centres

“The tipping point” is a sharply written, meticulously researched article that I wish to compliment Frontline on(Cover Story, October 6).

I had a friend who was a part of the now infamous Kota coaching centres for the much-debated NEET exam, who could not clear the exam despite being a diligent hardworking student. I never did go to Kota for I was not interested in science. I was a restless teenager, so in order to chastise me, my parents would often say that if I did not mend my ways, they would send me to Kota. In my teenage daydreams, that warning assumed nightmarish proportions. After reading the Frontline story, I realised that while to me they were only reprimands, to many it was a grim reality.

Thank you for publishing this story, Frontline. It was an eye-opener for readers like me. For the students involved in these machinations, it provides a semblance of closure even as it serves as a reminder to the government that while education is a great proposition, it cannot be greater than life itself.

Tejaswi Sharma

Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh

German voting model

I am 83 years old. I enjoy your magazine, which gives us a lot of detailed information and analysis, but so far it has not discussed our voting patterns. The first-past-the-post system has proved that it is not suitable for our country. We have to follow the German model of voting that is stable so that we will have adequate oppositions in our legislatures.

I was informed only Parliament can act on modelling the German system. My wish is that our democracy must be stable like that of Germany. The Congress could have passed legislation to change this system, but they believed they would rule forever. I hope Frontline will take it up.

Joe A. Lewis

Mumbai