Letters to the Editor

The Congress rout

B.LINE:Sonia and Rahul Gandhi addressing media persons at Congress H.Q., in the Capital,on.08.03.13. Pic :Kamal Narang

THE Cover Story articles (“The rout”, December 27) are well researched and informative. Indeed, the root cause of the Congress’ rout is the cumulative aversion and anger against the party for its decades of bad governance. This is emerging as a pan-Indian phenomenon.

The party is rife with sycophancy and its leaders have taken voters for granted. In the past 10 years of the United Progressive Alliance government, people have seen a Prime Minister with responsibility but without power. The net result is all-round misrule placing an unbearable burden on the people. Crony capitalism and corruption are the order of the day.

People looked for alternatives, be it in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The results may not be read as a positive vote for the BJP. The Left in India, instead of using this opportunity, is slowly fading into oblivion.

Araveeti Rama Yogaiah

Hyderabad

AS expected, Arvind Kejriwal turned out to be a giant killer. He is truly an aam aadmi (common man). For the sake of aam aadmi, he gave up his lucrative and high-status job and joined Anna Hazare. His naming and shaming of corrupt politicians had little effect on the thick-skinned politicians who wear charges of corruption as a badge of honour. His entry into active politics will help cleanse Indian politics.

In India, high growth may not help the rulers win an election but high inflation helps lose it. Rising prices of onion and other essential items—the result of corruption and malpractices of those in power—saw Sheila Dikshit lose her Chief Minister’s post in Delhi.

S. Raghunatha Prabhu

Alappuzha, Kerala

Sankararaman murder

I WONDER how the prosecution failed to pin down the murderers of A. Sankararaman, manager of Sri Varadarajaswamy temple in Kancheepuram (“Murder and mystery”, December 17). Now that the Sankaracharyas of the Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt have been acquitted, are not the prosecutors duty-bound to find the actual murderers? Acquittal of the suspects cannot be the end of the case, irrespective of whether the victim’s family wants to pursue the case or not.

K.P. Rajan

Mumbai

THE brutal murder of Sankararaman and the subsequent arrest of the Kanchi seer Jayendra Saraswathi on Deepavali day sent shock waves across the country. Many saw this as a political move. One must appreciate the Sankaracharya for taking everything in his stride. He fought bravely to clear the false allegations against him. Even though the verdict brings relief to the seers, justice eludes the family of the deceased.

K.R. Srinivasan

Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh

Nelson Mandela

NELSON MANDELA, popularly known as Madiba, who fought a relentless battle against the oppressive apartheid regime in South Africa and for the restoration of civil rights and a democratic set-up, will forever live as an example for others fighting against oppression (“Light of Africa”, December 27).

Although born four years after Mahatma Gandhi’s two-decade-long civil rights campaign in South Africa that ended in 1914, Mandela was deeply inspired by the Mahatma’s and Martin Luther King Jr’s ideals of non-violence. Mandela renounced worldly pleasures and worked his whole life for the betterment of poor and underprivileged people.

Twenty-seven years of imprisonment did not deter him, and he continued his struggle to end racial hatred. Even while he served as President of South Africa and as the head of the African National Congress (ANC), his ambition was to see his people happy with democratic rights and peaceful coexistence and survival of democracy in the land of South Africa.

Jayant Mukherjee

Kolkata

Sexual harassment

WHY has no action been taken against retired Supreme Court judge A.K. Ganguly, who is facing allegations of sexual harassment of a law intern (“Above the law”, December 27)? Such cases of harassment might deter young girls from entering the profession of law. Even the National Commission for Women has not done enough in this case. Even though a Supreme Court panel has found truth in the allegations of the intern, it stopped short of taking any action. Even the police are waiting for the intern to file a complaint instead of taking suo motu action. Are some citizens more equal than others? The man at the centre of the controversy has not resigned as chairman of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission.

A system needs to be put in place to punish the guilty in the higher echelons of the judiciary. The proposed Bill on Judicial Accountability should deal with this issue.

Deendayal M. Lulla

Mumbai

Narendra Modi

THE BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is striving hard to consolidate Hindu votes for the next general elections in favour of his party by presenting himself as the true heir to the “Hindu nationalist” Sardar Patel (“Patel’s communalism: A documented record”, Cover Story, December 13). However, this will not work as long as a large section of people remember his role in the 2002 Gujarat pogrom. It is apt to quote the final words of A.G. Noorani: “Modi has all his [Sardar Patel’s] faults and none of his gifts.”

N.C. Sreedharan

Kannur, Kerala