RESPONSE

Muslim reservation like death warrant for India (Organiser, 22.1.2012); This is with reference to Dr Pravin Togadia’s article  ‘Muslim reservation like death warrant for India’, in Organiser. After Communal Violence Bill it was FDI and now  reservations. Every minister in the UPA government is giving vague suggestions to madam Sonia, just to please her. The suggestions are such that they are slowly and gradually ruining  the country.  This reminds me of poet Iqbal's quote:-

Barbad-e-gulistaan karne ko to
ek hi ullu kaafi hai.
Yaha..har shaakh pe ullu baitha hai
 anjam-e-gulistan kya hoga.

(For destroying the wonderful garden,only one owl is sufficient. Here there is an owl on eachbranch,wonder what would happen to the garden).

As per the media reports it is surprising  to note  that UPA Government is considering giving reservation to backward Muslims within 27 per cent  quota fixed for Other Backward Classes (OBCs), knowing fully well that this is in contravention of the judgment of the Apex Court which clearly states that  there cannot be any reservations on the basis of religion.The reservation, needs to be only on the basis of economic backwardness within 27 per cent quota fixed for OBCs. The quota for Muslims on the basis of religion is therefore, ill-conceived, unconstitutional   and misleading. There cannot be any exclusivity of reservations for Muslims alone.  The findings of Sacher Committee on Muslim backwardness cannot be used to go against the judgment of the Supreme Court.   Besides, the founding  fathers of our Constitution have denied any fruits of reservation to the members of Scheduled Castes, if they change their religion. If for instance a Dalit gets converted to Islam, he would have to rest content with the rules / quotas relating to Muslims.

Nagaraj Rao, by email

The Mullaperiyar Dam and inter-state conflict (Organiser, 15,1.2012); In the  name of Mullaperiyar Dam issue several anti-social and anti-national  elements attacked the Hindus in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. I fail to understand why the Central government didn’t  took any action. It appears that due to corruption charges against the UPA government the entire Central government  has become paralysed. It is hight time that the governments  of Kerala and Tamil Nadu should join hands to probe deeply into the various incidents that took place in these states. The NIA and Raw should step in to organise a collective and effective probe where  attacks were on the Hindu pilgrims going to Sabarimala and Guruvayoor. What was the motive behind these attacks? Did the anti-national terrorists and the conversionists joined hands with the terrorists to isolate the Hindus under the garb of Mullaperiyar Dam reconstruction issue? Why the Central government is keeping silent on these well planned riots?

CLN Swamy, Narayana Bhavan, Kunnur -2

A futile exercise Apropos Tanvir Fatima’s letter (Organiser, 18.12.2011) published in the ‘Reader’s Forum’ column of this nationalist weekly of international repute. It is not surprising that any fact exposing the reality of Islam pinches her most. It amply and explicitly proves that she is neither a truth seeker nor a truthful student of history. Otherwise she would have accepted the truth of history as written by the Islamic court chroniclers of Muslim rulers of this country and foreign Islamic invaders. Has she the cheek to repudiate the facts narrated by Al-Beruni, Farishta, Mulla Budauni, Abul Fazal and such others? Would it not be proper to suggest that she should read not only those history-books which are prescribed by various governments in curriculum alone, but also go through the books written by authorities on the subject kept in the libraries. As regards the ‘Think Tank’, perhaps she belongs to that very ‘Think Tank’ whose thinking is confined only to defend the sins done and crimes committed by Islam since its very inception to this day by hook or crook which is quite natural for any protagonist and advocate of the so-called Religion of ‘Peace’, i.e peace of the graveyard. One should appreciate her courage to plead for a very weak case which is liable to be lost in toto. Futility of her best efforts to mislead  the people in general and readers of Organiser in particular is undouted sure as the falsehood has no legs.

Anand Mishra ‘Abhay’, Sanskriti Bhawan, Rajendra Nagar, Lucknow-226 004

Shift in ideology This refers to two articles “Indian tradition of worshipping women” by Dr Surendra Singh Pakharna and “Save time for Motherhood” by Mridula Sinha in Organiser, 13.11.2011. Both have depicted the high place of a women in Hindu culture and tradition.  There is no doubt that   western culture of consumerism which has further invaded our country with the help of government and its agencies, has degraded women to a commercial commodity. This has  resulted in exploitation of women in most shameful manner. Sita is no more an ideal for modern westernised women. Nor  Sri Ram is ideal for a youngman. A few year ago (A photograph in the Tribune, 9.3.2007) film actress Preity Zinta was photographed with Gursharan Kaur, wife of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on International Women's Day function in New Delhi, as if she was  an ideal women. Amitabh Bachchan was showered with praises by his followers in ‘Kaun Banega Karorpati’ on TV, as if he is no less than a God. Dr Surendra Singh has correctly observed that our government wants to solve the problem by cheap slogans and low dimensional solutions, like economic empowerment of women, women’s liberation programmes, gender equality/bias, etc. All such things are resulting in breaking of families, increase in divorces, social insecurity, moral degradation, and increase in crimes-specially against women.

Anand Prakash, 72/Sector-8, Panchkula-134 109

Surya Namaskar controversy totally unwarranted It appears that some Muslim fanatic organisations even don’t have the basic common sense. I was shocked to learn from the news reports that some Muslim leaders have issued a fatwa against the Madhya Pradesh government’s  efforts to make the Surya namaskar exercise on Swami Vivekananda’s birthday a world record. They feel that it was an  attempt to suffronise the education system without realising  that Surya namaskar, has got nothing to do with religion. It is  just an exercise to keep the body fit. The State’s education department had made elaborate  arrangements to ensure maximum participation in the Surya namaskar exercise just to make a world record, by registering the feat in the Guiness Book of Records. The controvery is totally unwarranted especially when the participtation in the exercise was not compulsory.

Bibhu Dutt Patel, Orissa 

The buck stops here Here’s another one on the entrepreneurship route. Ashutosh Garg recently launched his book The Buck Stops Here: My Journey from Manager to Entrepreneur in the presence of the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah. The book chronicles his attempts at building a chain of pharmacies in India, pointing out how the little things can make one’s business a success or a disaster. Citing an example from his own life, Garg recalled how he launched a store on a highway because he thought, being a busy area, it would give him more visibility. It might have been a novel idea, but it didn’t work because there was no parking space and hence, nobody turned up. “So it does tell us how small things are vital to make an idea a success.” To sum up a life where he turned to entrepreneur after being in a manager’s role for 25 years, Garg, quite naturally, turned to the phrase made popular by former US President Harry S Truman – The buck stops here.

SAHIL SEHGAL, by email

Shame for the government Whichever way you slice it and dice it, the shameful reality is inescapable—India is home to the largest number of hunger people, about a quarter of  the estimated 820 million in the whole world. It is shameful that with 21 per cent of its population undernourished, nearly 44 per cent of under-5 children are under weight and seven per cent of them  dying before they reach five years,  India is firmly established among the world's most hunger-ridden countries. All  this information has been given by the International Food Policy Research Institute(IFPRI) which combines the above  indicators to give us a Global Hunger Index (GHI) according to which India is 67the among the worst 80 countries in terms of malnourishment. I feel to tackle this problem the government should increase more anganwadi schemes with more resources pumped in to tackle this problem. Further the government should provide universal coverage to the PDS with adequate  amounts of grains and pulses, etc Hope UPA government which is always involved in corruption will find  adequate time to  remove malnourishment from India.

RITHA Sagar, Chennai

Congress Lokpal: A big fraud on the country Congress spokespersons and ministers of the UPA government have been making tall claims of bringing a strong Lokpal Bill. But the Bill cooked up and brought by them has proposed a toothless watchdog. The toothless Congress Lokpal is as follows:

* The selection of the Lokpal  will be done by a committee comprising PM, Speaker of the Lok Sabha, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha,  Chief Justice of India and legal expert nominated by the government. The Speaker of the Lok Sabha comes form the ruling establishment  and the nominated member in the panel would be of government’s choice. He cannot go against the wishes of the  government which would have the upper hand for pushing Lokpal of its choice.

* Lokpal would  neither have police power nor any investigation wing (CBI) under it. It would only receive complaints and refer the cases to CBI which will remain under the government. That makes the government free to manipulate investigations.

* Further the process of removing a Lokpal would require a written demand by at least 100 MPs. Any Union Government has at least 272 Lok Sabha MPs with it, and if it finds any of the member of the Lokpal  body inconvenient he or she can be easily removed. In nutshell the government’s Lokpal is a big fraud with the country.

Mahesh Chandra Sharma, E-198, Panki, Kanpur