US President Donald Trump has given India a true New Year gift by breaking the begging bowl of a haughty Pakistan and making it squirm by withholding $255 million as aid to fight terrorism in its own country and in adjoining Afghanistan. Trump rightly stated in his Tweet that Pakistan had been fooling the US for the last 15 years in the name of rooting out terrorism. Unlike Barack Obama, who played the ‘pleases all’ game, Trump’s conviction in not beating around the bush must have come as a welcome relief to India. This rebuff has brought a pall of gloom in Pakistan’s administration and its lone all-weather friend, China, which has come to its rescue to assuage its feelings. US President Donald Trump’s lambasting of Pakistan as a “safe haven for terrorism” is apt. America is increasingly feeling the ‘terror heat’, advocated and backed by Pakistan. It must have irked Trump to no end. The President has cushioned his indictment of Pakistan with action by holding back two $50 million foreign financing to Islamabad. Now that Pakistan’s ‘double game’ is exposed, the US cannot halt in its tracks. Maintaining unflinching pressure on Pakistan is very essential to further expose Islamabad. That said, the US rushing in more troops to Afghanistan is definitely no music to Pakistan’s military. However, all this is good news to New Delhi. Contrary to expectations, after President Trump assumed office nearly a year ago, India-US ties have been bolstered by the straight talking Trump.
M C SHARMA, Panki , Kanpur
Let’s See
Apropos the cover story of Organiser ‘Can Rajini Salvage it?’ by R Veera Raghavan dated January 14. Tamil superstar Rajinikanth, who has chosen the current phase of political instability in Tamil Nadu to announce his much-awaited plunge into politics, has lent an air of lofty idealism to his political philosophy by characterising it as “spiritual”, which can be presumed to mean value-based. It remains to be seen whether he will succeed in reforming the State’s notoriously venal political culture where voters see nothing wrong in demanding a share of the political spoils as “ballot money” during elections. Can the actor-now-turned-politician tame all this and even a section of the bureaucracy for whom bribes are an entitlement?
V N MUKUNDARAJAN,
Thiruvananthapuram
Inflaming Casteism
This refers to the editorial titled ‘Executing the Pakistani Ploy ?’ in Organiser dated January 14.It’s a shame that when the world is moving ahead , some miscreants are in our country are flaming casteism. It is a pity that an incident that took place 200 years ago is bringing the entire State of Maharashtra to a standstill today. It is a sad reality that different political parties in India that have supported the protests have done so for electoral benefits. It is beyond one’s comprehension how a country that has advanced by leaps and bounds in the economic and technological fields since Independence has remained at a primitive stage as far as caste is concerned. Such developments could do irretrievable damage to the concept of an integrated India in the long run. Unable to defeat the BJP in various elections, Opposition parties are trying to exploit every available opportunity to gain political mileage. The Congress Party’s appeasement of Hardik Patel in Gujarat and the National Congress Party’s readiness to join hands with Dalit groups in Maharashtra are examples of opportunistic politics. V SUBRAMANIAN, Chennai
Apropos article titled ‘Education : Burden of Colonial Baggage ‘by Maria Wirth in Organiser dated Jan 7, is an eye opening article. Handing over of education first to missionary institutions and then to private, corporate institutions is one of the key reasons for such a disaster. The English medium is not only dividing Indian society but also making us dependent on western countries. The main reason for India lagging behind in science and technology is the medium of instruction which is in English and not in the mother tongue.
V BALA SUBRAMANYAM, By email
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An excellent analysis of Indian education system. After Independence, India is being ruled by Brown Englishmen instead of White Englishmen. Two to five per cent English knowing population rule 98/95 per cent of the population. Those who do not know English are being looked down upon everywhere. DNA (Daily News & Analysis, Mumbai) has carried an interview with Israeli historian Esther Carmel-Hakim who tells DNA’s Iftikhar Gilani “For me, the greatest achievement of Israel and the Zionist movement was reviving a language that was spoken nowhere. Jews did not know Hebrew. It was left to a lady who published a dictionary of Hebrew, coined words, to make it a speaking language.” Post-Independence Indian leaders have not shown similar tenacity. What a shame!
M D KINI, By email
Assert
This is with reference to the article ‘Jihadis Find New Haven in Bengal’ by Basudeb Pal, in Organiser dated Dec 17, giving details of terror activities of Muslims in so many important cities and states, especially in Bengal. We have to spend so much money and resources on installing fencing on our borders with Bangladesh, and also Pakistan, to check illegal infiltration of Muslims and terrorists. Neither Bangladesh nor Pakistan, both much weaker countries, require any such fencing and vigilance by security forces. Why it is so? The only reason is, that, both are Islamic countries, with hatred for Hindus and non-Muslims. Quite opposite to it, truncated Bharat is not a Hindu/non-Muslim country, and has a special status for the Muslims in the Constitution, apart from mild nature of the Hindus. And the pity is, that we feel proud of this weakness and call it secularism. This weakness has made our country a very soft state, incapable of defending from the mischief being done by our small neighbours, one in the west and other in the east. Then what is the solution? The only solution is to make our country constitutionally a homeland for the Hindus and non-Muslims, with no space for Muslims, just as Pakistan and Bangladesh have no place for the Hindus. Secondly, we must rename our country as truncated India or Khandit Bharat, to send a message to everyone, that Muslims had broken India in 1947, and created their separate homeland Pakistan (including Bangladesh). Therefore absolutely no claim to live in truncated India. If we do not do it at the earliest, we the Hindus and truncated India are bound to suffer and even lose our existence.
ANAND PRAKASH, Panchkula, Haryana
