Apropos article “Joining the Illustrious Legacy” (Organiser, June 17, 2018) it was interesting to know how senior leaders like Zakir Hussain, former President of India, Vinoba Bhave, Jaiprakash Narayan and even VV John, former head of the National Minorities Commission, had spoken positively about the RSS.
“The allegations against RSS of violence and hatred against Muslims are wholly false. Muslims should learn a lesson of mutual love, cooperation and organisation from RSS” said Zakir Hussain, whereas Jaiprakash Narayan expressing confidence in the RSS had observed ” I have no doubt that you are already imbued with these ideals and are of self-sacrificing nature and noble conduct. Here is the arena of a vast country open to you. You can accomplish a lot. May God give you strength and may you live up to such expectations!”
It goes to the credit of former President Dr Pranab Mukherjee that in spite of all pressures from intolerant voices he did not change his mind about attending the RSS function in Nagpur.
S. Chandrashekhar, Pune
He had a right to attend the function. He did attend and delivered a long lecture. But the heavens did not fall at the end. His lecture was a long monologue of a Congressman which he had been saying for the last fifty years. There was nothing new. No word for the suffering humanity of Bengal or Kerala who are facing terror attacks on a daily basis from the terrorist gangs led by the TMC in West Bengal and Kerala headed by another anti-Hindu outfit. He lectured that the whole world is Vasudhev Kutumbakam. It is only the Hindus who consider the whole world as one family. But is there any religion of the West, especially Islam or Christianity, which considers the whole world as one family?
Amrit Lal Rawal
Plastic Problem
The In the “Yaksha Prasna” episode of Mahabharata, the Yaksha, among other questions, asks Yudhishtira as to “what is a wonder(kim aascharyam)?”. The eldest Pandava replies that “in spite of seeing countless creatures dying daily, people believe themselves to be permanent. What can be a bigger wonder?”
So is man”s ignorance regarding plastic today! Despite being fully aware that plastic is non-biodegradable, pervasively polluting and lethal to bovines and marine creatures, he is strangely fooling himself that it is indispensable to one”s life and recycling will take care of the waste problem when only 25% of the collected garbage is getting processed! First, the blame should go to our rulers and their advisors in aping the hedonistic West and having blindly introduced plastic and encouraged big industries around it. These myopic worthies couldn”t foresee that once the plastic genie is out of the bottle, there is no going back.
In my childhood, items such as asafoetida, curd, flowers etc. were sold, wrapped in palash leaves! Likewise, some restaurants would feed the leftover thaali (banana) leaves to their own “resident” cows! Alas, all such wonderful practices have got steamrolled under the inexorable march of the Frankenstein monster of plastic!
Either should we strictly enforce “Extended Producer Responsibility” on FMCG companies (or) ban plastic carry bags as did Kenya and Rwanda recently (or) we possess the discipline to use reusable cloth carry bags, metal containers for milk, water, natural leaf-based party disposables and more importantly, segregate and compost organic wastes at the source i.e household/community level so that only non-biodegradable wastes would be left to garbage collection, which can be recycled for road laying or pyrolytic oil generation or replacing coke in steelmaking(using waste tyres). Short of taking these measures, there no use of complaining about plastic pollution.
C.V. Krishna Manoj, Hyderabad
