Myopic agenda

THIS has reference to the editorials “A myopic agenda” and “Keep politics out” (Oct 22 and 24 respectively). It has been rightly observed that “the unseemly scenes witnessed at the Education Ministers’ conference in New Delhi on its inaugural day were quite expected”.There were, indeed, some valid grounds for protest against the scheduled topics for discussion at the conference, such as an attempt to make the study of the Vedas and Upanishads compulsory from the primary to the university level in complete disregard of the country’s secular Constitution, as also the political realities. In such circumstances, any attempt at making the study of Sanskrit compulsory from class three onwards was also bound to run into rough weather. Further, the extension of an invitation to a non-official, an industrialist, Purshottam Das Chitlangia, having an association with Vidya Bharati — the education wing of the RSS — to deliver the keynote address at the meeting was bound to raise a storm of protest.

No doubt, the Friends of Tribal Societies, of which Chitlangia is the President, has been actively associated with education in 1,300 villages in remote tribal areas. Nevertheless, his open opposition to missionary education in the North-East, and his emphasis on the inclusion of the Ramayana and the Gita in school syllabi was bound to make him a persona non grata for the irate Education Ministers from 12 non-BJP-ruled states.

All said and done, the boycott of Saraswati Vandana by the ministers belonging to the Congress, Left parties, the RJD and the SAD, had no logic. India has a unique spiritual tradition wherein the Divine is beyond all forms, and yet it takes the form of the Divine Mother.

DEEPAK TANDON
Panchkula

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Economics of bedlam

The article “Under capitalism, money rules” (Oct 26) prompts me to remark that all families earning more than the average national income may be said to belong to the exploiting class.

In England, in 1931, about 6 per cent of the population took 1138 million pounds in rent, profit, and interest, while 80 per cent of the population (the working class) got 1176 million pounds in wages. Such statistics show that our civilisation is founded and grounded on injustice and inequality, on robbery and roguery, on tyranny and moral turpitude.

There are very wealthy individuals in all countries: they may be compared to the free-booters, buccaneers, dacoits and pirates of the Middle Ages.

It had been calculated in 1926 that about 100 pounds surplus value was extracted out of each of the 300,000 working men in the UK who sweated in the factories. In each industry, if Rs 2,000 is given as wages per month, about Rs 8,000 is wrung out of each wage-slave.

The result of such exploitation is that working men live in abject poverty and squalor. They are underfed, and many drag on a miserable existence in overcrowded slums.

This is crazy economics of bedlam.

AVTAR NARAIN CHOPRA
Kurukshetra

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Functioning of foreign banks

I want to share with The Tribune readers my experience about the working of the Bank of America. The Ludhiana branch of the bank is among the many institutions which finance the purchase of cars on interest. I was allured by it to partly finance my purchase of Maruti Esteem. All relevant papers, including latest income-tax return, were got completed and I was directed to take delivery of the car from the agency on a particular day, which I did after making the payment of the amount over and above the amount financed by the bank (Rs 2.5 lakh).

After a week I got a telephone call from the agency that they were not getting the payment of the loan amount from the bank. On my enquiry I was told that their head office in Delhi had put a condition of providing a guarantee on account of my being above 60 years of age, as if a person below the age of 60 years had Mr Clinton’s guarantee for living till the loan was paid off. I was surprised at this discrimination on the basis of one’s age, whereas on the other hand Indian institutions give some preferential treatment to senior citizens.

A businessman friend of mine offered to stand guarantee but they insisted that the guarantor should be a blood relation. When the guarantee of a blood relation (brother-in-law an SBI officer) was offered they advised that according to them the blood relation was only a son or wife. When I offered the guarantee of my wife they wanted her to be an income-tax payee in her own name, though according to our income tax law, the incomes of husband and wife are clubbed together in the husband’s income.

Thereafter I offered the guarantee of my son, a practising advocate. But they told me that they did not accept the guarantee of advocates and police officials. That was the limit of humiliation which one could suffer for getting a paltry loan of Rs 2.5 lakh and that too after hypothecating the car, costing about Rs 4.5 lakh, in the name of the bank.

This is how the bank left the car agency whom they had given clearance to give delivery and the loanee high and dry merely on account of callous indifference to Indian conditions.

C R JOSHI
Ludhiana

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For students of military

I read the review of the book “Pakistan: India’s Bete Noire” by Lieut-Col Thakur Kuldip S. Ludra in The Tribune. It is a very informative and well-written book. It is apparent that the author has made a great effort to collect the data on Pakistan’s defence and offence. It is very educative for military students.

REKHA PURI
Panchkula

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Why demolish a building?

This refers to the report “Axe falls on 49 illegal houses” (October 28). Demolition of illegal constructions is the general tendency throughout the country. There is no doubt that keeping in view the fact that illegal construction is commonplace, this should be discouraged with a strong hand. However, demolition means not only a financial loss and mental agony to the violator, it also means a national loss of precious building material, labour involved, etc, which should be avoided as far as possible, especially in view of the fact that there is great shortage of residential accommodation all over the country.

As such, demolition should be resorted to if there is a court order or the illegal construction is unsafe from the structural or locational point of view. In all other cases, these should be compounded and the compounding fee (penalty) should far exceed the cost of construction, including the price of land, so as to be a deterrent. In case the owner is not prepared to pay the compounding fee, the building should either be auctioned or acquired by the government. For this purpose the relevant laws and rules should be suitably amended.

R. S. DUTTA
Chandigarh