“Fiction” wrapped as fact

  I have been a regular reader of The Tribune for 25 years. Even when I was away for six years during my student days I used to get the newspaper’s copy by post. But this is for the first time that I am writing a letter to the Editor — the matter has touched me too much.

Mr Francois Gautier asks and answers too, “Why does India’s intellectual ‘elite’, the majority of whom are Hindus, always come down so hard on their own culture, their own brothers and sisters? Is it because of an eternal the feeling of inferiority? Or is it because they consider Hindus to be inferior beings”.

Mr Hari Jaisingh mentions in his article “Fiction wrapped as fact” (Feb 26) what Motilal Nehru wanted his son to be. He also writes about how the educated middle class of today behaves.

I fully agree with the views expressed in this article. We educated or uneducated, rich or poor, Hindus or Non-Hindus try to shamelessly adopt the culture, festivals (a recent example being the celebration of Valentine’s Day in Ludhiana’s prestigious Satluj Club, whose President is the Deputy Commissioner of Ludhiana), languages or anything else which we think may be associated with the whites. We have no sense of national pride.

We are ever so ready to marry our wards abroad without any enquiry about the would-be bride/bridegroom belonging to a completely different cultural ethos and life-style, sometimes even ignoring the pain and suffering to which the child may be put to after marriage just for the sake of “an opening to a foreign land”.

I would go further than all this. If we (at least most of us) come across a person with “white skin” talking ill of us/our country, what would be our reaction? Instead of feeling angered and trying to reason out with the fellow, most of us will join the person in condemning ourselves and all things associated with our country!

What is the reason? Is it because of inferiority complex, colonial mentality or some deficiency in our upbringing or education? Let us ponder over all this and, if possible, try to help ourselves.

ASHOK GUPTA
Ludhiana

A MUTE MAJORITY: One millennium of slavery has so shaken our faith in ourselves that we find everything Indian or Hindu inferior, wrong and not upto the mark. And as stated by the writer, so effective has been the mastery of foreign rulers over us that we have not been able to gather courage to teach Budha, Mahavira, Nagarjuna, Aryabhatta, Kalidasa, Kabir, Meera, Tagore, Radhakrishnan and a host of other greats to our own children in our own schools.

The mainstream of our leaders and mediapersons did not raise hue and cry when Pandits were forced out of Kashmir. Nor did they raise slogans of “secularism” when Hindus fled Punjab. It is a fact of history that the majority has been suffering at the hands of minorities for the last 1000 years, and yet the media goes on shedding tears, crocodile tears, for the minorities.

Yes, Mr Gautier, we still want a whiteman to think for us. Tagore, Dayanand and Radhakrishnan died long back.

L. R. SHARMA
Jalandhar

DAUNTING TASK: Power is exercised most effectively through the media because its message is synonymous with objectivity, validity, authenticity and truth. In order to ensure its existence, power needs to disguise the truth, because when naked it is bound to lose its ability of seducing others into submission. It assumes a mask of innateness. It strives to create its own reality. In order to create it, it surreptitiously distorts the existing scenario. The possibility of alternatives is denied. All notions of criticality are obliterated, which surely is the biggest threat to Indian democracy.

A daunting task confronts the media. To be effective, media needs to demystify the reality not by abandoning it but by initiating a critical dialogue with it. as rightly said by Robert Davis, “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names”.

VIVEK SINH MAR GIRAN
Kurukshetra

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Ridiculous proposal

On his recent historic visit to Lahore, Dr Atiyah Samshad, a 37-year-old Pakistani woman novelist, offered to marry Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, if he agreed to settle the Kashmir issue on the basis of her country’s standpoint.

It was a ridiculous proposal. As a result of its formal accession to the Indian Union, Pakistan has no locus standi on Kashmir. Yet it has been illegally occupying about half of Kashmir for the last over 50 years.

If Dr Atiyah is really interested in a fair solution of the Kashmir issue through the proposed matrimonial alliance, she should ask her country’s Premier, Mr Nawaz Sharif, to give the Pak-occupied Kashmir (which is an integral part of India) as dowry on her marriage with Mr Vajpayee. This will certainly result in abiding peace and harmony between India and Pakistan.

BHAGWAN SINGH
Qadian

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Justified demand

This refers to letter “Disgusting demand” published in The Tribune on March 2. The letter writer has not gone into the details of what a government employee is getting and what a bank employee after the implementation of the Fifth Pay Commission report gets.

After the implementation of the Pay Commission report the employees of the Government of India and other state governments got a hefty increase of 30 to 40 per cent whereas the bank employees have demanded only a hike of 18 per cent — the demand which is quite justified, keeping in view the risk areas under which bank employees have to work.

It should be noted that bank employees work with accountability, and have to achieve targets annually while there is no such condition for government employees. Bank employees have to work under great pressure from the customers’ side besides managing a number of government schemes at the cost to customer services.

S. C. DHALL
Chandigarh

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For good health?

The Union Budget for 1999-2000 proposes to substantially reduce the Customs duty on beer, whisky, rum, wine, gin, vodka and vermouth.

Well, another step which the Atal Behari Vajpayee government should take is to make it compulsory for all beer and wine manufacturers to print the following message on their bottles: “Drinking is good for health”!

SURENDRA MIGLANI
Kaithal

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Tailpiece

How will you view the start of the Delhi-Lahore bus service in the context of Indo-Pak relations?

Answer: Roadblocks removed, but speedbreakers remain!

K. J. S. AHLUWALIA
Amritsar