Political degeneration

A PAINFULLY conspicuous and the worst aspect of this year’s election campaign has been the personal and abusive attack on one’s adversaries by almost all politicians, irrespective of their status in the party they belong to. But it pinches all the more when a seasoned and very senior leader (almost on the verge of retirement from active politics) like Mr Jyoti Basu indulges in a slanderous campaign and uses an abusive rhetoric by calling Ms Mamata Banerjee “420 and a cheat”, S.S. Ray a “murderer of CPM activists” and the BJP “uncivilised and barbaric”. Is this outburst the result of a bewilderment at the absence of any electoral issue, or is our political leadership in the serious grip of bankruptcy of electoral ideology?

The better option should be that if you have nothing to offer the people, don’t condemn your rivals and dump them as cheats, thieves and murderers, or describe every other political party as a dangerous force, uncivilised and barbaric. Tell the people what you have been doing or plan to do.

In the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, which are marked with a total degeneration of political ethics, who will believe that India was once a land of saints and mahatmas like the Buddha and Gandhi? Now it is the crooks and criminals who seem to dominate every walk of life in this great country.

VED GULIANI
Hisar

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Filth in Ludhiana

It appears that the sloth and indolence on the part of the Ludhiana Municipal Corporation has reached its peak. Heaps of garbage remain accumulated in the streets for weeks together without being removed. Sometimes garbage is there in the whole lane or street. Filth emits foul smell, polluting the atmosphere all around. One can imagine the damage it can cause to public health.

The lost or stolen covers of manholes are never replaced. The result is that they are either filled up with public throw-away or become a danger to public life. As they are seldom cleaned, they get blocked and the dirty water flows back to the houses in the area. The nuisance it causes can be very well imagined.

The scanty and irregular supply of water is another headache to the people. The tubewells supplying water are not repaired for weeks.

The following remedies are, therefore, suggested:-

(i) A contract system should be introduced for removing garbage. Tenders can be invited from private companies or individuals to set up a chemical fertiliser plant using city garbage as its fodder. This will bring income to the corporation and help in keeping the city clean.

(ii) Iron covers of manholes should be replaced by cement covers, and the manholes be regularly cleaned. The street sweeper should be hauled up for negligence.

(iii) New tubewells should be bored to the greatest depth as the underground water-level in Ludhiana has gone down.

(iv) An able and efficient administrator of IAS cadre should be appointed.

KAILASH CHANDRA SINGHAL
Ludhiana

Defuse population bomb

During electioneering the Prime Minister spoke at length about unemployment, illiteracy and Kargil but did not utter a single word about the population problem. All progress and development are being nullified by burgeoning population. If this pace of increasing population goes on unabated, the country would require no alien bomb for destruction. The system would crumble and collapse under its own burden of unmanageable number of people.

We are adding more than one crore mouths every year. The earth has a limit to grow food with the help of fertilisers. All problems like ill health, unemployment, corruption, starvation, malnutrition, pollution, etc would increase with the increase in population.

In the near future India would be able to boast as the “number one position in the world in population”. China has succeeded in controlling its population. Our leaders and political parties are silent on this issue because they fear an adverse effect on their prospects.

What is the merit in a democracy if we cannot work against the impending disaster? An able and honest person has no chance to contest elections in India if he is poor. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening.

Is this the goal of freedom that we achieved in 1947?

A sight of passengers travelling on rooftops of buses and trains is a usual scene in our country. What after rooftops? Doom!

DEVENDRA UPPAL,
President, SESHM
Hisar