• As Tavleen Singh pointed out in her column, ‘‘In times of Hindutva, Ram Rajya is forgotten’’, the BJP has conveniently forgotten all its promises of employment, eradicating poverty, checking inflation etc. It is trying to escape from the hard reality by reviving its Hindutva agenda.Goutam Goswami • Politicians fleece the country because they are not accountable to anyone and the administration is unwilling to take them to task. Corruption has become an ‘‘industry’’, an interminable cancer that has spread to each and every pore of the Indian system. All of us are collectively responsible for this malady. There are countries where corruption is a serious offence. We should adopt some of their laws.V.P. Damodar Renuka Narayan’s putdown concerning me in her profile of Nadira Naipaul (Nadaan Nadira loves being Lady Naipaul: The Sunday Express, Feb 2) is, among other things, factually incorrect. I never did any ‘‘note-taking’’ for Vidia Naipaul, nor did I ever travel on his behalf. Of course, I did introduce him to a few people, as did many others. Could Renuka’s crude description of me have anything to do with the fact that I refused to give her any ‘‘dirt’’ on Nadira when she was working on her piece? I hope the rest of the article was better researched. — Vinod Mehta Editor’s note: The error is regretted. • It has been a fashion to encash religious sentiments for votes, which in turn leads to accumulation of huge wealth. The Ayodhya issue gave the BJP chance to govern, but its leaders are busy breaking records of corruption. It is indeed unfortunate that in a socialistic democracy, ‘‘leaders of the masses’’ like Mayawati and Laloo Prasad Yadav can so blatantly display their acquired wealth.Subhash Chandra Agrawal • What is Tavleen’s complaint? If it is corruption, there is nothing new. People get the leaders they deserve. Let them not vote for leaders who they think are corrupt. If your grouse is against the NDA, the culture of corruption was neither started by the BJP nor popularised by it. It started with the Congress soon after Independence.Vaman Rao • This refers to P. Chidambaram’s column, ‘‘No more BJP clones please, we’re Indians’’. By adopting ‘‘soft Hindutva’’, the Congress has lost the sympathy of its votebank. It would be better for the Congress to expose the BJP regime’s corruption instead.Madhu Agrawal • Let me remind you about the Congress’ history. It was the Congress which could not prevent the partition of India. It was Nehru who gifted a huge part of Kashmir to Pakistan. In the ’60s, it was the Congress and ‘‘secular’’ Nehru who invited China to invade India. In the ’70s, the Congress imposed Emergency. In the ’80s, the same party gave birth to Bhindranwale and Operation Blue Star followed. In the ’90s, the Congress introduced corruption everywhere. Secularism is not a magic wand which can wave away all its sins.Rajesh Ranjan • I agree that the RSS and VHP should be banned. But shouldn’t all the madrasas also be banned, as also all Christian missionaries.Bhaskar • The Congress should not be a BJP clone. Instead, it should be a really progressive secular party. As for the votes of the Muslims, it is better to set that aside for the moment and first make efforts to include the Muslims into the mainstream.Vallabhdas S. Goydani • After Gujarat, the Congress needs to rethink. Adopting soft Hindutva would be playing into the BJP’s hands. I would say Rajiv Gandhi was also guilty of this. It’s time the Congress purged these elements from the party and returned to the path shown by Nehru and Kamaraj.Varghese Koshy • Democracy functions well when there are no clones and parties offer different alternatives. In developing countries, however, there is a wide gap between thought and action. In writing, many of the politicians have been revolutionaries par excellence. But when it comes to performing, they are below average.Dharampal • Today’s Congress is nowhere near the stature it had about 15 years back. The fact that the party has to depend for its leadership on the children and unborn grandchildren of the Gandhi family speaks volumes of the bankruptcy within.Sunny • For anyone with sanity, the Gujarat elections should have been an eye-opener. People are fed-up with the dose of poison given in the name of secularism. Before commenting on the BJP and its ideology, please make a sincere attempt to understand what secularism means.Akshat • This refers to Pamela Philipose’s ‘‘Indo-Pak Yak Yak’’. The war of words between the two High Commissions is highly undignified, more like a quarrel between street urchins than qualified diplomats. We don’t expect either country to stoop to such low levels of diplomacy.Professor K.L. Batra (Write to yourvoice@expressindia.com)
