Letters To The Editor

Chinese study• SAUBHIK Chakrabarti’s ‘Aam aadmi, Hu?’ (IE, November 23) is a reminder — and some experts in India n...

Chinese study

• SAUBHIK Chakrabarti’s ‘Aam aadmi, Hu?’ (IE, November 23) is a reminder — and some experts in India need reminding on this issue — that warts and all, democracy is a better option. Or to paraphrase Churchill, democracy is a terrible form of governance, except when compared to all other forms. China can treat its peasants with as much contempt during its capitalist growth phase as communists elsewhere have tended to do during their efforts to build a working class state. Ironically, the Chinese revolution was not a working class effort. Mao Zedong organised China’s peasants and early western romanticisers of the Chinese revolution were beside themselves with fraternal joy at finding the tillers of land at the helm of the state. That is why many radicals outside China initially supported the Cultural Revolution, which identified thinking and intelligence as enemies of human liberty. But of course, a predatory state, which is what all communist states are destined to be, can turn on any group. So, as China builds cities, roads and export surpluses, the peasants are the target class. As Chakrabarti says, “this will never happen in India; democratic politics won’t allow it”. Let’s all be thankful.

— J.M. Bakshi, Pune

• THERE are columnists in the Indian media who argue China is something to be wary about. Saubhik Chakrabarti is among them. I want to ask him and all his intellectual fellow travellers why they aren’t as wary about America. Please don’t say, because America is a democracy. Such things don’t matter. I think the CPM is right in building bridges between China and India. The two countries should act together to counter the US. Indian Express writers may perhaps be worried about this development, but this is a free country.

— Biren Nagchoudhury, Kolkata

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• I WAS frankly shocked at reading Saubhik Chakrabarti’s analysis of China’s political economy. Then I looked for academic literature on China. And now I am shocked that what Chakrabarti has said attracted so little comment in the media earlier. We have to know our chief competitor better. I am sure the Chinese study India very carefully.

— Radha Punwani, Mumbai

Gun-keeper’s woes

• SANJAY DUTT’S conviction under the Arms Act is certainly in keeping with his offences. However, I did breathe a sigh of relief on learning that he was not charged under Tada. Not only has Dutt seemingly repented for his dubious links and misguided actions in 1993, but also the circumstances surrounding Bollywood in those years — specifically the fact that the underworld was heavily financing the industry which brought actors, directors and producers in contact with Dawood and his ilk — have changed. Today it is a different scenario, and Dutt and I think many others of his peers have learnt not to give in to pressure from the underworld — for example, Preity Zinta.

— Arjun Nanda Mumbai

Clarification

• I WRITE to request you to correct the figure mistakenly stated by me in my television interview with Shekhar Gupta of November 25 (‘Walk the Talk’, IE, November 27), about the number of people migrating to Delhi every year. The figure is not five million people, but half a million. It was a slip of the tongue.

—Sheila Dikshit, New Delhi