Letters to the editor

Bridge too far• Your editorial on border infrastructure, private initiative and foreign policy (‘Not by sarkar alone’, IE, Ja...

Bridge too far

• Your editorial on border infrastructure, private initiative and foreign policy (‘Not by sarkar alone’, IE, January 5) reminds me of a story my father told me. My father was a geologist with the ONGC who frequently went on tour (this was in the early 1960s). Assam and other Northeast states were mostly where he was posted during these field trips. Once in Assam, he and his party were brought abruptly to a halt on their way to a field site because the bridge on a fast moving river was half-built. My father, anxious to have a good explanation. He went around asking why the bridge was in the state it was. The local people told him the government engineer on the job had suddenly taken leave on account of a family emergency. When he asked why there wasn’t a replacement, they said they had asked the same question and had been told by the administration that it wasn’t so easy to find a substitute. “Procedures had to be followed,” the locals were told. While waiting in the village till his ‘guide’ found an alternative route, my father came across a local contractor. Why don’t you build the rest of the bridge by taking permission from the government, he asked him. The contractor replied, “I did ask them, but then the police came to my house and wanted to know what I was up to.” The contractor swore after that experience that he would never offer his services again.

— M.S. Chattoraj, Kolkata

Driving lessons

• Over the past month there have been fatal accidents on Delhi roads, most involving youngsters and alcohol. While the immediate cause of the accidents is certainly a mixture of rash driving and dense fog, the fact that this is becoming a constant should be addressed. Delhi does not have appropriate police patrol at night — setting up extra booths on New Year’s eve is not a long-term solution. Special attention needs to be paid to not only the long stretches that have dubious lighting and no police on watch — which invite fast driving — but also to the problem of driving licences being issued to those without adequate skills in driving cars and trucks. Only then will we have safe roads in the Capital.

— Neha Jain, New Delhi

Mob justice

Story continues below this ad

• The killing of a British traveller on the outskirts of Mumbai because the villagers mistook him for a sex offender highlights a worrying new trend — that every punishment demanded in the country seems to be that of death (IE, January 4). Take for instance all that has happened last year, with the Jessica and Mattoo cases, or even the Noida killings, a move towards bloodthirsty retribution to allay the fears of society is becoming a trend. In a country where rule of law is meant to be supreme, and punishment should fit the crime (and perhaps capital punishment is apt), taking the law into one’s own hands, as has happened in the Mumbai murder, casts a dark shadow over the future of India as a country where there is justice.

— Prarthna Singh, Meerut

Courts for people

• I disagree with your editorial empathising with chief ministers (‘In people’s court’, IE, January 4) on the issue of jurisdictional disputes over police reform. You do argue that state governments have to look at their own record. But you seem to concede the chief ministers’ basic point. That’s not correct in my view. The only issue here is that police reform is overdue and that without the court’s intervention nothing will happen. When we are witness to horrors like those unfolding in Nithari, we can’t waste time over constitutional niceties.

—Ved Guliani, Hisar