Parzania truth is.• YOUR report on the non-screening of the Gujarat riot film, Parzania (IE, February 7), raises a few important questions. Is it proper and advisable to exhibit a film depicting a family’s tragedy in a state which has emerged from a terrible trauma not too long ago? From all accounts, both communities want to forget the lunacy that overtook Gujarat in a temporary fit of frenzy and move on. Communal and social harmony is reportedly back in place. The state is making impressive economic progress. Will the screening of Parzania, a dramatised version of a painful episode, not open the wounds that have just about healed, or are healing? At this point of time, what is more important? The assertion of an individual’s fundamental right to expression regardless of its possible bitter fall-out or the continuing climate of inter-community tranquillity in the state? These are serious questions and cannot be ignored; there is no room for personal egoism or moral one-upmanship. Heavens will not fall if Parzania waits for better times.— M. Ratan, New DelhiISI left out• A LOT of hype is being created around Parzania. The secularists of all hues are crying themselves hoarse against the right decision of the Gujarat theatre owners to black out the film. This movie should have been blacked out in whole of India. Rahul Dholakia is making tall claims about the movie being based on truth. But depicts only half truths. Had the movie maker started the movie with the ISI headquarters in Islamabad, followed by Godhra carnage, then his claims of a movie being based on the whole truth would have been justified.— A.K. Sharma, ChandigarhRiot regularities• THERE is a lot of noise these days about the screening of Parzania in Gujarat. What happened to the Mody family and others in Naroda Patiya is certainly bad. But such things happen to everybody during riots. Many were badly affected by the Mumbai blasts as well. Also, during the discussions on Parzania, why do we forget the 58 burnt alive in Godhra? Many in that tragedy may have lost their fathers, mothers, sons or brothers, but following our sick-ular principles we easily forgot their names. Why such discrimination? — Abhishek Chaudhari, MumbaiSonia sense• YOUR editorial, ‘From the aam aadami’ (IE, February 8) makes too much of the letter by Sonia Gandhi to the prime minister on the issue of FDI in retail trade. She is believed to have conveyed to the PM that he should go ahead on the subject “only after examining the impact of the decision on livelihood security of those engaged in small-scale operations”. The entry of the ‘big bosses’ in retail trade sector is undoubtedly beneficial to the ultimate consumers, but a suggestion to examine the pros and cons of the issue should be taken positively and not as an intervention in the UPA government’s reformist policies. — Naval Langa, AhmedabadRetail ogres• THE surreptitious entry into the Indian markets by the supply chain giant, Wal-Mart, is going to have serious repercussions. In India, where the employment scenario is already grim, it will cause havoc. The local ‘apna bhaiya’ shops would find themselves out of business.— Avijit Sharma, Delhi
