Dynast’s call• APROPOS of your editorial, ‘View from the top’ (IE, March 8), Congress President Sonia Gandhi has done the right thing to accept that their party’s defeat in Punjab and Uttarakhand has not been caused just by price rise or the incumbency factor, but its leaders shying away from the grassroots level is a major factor of their electoral setback. The party at the regional level is not just ‘disunited’, but its senior leaders’ feudal mindset has created an elitist group within. If the Congress wishes to survive as a single ruling party or a major coalition partner in these times, Sonia Gandhi must declare unambiguously whether the party will continue to be subservient to the Nehru-Gandhi family or whether it will discard the dynasty culture for democratic values and traditions within the party organisation. Much of internal chaos comes only because talent finds itself exploited or blocked by the vested interests issuing from dynastic practices.— Ved Guliani, HisarFrom ivory tower• I ENDORSE what you say in your editorial, ‘View from the top’, but going by the contents, probably a caption ‘From the ivory tower’ would have been apt. As you so aptly observed, for the Congress, the need of the hour is to discern how much the dynasty can accommodate, and even nurture, democracy. But it has immediately failed in that Kuldeep Bishnoi, MP from Bhiwani, gets victimised for having looked within and tried to rise above individual ambitions. So the lengthy sermons will continue from the ivory tower. ‘The Congress is still far tootop-heavy and still not fleet-footed..’ sums it up.— Kedarnath R. Aiyar, MumbaiBJP, right?• THIS refers to the report about the BJP’s return to Hindutva (‘BJP gears up to play Hindu card in UP’, IE, March 7). It may be just an election strategy but ultimately the nation pays a heavy price. True, the BJP represents an important constituency and thus has to be engaged for strengthening secularism in the country. But it has to reorient itself. For one, it can become a right-wing conservative party which believes in assertive nationalism. Or it can be a party that promotes Indian culture (which is dynamic) or even a pro-Hindu party. Being anti-minority and communal, however, is unacceptable.— Pranav Sachdeva, New DelhiImperial quill• THE London-based author Pankaj Mishra’s observation that “modernism that we encounter (in India) is created by western imperialism” (IE Newsline, March 7) seems rather bizarre. It reminded one of a JNU-type leftist, sophomoric cliche. It is intriguing how some of our NRIs tend to forget that modern societies of the West, like the UK and the US, had large pockets of poverty and malnourishment not too long ago. But they remained “modern” because of their general affluence. Only a “roaring economy” with a human face can eradicate misery and malnourishment. External and internal forms of modernity are generally almost uniform, thanks to growing globalisation. Mishra’s other remark that “we need indigenous modernism” seemed equally vague and undefined.— M. Ratan, New Delhi
