Letters to the editor

This refers to the feature ‘Anyone for blasphemy?’ by Arun Jaitley, a former Union law minister. He sanctimoniously states that “the machinery of law must be allowed

What law?

• This refers to the feature ‘Anyone for blasphemy?’ (IE, May 19) by Arun Jaitley, a former Union law minister. He sanctimoniously states that “the machinery of law must be allowed to operate in such cases”. He refuses to acknowledge that in this case at Vadodara, the law machinery was prevented from acting, a fact that can be judged by the following: the VC refused to lodge a complaint with the police against the BJP mob for entering the university premises, and the prosecutor had kept the student in custody for five days. All should note that these persons, the VC, the prosecutor and Jaitley, tarnish the image of Gujarat, not the paintings.

— K. Raghu, Ahmedabad

• I DISAGREE with Jaitley’s comparison of the controversial Danish cartoons with Chandramohan’s paintings. While the Danish cartoons were published material and hence open to public reaction, Chandramohan’s paintings were entirely private, meant for submissions during

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exams. It would have been another matter had the paintings been put up for public viewing in some art gallery. One thought everyone had a right to privacy in this country. What will be next? House-to-house searches?

— Ishtyaque Ansari, Bharuch

IT road block

•APROPOS of your editorial, ‘Stalinst parties’ (IE, May 15), in just two years Dayanidhi Maran, aged 40, suave and articulate, with his business clout with Bill Gates, and corporates like Nokia, Vodafone and Tatas, attracted a great deal of investment to India. This impressed Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi. Unfortunately, his party is solely dependant on Karunanidhi’s political clout for their position in public life, and so Maran had to resign from his post for his success. The tragedy is, the information technology sector is the goose that lays golden egg, but now lies asphyxiated and castrated for no logical reason. And that is a ‘man-made’ roadblock for Indian economy.

— M.S. Rajgopalan, Ahmedabad

Mature college

• THE race for the presidential chair is heating up. However, why should only MPs and MLAs elect the president? Since many of them are confirmed criminals, does this not devalue the process that the head of state is elected by thugs? Further, in a mature democracy the electoral college needs to be expanded to include a much wider section of the polity.

Hence all government employees of joint secretary grade and above, all armed forces

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officers of brigadier rank and above, all governors, chancellors and vice-chancellors of universities and deemed universities including heads of IITs and IIMs, and so on, must be included. This will balance the weight of the political class.

— T.R. Ramaswami, Mumbai