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state, conveniently dubbed “God’s own
country” in good times (when it’s a tour-
ist cash cow pouring shekels into the
central government treasury) there are
stories that come in, of ordinary people
doing extraordinary things. From fisher-
men to administrators to entrepreneurs,
from an old couple breaking their fixed
deposits to a young woman who saved
up for her heart surgery and then don
ated half of it. Politics over relief work is
the worst crisis to befall a nation.
GUWAHATI Ashim Kumar
Chakraborty: You are confused when
you ask questions like “ Why does nearly
every natural disaster hit us on such a
scale ? What are we doing wrong? Who’s
guilty? Kerala’s monster monsoon leaves
us with a deluge of questions.” Natural
disasters are happening in places like
America, Europe, China and Japan.
Our Spokesperson
SURENDRANAGAR Charu Shah:
This is about the obituary note for V.S.
Naipaul (Bounty of Barbs, Aug 27). A
master of expressing the fissures, dislo-
cations and identity crises of a post-
colonial world, Naipaul will be known
as a supreme stylist of English prose in
the second half of the 20th century.
Indeed, very few of his contemporary
writers in English were as bold, blunt
and daring as Naipaul. He could use the English language with rare mastery,
every word would be right, in its proper place, advancing the argument or
narrative of this major writer. The man could be notoriously difficult, but
great art is forged in the turmoil of complicated minds.
responded in fury. This is a lesson to all
of us. Let the flood report help the poli-
cymakers assess what the future will
be if we mess with nature.
Pinky Blues
GOA M.N. Bhartiya: In Are You Hit by
the Pink Tax? (Sep 3), the writer has
meticulously covered the issue of
women being losers on both the earning
and the spending side. The story is full of
minute observations regarding their
employment in diff erent positions as
well as what they are charged for various
services and products.
Gentle Realpolitik
Hurricane Katrina hit the US in 2005
Floods, tornadoes, hurricanes are
wreaking havoc in the most developed
countries, culminating in the loss of
human lives and property. The more
developed we become, the more natural
calamities we have to face. Kerala’s flood
is another example of the fury of nature.
Lessons Unlearnt
ON E-MAIL Ravi: It was very dis-
turbing to read your story on the
Chilika lake (Before Machine Birds
Come In, Sep 3) and how the Centre
and the state government are putting
at risk the fragile ecosystem. When will
the shortsighted and profit-hungry re-
alise the impo rtance of sustainability
of natural environs and resources?
Ironically, a few pages later comes the
report on the Kerala floods. It is as
clear as blue skies that the Kerala
floods were man-made—we raped and
ravaged the environment, which then
AMRITSAR Lal Singh: This refers to
your tribute to former prime minister
Atal Behari Vajpayee (A Permanent
Pause, Aug 27). Vajpayee was a gentle-
man politician, and there may not be
many in this mould in his party, the
BJP, these days. He proved to be a fine
balancer of nationalism and Hindutva
with liberalism in the coalition era of
the 1990s. If Vajpayee’s persona
nudged the politics of the BJP into
larger spaces, his stint as PM will be
remembered for big transitions. His
deftness shaped our foreign policy.
Despite severe US sanctions after
Pokhran II, he laid the foundation for a
nuclear dialogue with the US. Had he
bowed to American pressure in 2003
to send our troops to Iraq, to work
alongside the allied forces following
the invasion of that country, India
would have been in a quagmire and its
credibility in West Asia would have
taken a nosedive. Long before the BJP
under Narendra Modi experimented
and failed with the PDP alliance,
Vajpayee had made i nroads in the
Valley with “Insaaniyat, Kashmiriyat
and Jamhooriyat”. He fought off resist-
ance from outside and within the
Sangh Parivar to bring in reforms.
There are no other leaders in the BJP
of Vajpayee’s stature; if there are a few,
they have been marginalised. Yet his
playbook will endure, and the BJP may
need to take more than a leaf out of it.
HYDERABAD J. Kishore: Vajpayee
was PM for a full term, after serving
two truncated ones. Even as his
National Democratic Alliance dep
ended on the outside support of sev-
eral parties (such as the Telugu Desam
Party of Andhra Pradesh), Vajpayee
never lost respect in his coalition, nor
did he cravenly submit to partners’
demands. Everyone who has heard him
speak talks about his consummate ora-
tory, yet he wasn’t a demagogue. Nor
was he cursed, as current politicians
are wont to be. Jailed during the
Emergency and foreign minister in the
Janata government after it, he had the
magnanimity to praise Nehru’s Non-
Aligned Movement policy. A bitter
rival of the Congress, he had no qualms
about calling Indira Gandhi ‘Durga’ in
her finest hour after the Indo-Pak war
of 1971. Atalji was truly beyond petty
political enmity. Even though the Ram
temple issue had rejuvenated the BJP
and triggered a process that won it
power at the Centre, PM Vajpayee kept
Ayodhya on the backburner; neither
did he go about trying to change nat
ional institutions, install yes-men in
top posts and try to replace icons of the
past—all of which the new NDA gov-
ernment is doing in an ungainly hurry.
17 September 2018 OUTLOOK 5