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March 10, 1999
ELECTIONS '98
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'This is the kalyug, so expect more!'How Readers reacted to Dilip D'Souza's recent columns
Date:
Fri, 5 Mar 1999 17:41:53 +0800
I think the column speaks the truth about what happens not only in Bombay but all over India, though on a reduced scale. There is no doubt that the country is ruled by criminals, who in a fair society would not have gone unpunished. I congratulate the columnist for his bold and candid expose. A concerned Indian
Date:
Fri, 5 Mar 1999 07:53:44 -0800
It must have some root in the history of India. Nehru, Gandhi and the entire group spent time in jails. They were criminals and we did elect them. It is just like the Israelis viewing the Palestinians. For the Israelis, the Palestinians are terrorists, and for the Palestinians the Israelis are land-grabbers. While Palestinians see its role as that of a freedom-fighter, the Israelis call them terrorists. It is not surprising that the Indian Police Service has become a tool of terror in the hands of politicians. It is like the holocaust that Nazis directed at the unarmed Jews and other minorities. Our police is neither capable of investigation or honesty, to become a sub-inspector in the police we have to pay lakhs of rupees. What kind of qualified personnel will you get out of this system??? A person who pays that kind of money will definitely try to get his money back any way he can. This way the politician benefits by having a bunch of uniformed and armed thugs. It is a shame that we do not have a police department that is answerable to the justice department and not to the local political goons. Dilip, keep writing your good articles and we will hope that India will one day live up to its motto: Satya meva jayate.
Date:
Thu, 25 Feb 1999 11:24:50 PST
Happy to hear that you are talking a little positive after months of waiting. Congratulations!!!
Date:
Thu, 25 Feb 1999 12:42:21 -0600
I am stupefied at some of Mr D'Souza's utterances. True, he bemoans the general perception of Indians regarding Pakistan. But does he really think the people who read his article are at the level where they ask Indian Muslims to go to Pakistan? Did he ever realise Pakistan happened in spite of general Indian wishes -- popular and otherwise -- and not because of them? And he talks of conflict with Pakistan -- where is India conflicting Pakistan in trying for a democratic rule instead of terror rule in whatever India calls Kashmir? If not where and how is India at conflict with Pakistan? Does he know India is only warding off any created problems in Kashmir and elsewhere and that is the only context in which Pakistan figures in India's schemes? If Pakistan does not have anything to do with India, is it not true that India will virtually ' forget' Pakistan? I hope D'Souza realises that regarding Pakistan, India's actions are totally reactive and left to itself, India will happily concentrate on its own other problems. C S Jawahar
Date:
Wed, 24 Feb 1999 23:51:11 -0500
Like all do-gooder liberal whinos, with candles in hand, year after year they showed up at Wagah, and nobody gave a damn, especially from the other side of the border. What the candlelightwallahs and D'Souzas of the world fail to understand is that it is only a nuclear India which allowed Atalji to take the "peace bus" to Lahore. Let the liberation pretenders get it in their heads that it is only Hindutvawadis who could have accomplished this task with credibility and finesse. Not the morons who prescribe unilateral disarmament. Regards
Ramana Murthy
Date:
Wed, 24 Feb 1999 19:21:11 -0500
What would be wrong if he had seen "black" faces in Pakistan? Black is beautiful. All colours are beautiful.
Date:
Thu, 04 Feb 1999 04:43:44 -0000
Dilip, I can understand your pain at the murder of your co-religionist kids. But what about the kids killed in Bombay? What about those denied food and education all over India? What about Hindus in Kashmir? I never saw you write about these people. Is it because they are not white/Muslim/"descendant of forcibly converted people from Goa"? You blame the BJP for murder of the Christians because it was one of their people who did it. I don't dispute it either. But why do you blame a kid's death in Bombay to what happened in Ayodhya? Why not blame his killers, like you did for Christians? Looks like you need to blame the BJP anyway. I thought all religions were equal, but your columns and your hypocrisy have made it difficult for me to be hurt by a Christian's death. Thanks for making daily additions to Bajrang Dal.
Date:
Wed, 3 Feb 1999 21:33:49 EST
Do not make a big deal about three Australians when millions of children are being deprived of nourishment by the sanctions imposed by western governments. This is the kalyug, so expect more!
Sunder Nagarajan Well, the article is good. Several articles will follow. But as for the Phaltans and their future generations, it will become worse. These articles are sometimes written with a ray of hope that some improvement in these areas would come about. The Indian politicians are too busy fighting among themselves. What are the top 5 headlines?
1. Vajpayee pacifies Jayalalitha Well, let's face it. These guys (does not really matter whom we vote for) cannot take care of themselves, let alone the kids of Phaltan. No solution is going to be the best. The only solution right now, that is most needed in India, is a bi-party system. This will not dismiss all sorrows, but will give less room for more idiots to roam around. Control these fools' movements, you can have partial control over the economics of the Phaltans. Ravi
Date:
Wed, 10 Feb 1999 23:43:48 -0700
I read your column about taps and then I read responses of people about the earlier columns. I think the biggest mistake we made was when we divided the country into states by languages! If only we had made lines with a ruler, things could have been better! You are just talking about Maharashtra! Have you ever travelled to Rajasthan, Dilip? I have lived in a city called Ajmer where we got water for 2 hours everyday (just as you pointed out in case of Mangalwar Peth) when we were lucky. In summer we got water once every 2 days and sometimes once every 3 days!! On good days the water would come for full 2 hrs!! And Ajmer was better than many other region of the state in terms of water supply!!! We never wrote articles about the state of water because it was understood by the people that this was an offset of the shortage of funds which was a result of dishonest tax-payers all over the state or country. Why don't you write about the way people just want to cheat all the time and not work enough which eventually reflects in the national economy and state of affairs? Why don't you write about the shopkeepers who do not make bills for their sales? Or why don't you write about every service industry full of lazy people? And I do not understand how the issue of national security or software industry is related to the water in Phaltan. I do not understand why you always want to write about problems and never about a solution! We are all the citizens of this country and we are all in this mess together and responsible for it! We choose the politicians and the people that are in the public offices are also a part of our community and from our families. So in Phaltan it was the pits, but what did you do about it except writing about it on Rediff? If only some of us would get out there and do something and stop writing... Mohit
Date:
Thu, 11 Feb 1999 11:49:23 -0800
I empathise with Dilip D'Souza's ire at our government for not providing even clean drinking water to the citizens of our country. My question to him is: Why don't these hutment dwellers get together and decide to improve their own lot in life by attaching a tap to the end of the pipe, or constructing a cemented area around the pipe that will provide them a hygienic environment to obtain water? Surely a tap, a couple of connectors or a bag of cement cannot be all that much out of reach of a group of people, each of who shell out Rs 51 and 252 each year for that water? Why do these people, and in general all of us Indians, not resort to self help when it is apparent that the government has abdicated its responsibility in providing us with such basics? Why do we suffer through such miserable conditions for years (in the Baroda colony, apparently, that one tap was the sole source of water since 1975!) without contemplating ways of improving the situation ourselves? Did you, Dilip, try to suggest such actions to the colony dwellers? I admit that self-help cannot solve more severe problems that require governmental/institutional undertaking. If a village is, for example, without a source of clean drinking water, it requires a government organisation's efforts to build a filtration plant, lay down the pipeline, pump clean water through it, etc. But why do we look to the government for even problems that we can solve easily ourselves? Even problems that are the government's responsibility, but for reasons of incompetence or apathy or sheer overload have not been resolved? Are we, as a people, as incompetent or apathetic or just plain lazy as the government we elect? Armchair wisdom and idealistic nonsense, you might say. But just my 2 paise worth...
Ashutosh Agharkar |
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