Economic interest

Sir, - Three cheers to the Prime Minister, Mr. Vajpayee, for declaring the ceasefire and standing firm on it. It was said of Nehru that he was nearer history than politics. With the sagacious advice he is getting from Mr. Jaswant Singh and Mr. Mishra, I am confident that Mr. Vajpayee will adopt an equidistant approach.

I am not equally sanguine that the present government is conscious that in public policy, politics and economics cannot be dealt with in separate compartments. At the most there is a porous wall in between. The way to address problems of Kashmiris, Naga rebels or the Sri Lankan Tamils for that matter, is to convince the people concerned that their `economic interest' lies in sailing with larger and larger communities. Look at the countries in Central and Eastern Europe vying with each other to join the European Union - the same countries that clamoured to get separated from larger entities like the former Soviet Union only the other day.

The moral is obvious. While everything should be done to preserve the ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural identities of different groups, however small their size, every effort should also be made to evolve a framework of economic cooperation over a wider and wider geographical area with absolutely minimum centralisation.

Is it difficult for the `Chanakyas' in New Delhi to visualise a South Asia comprising socially cohesive, self-governing, and mutually supportive communities, even a hundred, augmenting rather than weakening the region's ability to compete with the U.S. and the European Union on equal terms?

K.S. Sastry,

Hyderabad

Sir, - I strongly disagree with the step taken by the Prime Minister to suspend the combating operations against the militants in Kashmir in the wake of Ramzan month. We are not waging a religious war against militants as was being done by the militants.

For us the Kashmir is a political problem. It has nothing to do with the festival of Ramzan. In fact those militants who are waging a religious war called ``Jehad'' should come with the proposal of ceasefire. We never gave a religious touch to the Kashmir problem. All the hard work done till now with this proactive policy will get watered down with the unwise decision of suspension of military operations.

Laxminath,

Nizamabad (AP)

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