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No comparison

Sir, — Refer Harish Khare's article `The apex court's Ayodhya burden' (Feb. 19): He has rightly condemned the Sangh Parivar for seeking to defy the court verdict on Ayodhya. But then suddenly, he compares it with what he calls the `Mahatma tradition' — that is those who speak in moral idiom — and, what is worse, went on to ridicule J.P's movement as arrogating to itself the right to demand than an elected Government be dismissed, impliedly suggesting that such a course was anti-national.

I am amazed that Mr. Khare should proceed on the totally fallacious proposition that in a legitimately established democratic country, the path of civil disobedience is not permissible.

Surely, the degrading and corrupt government of Bihar and Gujarat in 1974, supported by the Government of Indira Gandhi who was later on to hijack the Constitution and indulge in Emergency excesses, was the fittest justification for the J.P. movement and about which J.P. himself wrote from prison to Indira Gandhi thus: ``The answer is that in democracy the people, too, have the right to ask for the resignation of an elected government if it has gone corrupt and has been misruling. And if there is a legislature that persists in supporting such a government it too must go so that the people might choose better representatives.'' It is unfortunate that the pride of the J.P. legacy which is next in momentum to Mahatma Gandhi's movement should have been belittled, even if unwittingly.

Rajindar Sachar,
New Delhi

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