The Hindu : Rising intolerance

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 28, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Letters to the Editor

Rising intolerance

Sir, — Your editorial "Rising Intolerance" ( April 25 ) reveals the true state of affairs in Tamil Nadu. It is conceded that she was at the receiving end during the previous regime and that she suffered a lot mentally and physically, but Jayalalithaa should not think that she or her party has been voted back to power solely for wreaking vengeance on her political enemies. That all legislators are elected representatives of the people and each one has secured majority votes in his/her constituency, should also be borne in mind.

The common man looks forward to welfare measures from the Government and not vengeful deeds.

K.D.Viswanaathan,
Coimbatore, T.N.

Sir, — You have catalogued how Jayalalithaa's administration in Tamil Nadu is scaling new heights of intolerance with each passing day. It seems that she has no governmental business other than slapping cases against her political adversaries, various sections of the people and against the independent media. According to her perception, the media should play second fiddle, singing paens of her Ministers and MLAs. She had developed deep contempt for healthy and meaningful criticisms.

Autocrats the world over build a thick wall against the flow of feedback, forgetting that genuine criticism helps to put them on the right track. If the rulers do not take it in the right spirit it heralds their imminent fall from the high pedestal. Their "inordinate appetite for political confrontation" drives people to seek the intervention of courts to assert their basic rights which means that the government itself is responsible for the increase in the volume of cases.

The Chief Minister is never tired of declaring that she intends to take Tamil Nadu to the number one slot in the country. But unfortunately she seems pre-occupied with matters irrelevant to the administration.

V.N. Gopal,
Chennai

Sir, — Your editorial aptly focuses on the contempt for democratic spirit that has emerged in Tamil Nadu under the Jayalalithaa administration. It is unfortunate that in the current set-up, respect for democratic norms has to be brought home through court rulings, as rightly pointed out by you. The phrases used in your reports to describe Ms.Jayalalithaa's speeches can by no stretch of imagination be described as indecent or amounting to a lowering of the goodwill that the present government is supposedly enjoying.

K. Lakshman,
Chennai

Sir, — I was reading Will Durant's "The Story of Philosophy" and I quote what Socrates seems to have said: "In an intelligently administrated society — one that returned to the individual, widened powers, more than it took from him in restricted liberty — the advantage of every man would lie in social and loyal conduct. But if the government itself is a chaos and an absurdity, if it rules without helping, and commands without leading, how can we persuade the individual to obey the laws and confine his self-seeking within the circle of the total good? No wonder, an Alcibiades turns against the state that distrusts ability, and reverences number (add psychophancy in our context) more than knowledge.

Is it not shameful that men should be ruled by orators, who go ringing on in long harangues, like brazen pots, which, when struck continue to sound till a hand is put upon them"? As you have banked on the judiciary as a last (and only) resort for protection from crude (mis)use of state power, would leaders who care for the people of our country, think in terms of bringing the law enforcing agencies to be governed by the judiciary?

Ramabadhran. S
Chennai

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