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November 3, 1998
ELECTIONS '98
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How Readers responded to Pritish Nandy's recent columns
Date sent: 27 Oct 98 08:03:16 -0800
I agree with Nandy when he says it's time the people of India stopped having a premeditated image of how an MP should look. But I cannot agree that an MP may look however he/she wants to. An MP is a representative of the country. He is seen and watched through out the world. I don't think any country would allow its MP to wear a stud (I am not sure how Mr Nandy looks) or wear jeans to Parliament. About women, going to pubs etc, I am sure Mr Nandy is aware of what is going on with President Clinton of the US. One should be dreaming if he thinks this is not true of any political life. I am not saying that a politician should not drink. That's personal. But public display is definitely a no-no. About wearing colours, I completely agree with Mr Nandy. The point is, I agree with him that the emphasis should not be on the looks, but disagree when he suggests there shouldn't be any dress code or restriction. About salaries, allowances etc, I completely agree with him. The same is true for the police force too. S Venkateswaran
Date sent: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 13:58:57 -0600
Dear Pritish, I fully agree with you that looks are not important but deeds are, and the salaries of MPs should be respectable. But we do need to abolish this telephone and gas quota system for MPs. Can you try to bring a legislature in Parliament that every MP should declare his assets publicly every year? Thanks,
Yudhvir Malik
Date sent: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 12:58:42
Dear Mr Nandy, One does not have to know your credentials, the name of the latest party you have joined and the views you express are enough. They all reek of the same watching-one-face-of-the-coin-and-propagating-it-as-the-only-one mentality that all Shiv Sena and BJP leaders display from time to time. What else can make you say that the sainiks were right in attacking Navale? It is true that a person in Navale's position has to be ready for violence and it is true that people do react, sometimes more angrily than normally required, to such issues as "desertion." The fact that the Mahatma was murdered or that Rajiv was blown to pieces and that a similar fate awaits a lot of our future politicians does not let one accept it as something justifiable. Mr Nandy, there is a lot of difference between reality and the "right thing to happen". Sincerely, Manish Varma
Date sent: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 15:30:21 PST
We have seen P Nandy as a good writer and speaker. Now let's see how good he is in politics! Aaba
Date sent: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 16:54:22 -0800
Hi, I agree with Pritish that Salim is a victim of Salman's stupid heroism. Salim is not a criminal to be locked up in custody. I don't think he is going to run away. Let the court decide his fate. However, I am not sure if a black buck is a stray animal found in the vicinity of Panvel. The source of this black buck needs to be found out and if Salim has acquired/purchased it, he should face the consequences. The black buck died in the custody of forest officials. They should also be put on trial because they actually KILLED the animal. At least, the black buck was living on Salim's farm. Now thanks to forest officials, the animal is dead. Omkar
Date sent: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 09:03:33 +0530
Mr Nandy has an interesting point of view. Salman Khan's deeds, if anything, should be contrasted with Salim Khan's -- they are anything but Similar. But I guess, with the current portrayal in the media, as well as the intentions of the forest officer, there's not a ghost of a chance of this happening. More's the pity. Anuradha Nath
Date sent: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 09:38:43 EST
Dear Nandy, Salim had rare animals on his farm. Should we just believe that wild animals are there in his farm 'coz of the good food? When he drives through Bombay, he might be seeing thousands of people who cannot afford a square meal. If he is so compassionate let him feed them instead. I just can't understand this compassion story. Is he trying to build a Jurassic park or what!? Regards Sajith
Date sent: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 14:53:41 +0530
Hello, An excellent article. The sad part is that I am reading this fact about Salim for the first time. Which means my newspapers didn't write a single positive thing about Salim, and that is painful to know about papers like the ToI and Pioneer. Hats off to Pritish.
Mrityunjay Kumar
Date sent: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 08:14:49 PST
Mr Nandy suffers from the very common and misguided impression that youth in its entirety is stupid, ignorant, foolish and self-absorbed. This is very much evident in the first few paragraphs of the article where he bashes Salman Khan to the point of being cruel. Yes. Killing deer is not manly or cool anymore. But hunting had been the greatest sport of India in the past. The fact that Salman wanted to go hunting is not wrong or stupid. What Mr Nandy overlooked was that Salman was not a seasoned or accomplished hunter. He needed local people to tell him about the area and arrange for the hunt. Now if that could be done so easily by an outsider, it suggests that this practice is nothing new to the people there and is conducted frequently if not regularly. I would encourage Mr Nandy to read the latest India Today on hunting practices in India by top businessmen and rich people. In his zeal to write about Mr Salim Khan and his innocence in this matter, Mr Nandy took the easy road -- ie, showing Salman in poor light so as to exaggerate the difference between the father and son to a point where one feels the injustice meted out to the senior. The proverbial Maverick Son and Benevolent Father story. This article would have been so much more compelling and real if Mr Nandy just focused on Salim Khan and had not dragged Salman's name into this. I was very annoyed and outraged at some of the degrading remarks on the alleged hunt by Salman and his friends (Mr Nandy talks as if he was part and parcel of the trip). I must at this point tell you about the simple rule of hunting which is making sure the animal hunted suffers least pain, ie, dies instantly. I know it sounds cruel but that is the humane thing to do in this inhuman sport. It is also a know fact that in hunting the animal rarely dies instantly by the gunshot unless the bullet hits the head or something (which is very rare since nobody aims for the head). So leaving the deer to die after being shot is probably the worst thing to do by the hunter. So what Salman did, if he did it, is not wrong. The part that is wrong is shooting the deer in the first place, for which a suitable punishment should be meted out. Srikant
Date sent: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 10:53:40 +0800
I have never heard of someone finding black bucks, chinkaras, pea hens, and the like straying around Bombay after losing their way. Such cases happen usually near national parks and forests. A lover of animals should transfer them back to their actual habitat after appropriate medical treatments. I have completely failed to understand Mr Nandy's logic.
S R Ranjan
Date sent: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 17:33:49 -0800
I think that Mr Nandy is equating the actions caused by the inadequate resources of forest department to the snobbish acts of Salman's affluence. It is not fair. The forest departments in India do not have large resources to transport deer in 100% safe environment. Also, the forest officer did not purposely kill the deer -- whereas Salman is guilty of a planned murder. Mr Nandy's article, so, is a joke! Two wrongs do not make a right. Both Salman and Salim are guilty of violating the law -- if you do not like the law, you can work to change the law (democracy provides a framemwork for it). If you violate the law, you should be prepared to take the punishment. Without getting into details, how can the author say that by feeding animals or helping injured animals, Salim was helping the cause? It has been seen that most times helping animals is the wrong thing to do as it can cause more problems/imbalances in the natural habitat for healthy animals? If Mr Nandi wants some information, I can provide some articles for him to read. It appears that he is a good writer but does not quite understand wild life dynamics. And hence fails to adequately represent the case of Salman and Salim.
Date sent: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 05:34:28 +0530
If it is indeed true that the black buck died in forest officers' captivity, then we must agree with Pritish Nandy and prosecute these characters. The illegal purchase/sale of land cannot result in wild animals being ill treated. Animals are more important than the allegedly "illegal" farm. This point must be hammered home. Ashok Rai
Date sent: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 17:21:15 -0600
I think it is laughable to write that Salman picked up stray animals. A black buck, I don't think, resides in Bombay.
Rajan Shetye
Date sent: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 23:04:19 -0600
Great, Mr Nandy. You have succeeded in referring to a government officer, who is trying to do his duty, as a person who is after cheap publicity. May be if that poor officer had collected bribes or accepted the fact that rich people, especially the filmi types, are above the rule of the law, he would not have suffered this kind of stupid, unwanted attacks. I really can't understand how you can call the behaviour of this forest officer arrogant.. For a person who can have expensive lawyers argue again and again in courts for his anticipatory bails, it may not have been so tough to tame the arrogance of the officer. Or is it that sir, you have replaced a quality called honesty conveniently with arrogance? So what if Mr Khan took over government forests, and what if he considered endangered animals his personal pets? Is he innocent because Pritish Nandy thinks so?
Date sent: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 22:15:52 +0500
Well, I do agree quite a lot of what you stated. I and many others did believe that Salman Khan is handsome. But we also believe in saying that handsome is what handsome does. Valay
Date sent: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 17:45:23 EST
Pritish Nandy, Enough is enough! Everyday thousands of humans are killed, raped, lynched, robbed (by politicians and dacoits... oops, they are the same!), but is justice served? No. But an animal is killed and the so-called patrons of justice suddenly show up. People who never cared about animals give speeches and, true to India politicians, religious sentiments are raised. Please Nandy, as an MP you should concentrate on better things like looking after your people. Do some work. If you do half what you talk, India would become a better place. Sriram Daita
Date sent: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 14:12:03 +0530
Pritish, You make the adventures of Salman Khan look like an episode of SONY's Aahat! Your imagination scares us! M S K |
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