Editor,
Election season in India is like a festival. For political party workers it’s an occasion for merry-making. This is also the time when leaders respond to your phone calls! They hardly miss to send you birthday wishes, thanks to automated reminders that help even unkind leaders stage kindness and generosity. Now a flurry of promises are being made. Some are logical, others illogical and outrageous. Some are even unconstitutional. All this goes to show that certain political leaders can go to any extent for votes. Their aspirational leaders speak without thinking, their prime objective being to please the voters. Moreover, making promises does not cost anything.
In the process of pleasing voters, certain leaders have grievously hurt many others. They are also now unashamedly using even the Triple Talaq Act. They are bargaining with certain voters over this as a saleable commodity. Is it not a sore point with Muslim women? Just imagine how hurt the fathers of millions of daughters in this country must be. Again, a sane person would agree that Triple Talaq has been heavily misinterpreted and thus abused for centuries, as all the laid down conditions are ignored and moral values overlooked. Even our immediate neighbour Pakistan, an Islamic country has long abandoned it because of the increasing misuse of this Islamic law.
The present government had fought hard and long with the adversaries of the Bill banning Triple Talaq. The Modi government certainly deserves praise for this bold step. The Bill will save both men and women in many aspects – women from atrocities from their husbands and men from committing sin! But now, with the Lok Sabha elections round the corner, certain parties are stooping so low as to take advantage of this much-abused practice. In the course of their campaign, the leaders are claiming to revoke the Bill if voted to power. What is most disgusting is that even women leaders, without a sense of guilt, are boasting that their party will instantly restore the Triple Talaq. Is this not a dangerous development? When people lust after votes they forget that they are treading on the path of vice! Where are the conscious intellectuals of the country now? Where are those award-wapsi groups and why is the media holding back from denouncing the perpetuation of this baneful practice? This is indeed a real tragedy! Do we want the cutting edge of modern technology to be used to break off a marriage? A scholarly mother of three daughters says — ‘this retrograde practice has literally reduced millions of talented women to living corpses!’
If election and democracy are taking society to an unconscionable point then we are definitely heading towards anarchy. Hence damning, the leaders who commit themselves to ensuring a bright future for the society and for better governance, can result in reducing society to a whirlpool of oppression, repression, and frustration. How on earth can we trust such leaders and bet on their integrity? Have they not brought a bad name to other leaders of integrity? Come on, let’s wake up and support principled leader with moral integrity who promise to deal with entrenched societal malpractices. If we don’t do so now then Triple Talaq, and such other vices, might go digital very soon and burn millions of households.
Yours etc.,
Salil Gewali,
Shillong
Welcome order from SC
Editor,
The Supreme Court has passed an interim order directing BSP supremo Mayawati to deposit with the UP government huge costs incurred from the public-exchequer on statues of her own and elephants resembling BSP party-symbol during her regime as UP Chief Minister, at Noida and Lucknow. It is noteworthy that further costs were incurred in covering statues of elephants during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. It is likely that the Apex Court may further tighten rules in this regard in its final verdict for which the next hearing is scheduled for April 2, 2019 since the present directions are of an interim nature.
The tendency of political rulers to make statues of themselves and their family-members and mentors are not uncommon. Examples are Tamilnadu and Haryana. Now jailed Om Prakash Chautala in his regime as Chief Minister of Haryana, flooded the state with statues of his father Tau Devilal apart from naming several institutions etc in his name. Congress party dominated by Nehru-Gandhi family has always been known to name of institutions and schemes after the members of the Nehru-Gandhi family. It is noteworthy that the Party never cared to name institutions and schemes after Prime Ministers from Congress party who were not members of the Nehru-Gandhi family.
A system should be formulated whereby installation of statues and naming of public places or institutions etc., may only be done with compulsory consent of the leader of the opposition.
Yours etc.,
Subhash Chandra Agrawal
(Guinness Record Holder & RTI Consultant)
Delhi -6
NGT ban on coal mining futile
Editor,
Apropos the news report, “Illegal sale of challans thrives without scrutiny” (ST Feb 13, 2019),we have seen how the coal mine owners are using all kinds of strategies to circumvent the NGT ban on export of coal from Meghalaya, pending the Mining Policy. We have been witnesses to how coal is regularly transported on one or the other pretext after getting orders from the Supreme Court to allow such transportation from time to time on the pleadings of the Advocate General, Govt of Meghalaya. We are told that the Court has appointed an amicus curiae in this case and that a 600 page document has been presented to the Supreme Court. It is the hope of all those who work t environment conservation and a just and humane society that rat hole mining be forever banned in Meghalaya. It has caused the deaths of far too many poor bonded labourers. Such an outdated system of coal mining should not be allowed in the 21st century.
Yours etc.,
NG Kharpran,
Via email