Letters to the Editor: Manipulated video

On 9th January, Dr Param Navdeep Singh, a leader of INC took to her official Twitter handle to share the same manipulated video which Pakistanis and their Indian agents shared on 7 January, to claim that the Indian government is planning to remove Sikhs from the Indian army. It is despite the Indian government rubbishing the video as fake and manipulated on the very day, the Congress leader continued to peddle the fake video in a deliberate plan to destabilize the country and its security forces. This is condemnable as there should be some limit to gaining political mileage. Why did Sonia Gandhi and her son and daughter do not take action against that leader? India has not forgotten the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. In their attempt to portray PM Modi as anti-Sikh, the Congress leader Tweeted the fallacious claim, two days later, with the hashtag #ModihatesPunjabis. In her now-deleted Tweet, the Congress leader wrote "During 6 January Meeting of Modi's Cabinet Committee on security BJP Minister Calls for Removal of Sikhs from Indian Army #ModihatesPunjabis" while sharing a screenshot from the fake video. After outrage by conscious netizens, Dr Param Navdeep Singh had to delete her Tweet. It is here to be mentioned that Dr Param Navdeep Singh identifies herself as a social activist and doctor who is also a former Congress MLA of Sangaria Assembly constituency in Rajasthan.

Congress, which is famous for always toeing Pakistan's line when it comes to demonising the Modi government, did so again this time, parroting the false assertions made by an Inter-Services Public Relations propaganda Twitter handle (ISPR). Sonia Gandhi and her company should realise that this is a 4G internet age, people can see the difference between fake and real in no time.

Julie Bhuyan,

Gaurisagar.

A nation within the nation

A nation is within the nation. India is stuck in Quotas. This observation is made in the context of a recent exiting spree of the Dalit leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party in UP on the eve of the state elections. As many as 3 Cabinet Ministers and 9 MLAs belonging to Dalit communities barring a lone Brahmin leader have resigned from BJP and joined Samajbadi Party, dubbing the BJP anti-Dalit that has ignored Dalits; and they are now confident that it is SP only which will serve best the Dalit interests. Imagine! All these leaders have completed a full term in power and now this moment of realization dawned on them at the election time which will be fully carried through by 10th March' 22. It is a white lie and ironically instead of improving the plight of Dalits as envisioned by the Constitution makers, our caste-based reservation system has only catered to help the Dalit leaders as they garner votes with caste appeal during election time. In terms of real politics, the reservation system has only created an artificial nation within the nation with the caste leaders being most benefitted and giving birth to a neo-wealthy class. In contrast, China has no caste-based reservation. Their caste system has been codified based on economic inequality. China today has become a superpower and at a near time, she is capable of superseding the top superpower, the United States of America.

The architect of the Constitution Dr Ambedkar created this special provision temporarily for 10 years but the provision has since got almost permanent Constitutional sanction by various amendments by Acts of the Parliament. Even Babu Jagjivan Ram, the great Dalit leader of yesteryears pleaded for the eventual elimination of this special provision, to quote his words, 'when untouchability itself is eliminated, when all Hindu temples are open to all castes in Hindu society, Hindus of all castes can participate in all religious and social functions etc..' It would be rational for the genuine welfare of our country to adopt economic criteria for a reservation to prevent misuse of political power at the cost of our poor and deprived classes and recurrent political unrest. This will ensure a Constitutional guarantee of equal opportunity for all. Yours etc.

Pannalal Dey,

Guwahati

Petition writer

Since time immemorial we have seen that few persons were sitting in the thana premises who help the illiterate people in writing FIRs on their behalf to the OC of that particular thana. For doing so they charge a fee from the concerned party. But of late, due to some reasons, they have been branded as DALALS, which we feel is rather unfair. Those who support the idea should accompany those who go to thana to file the FIR to see the response they usually receive from the police.

If a petition writer or an FIR writer is a DALAL, then what is about our lawyers who take the fee to present their cases before the judiciary?

Hitting the poor petition writers below the belt for sheer publicity is not fair.

Joel Gayari,

Tangla.

Coronavirus etymology

For the last two years, Coronavirus has led us to an explosion of new words in English, which we have got accustomed to. Words such as 'pandemic', 'quarantine', 'self-isolation', 'lockdown' and 'covidised' have become a part of our everyday life. Interestingly, COVID neologisms are being coined quicker than ever. These include 'covidiot' (one ignoring public health advice), 'covideoparty' (online parties via Zoom or Skype), and 'covexit' (the strategy for lockdown). Given this process of lexical innovation, it is natural that these new words enter the wider public consciousness in the way we have seen with coronavirus terminology. New words apart, absorbingly enough the word 'wave', which is synonymous with 'sea', seems to have been taken over by the pandemic as not a day passes without connecting it with the virus. With the third wave of the virus raging on, one may not be surprised to see alterations in sentences to read the other way round like, "wildfire spreads like Coronavirus!"

Ranganathan Sivakumar,

Madipakkam, Chennai