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This is with regard to “No quotas for higher studies, please” ( Business Line , August 27). For thousands of years injustice has been dealt out to the lower class people and they have been denied not only education and basic amenities of life, but even minimum rights to live in society like human beings.
So how can people expect them to become equal to people from the higher classes with just three or four decades of reservation? Shouldn't we at least now allow them opportunities to be treated like humans?
Prakash Dutta
Southern spirit
I beg to differ from the author's point of view in “South lukewarm to Anna's fast” ( Business Line , August 26). The British conquest of India started from the South! All the struggle that the South wanted to do had been done well before the start of 1800. What started off the First war of Independence in India was an internal rebellion, which was fuelled by the caste policies adopted by the British. Such caste policies were not prominent in the South and therefore, they never took active part in it.
Second, on the freedom struggle, important contributions were made by leading luminaries from the South. In fact, Tamil was a southern language that even Gandhiji learnt.
As to Jayaprakash Narayan's fight, it was more a fight for the downtrodden in Bihar that spread all across the North. Jayaprakash Narayan led the movement in the 1970s, whereas the emancipation of the downtrodden had already been started in the 1930s by Periyar in the South. However, when the movement to oust Indira Gandhi in 1977 happened began in the North, the impact of the Emergency was never felt in the South, to as great an extent as in the North. The South had a very responsive government, more or less corruption-free and all jobs got done on time.
Finally, in Anna Hazare's case too, the South had just concluded its elections. They had changed the government in three of the Southern States, due to corruption. They had already done their duty as citizens . Naturally, though Anna had caught their attention, the need was not immediately felt.
Shan Kumar
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