Letters

Fighting corruption
Many concerned citizens in India feel sad and demoralized that country's administration and public affairs have gone into the hands of corrupt people. They wonder as to what they can do to save the country from such corrupt forces.

Anna Hazare's anti-corruption call received such widespread and spontaneous support because it reflected the mood of the people and gave an opportunity to them to vent their anger and bitterness. Even though Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement has lost its direction which is regrettable , the concerned countrymen should not lose hope. It is high time that a silent movement should be started to boycott the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats in a way similar to Gandhiji's movement to boycott foreign clothes.

Let not anyone invite those politicians and bureaucrats facing corruption cases in courts to any public functions or gatherings and the people should refrain from attending any gatherings where such corrupt people would be the invitees.

Educated people should give a lead and spread this message and certainly everyone including the people belonging to lower economic group who are much bigger sufferers of corrupt conditions, would follow suit. This can be a very effective and dignified as well as peaceful anti-corruption movement that is bound to spread very fast, given the mood of the people today.

Every citizen concered about corrupt conditions can take a lead at his own level, without looking for some one from somewhere to give a lead.

N S Venkataraman,
Nandini Voice for the Deprived

Manto Remembered
It was an excited occasion in JNU, when Nighat Patel Manto, Nuzhat Arshad Manto and Nusrat Jalal Manto-all three daughters of Saadat Hasan Manto, now all beyond sixty, came to JNU, where an event was organized to commemorate Manto's birth centenary by School of Languages, Literatures and Culture Studies (SLL&CS) of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Vice Chancellor of the University Prof S K Sopory was present to welcome the loveable guests of JNU.

Professor Chaman Lal from Centre of Indian Languages (SLL&CS), while underlining the importance of Manto, not only as just Urdu writer, rather the internationally renowned author from South Asia; spoke about Manto's early life spent in Punjab, mostly at Amritsar, referring to his story 'Tamasha' on Jallianwalabagh massacre of 1919, written from the eye of a seven years old child; incidentally Manto himself was just seven years old at the time of massacre of Jalianwalabagh took place in Amritsar and he was studying in Amritsar at that time. The story written much later, had deep humanist touch, which became the landmark of Manto's all writings later, which can be paraphrased by one of his dialogues in a story- it is not to say that a Hindu was killed in communal violence or a Muslim or Sikh was killed-it is to say that it is 'the human being 'who is killed in violence. Total corpus of Manto's literature is based on the theme of deep humanism and the tragedy of communal violence, related to partition of India in 1947. Out of 42 years of his life Manto lived for 35 years in undvided India and just seven years in Pakistan, but his writings are so much valued and loved in India that almost all Indian languages have his writings translated and particularly in Hindi, Urdu and English, there is huge literature available on Manto. One of the Hindi writers known for his writings on Manto, Narender Mohan presented his latest book 'Manto Zinda Hai' to Manto family. National Book Trust of India (NBT) also presented a set of its best Urdu publications to the members of Manto family on the occasion and JNU Vice Chancellor honored them with Mementoes of JNU. Speaking on the occasion Prof Sopory, who is a Scientist, said that he was impressed by Manto's writings and felt that there should be more close relations between the two neighbors, so that more such literary exchanges should take place.

A Teacher, JNU

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 12, Sep 30 -Oct 6 2012

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