LETTERS

The water man of Rajasthan

I was overwhelmed by the article on Rajendra Singh, aptly called the water man of Rajasthan (August 31). It is a truly valiant effort on the part of Rajendra Singh, who sailed through in the face of adversities. When he left his government job he did not have much savings but nevertheless went ahead, with his friends, to take up teaching in the villages of Alwar. On reaching there, the villagers did not pay much heed to their efforts. Disheartened, his friends left but not Rajendra Singh. One day, a resident of a village said that instead of teaching he should build johads, the wells through which the water-parched villagers could get what they needed. This changed Rajendra Singh's life and along with that changed the lives of villagers in the whole region. Along with the community, he went ahead constructing johads, with his own money and labour. He persisted in his work, and the villagers were whole-heartedly with him as this was what they needed.

But the Rajasthan government foisted false cases on him. This would have scared away a common man, but not Rajendra Singh who knew that he was on the right path. He fought the cases bravely.

The Magsaysay Award has changed things. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot is facilitating Rajendra Singh's works. Rajendra Singh is now seen in distinguished company, with people falling over each other to be photographed with him.

Rajendra Singh has shown the world that where there is a will, there is a johad. He had rightly said that the administration should not impose its will upon the people but take the people along with it. The administration should look into what the people need rather than what is routinely put on paper, which may be useless. The decision as to what they want must be the people's.

Rajendra Singh could not have put it more aptly. His actions have fetched results for the world to see. India needs more action than the rhetoric of politicians and bureaucrats. It is common men like Rajendra Singh who achieve greatness.

Sophia Ajaz
New Delhi

A. Jacob Sahayam
Karigiri, Tamil Nadu

Jehad factories

After reading 'The jehad factories' by Massoud Ansari (August 17) one thing became clear - the meaninglessness of holding talks with Pakistan on the Kashmir problem. Today Pakistan wants Kashmir because the majority of the people living there are Muslims. Tomorrow it will not hesitate to ask for any other part of India. A democratic and united India where people live in harmony makes Pakistan jealous and frustrated. It is justifying its acts by describing certain actions as being part of a jehad, but in reality it is committing barbarian acts.

We should not trust Pakistan. An elected Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, was ousted by the Army chief, General Pervez Musharraf. More recently Musharraf ousted the President and assumed that position. Who knows tomorrow somebody else may greedily do the same thing to grab power. The international community should isolate Pakistan in protest against these uncivilised methods.

What a responsible Indian government needs to do is to end all relations with Pakistan. The India-Pakistan border should be sealed with physical barriers, making infiltration impossible. If the Great Wall of China is possible, why not a Great Wall of India? We need not bend our knees in front of Pakistan. If Pakistan promotes Islam, India promotes all religions. Pakistan is yet to adopt the policy 'live and let live'.

Aron B. Ashok
Thrissur, Kerala

Your portrayal of madrassas as 'jehad factories' might create confusion in the minds of pious Muslims and strengthen the hands of the critics of Islam and its institutions. This is especially so against the background of Union Home Minister L.K. Advani's charge that madrassas are breeding grounds of terrorism.

The article itself provides ample proof that not all those who attend madrassas (schools) go for jehad. I must add that they have a long tradition of producing great scholars. Even in India there are a number of great madrassas with an international reputation. A great Islamic scholar of our time, the late Dr. Ismail Ral Faruqi, said: "It was the madrassa animated by the vision of Islam which created for itself the waqf status which gave it its legal corporate personality and autonomy; which made it the model of the universities of Paris, Oxford and Cologne in the twelfth century."

K.M. Ajir Kutty
Edava, Kerala

Sivaji Ganesan

Sivaji Ganesan was an actor of a rare kind. It would have been only appropriate had Frontline come out with a cover story on him. And if Frontline does not do this, who else will?

How many actors can speak with facial expressions as Sivaji did? Or change his eyes to red, in tragic scenes, in just a moment? There was nothing new with the situation in Jammu and Kashmir to publish a lead article in that particular issue.

V.S. Raju
Chennai

Claims on angioplasty

The article 'Angioplasty advances' (August 17) was interesting. However, I feel that the statement "to 92 per cent of the patients undergoing this procedure, angioplasty offers a permanent cure..." is misleading and biased propaganda for the procedure. Coronary artery disease is not halted by angioplasty; this procedure merely opens up blocked sites in the diseased artery detected at the time of coronary angiography. Problems can arise after angioplasty despite the use of stents. Jargon like 'target vessel revascularisation' will not hide the limits of angioplasty. Technology has increased the scope of angioplasty and stenting over the years, but there are limits even now. Medical management, angioplasty, coronary artery bypass surgery and so on are complementary procedures to be judiciously used to manage the patients' problem, which often has many dimensions.

Dr. M. Paul Korath
Chennai

DPEP

The article 'An educative experience' (August 17) hits the nail on the head when it says that the detractors of the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) have their own axes to grind.

I have had many occasions to witness the abilities of DPEP children since my mother is a lower primary school teacher. She frequently brings home articles and poems written by her pupils. An incident which occurred last year will illustrate my point. Some of her pupils wrote letters to the panchayat president describing the dilapidated condition of the road in front of their school. And the president, witnessing the social awareness of the children, took immediate action to repair it. I certainly believe that the new curriculum is a big success.

Jipson Jacob
Theyyangad, Ponnani

National Missile Defence

I commend your articles on the American militarisation of space ('Going back to Star Wars', August 17). However, the articles did not emphasise how dangerous this is, specifically in terms of India's security. Another aspect not touched upon is what the militarisation of space means in terms of American unilateralism. It is more than likely that we will see more "humanitarian" interventions. A good source for such analysis is, of course, Noam Chomsky. I commend your interviews with him published in the past.

Somendra Singh
received on e-mail

Medicine

This has reference to the response from Dr. C.P. Thakur, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare ("A case for integrated medicine," August 17), to the article "Mixing medicines" (July 6).

The Minister says: "It has been increasingly recognised that allopathic medicine has become more disease-specific and ignores the person as a whole." Many people hold this view. Medical science is a tool and it can be effectively used to treat a person as a whole as is usually done by general practitioners of medicine. Since the field of medicine has become commercialised, we find such aberrations as ignoring the person as a whole. This may happen in the case of complementary medicine too. It is not the defect of any system and needs to be corrected by practising doctors.

The Minister further says that people are opting more and more for complementary medicine and that the allopathic system offers no cure for all types of illnesses and as a result there is frustration among some patients, which may prompt them to switch to alternative systems of medicine. Alternative medicine may be new and may be comparatively cheap in certain instances. There are irregularities in the practice of the allopathic system, such as the prescription of overdoses of medicines and unwarranted investigations and surgical procedures. These may dissuade people from seeking allopathic cures. So one cannot say that people are opting more and more for complementary medicine because of its strength. Nor does it mean that allopathic medicine is deficient.

The Minister wonders whether the rising cost of conventional medicine forces people to opt for complementary medicine. This is an erroneous view, which is aimed only at promoting complementary medicine. It does not offer any calculation of the real costs. If medicines in the complementary stream cost less than allopathic medicines, they are certainly worth using. But the cost of complementary medicines that are marketed is comparatively high. Also, there is no uniformity in standards.

Dr. Thakur says: "Ginko biloba has been found to delay cognitive decline in patients with Alzheimer's disease." This is a statement based on the manufacturer's claim that it improves memory. There is no definite evidence for this, based on randomised trials.

Dr. Thakur's attempt to justify complementary therapies is fine. But there is no justification for advocating integration of different systems of medicine. The Supreme Court has upheld this view. Integration, in fact, leads to quackery. Instead of integrating different systems of medicine, the government should think in terms of improving the institutions that offer complementary care by increasing financial support and staff strength, developing gardens of herbal plants, dispensing herbal medicines, improving research and encouraging comparative studies.

We should be able to offer complementary medicine of a high quality and should know when to use it. There is no justification to term one system of medicine good and another as bad. Allopathy and complementary medicine are independent systems in themselves and there is no need for everybody to practise both. We must encourage the traditional way of practising complementary medicine and revive the system.

A paper on complementary medicine may be incorporated in the curriculum of the undergraduate course in allopathic medicine. But when it comes to practice, only those who are trained in a particular system should be allowed to practise it.

Dr. Prakash C. Rao
Secretary,
Drug Action Forum, Karnataka
Bangalore

Completely misquoted The report on the Sahmat Convention (August 4-6, 2001) published in the August 31 issue of Frontline, misquotes my speech at the Convention. It states: "He said that even the pleas of scientists like Jayant Narlikar and Raja Ramanna, who were perceived as being close to the Sangh Parivar, against the move went unheard." I must emphasise that I did not say or imply any such thing. The point I made was that Dr. Raja Ramanna, who had supported the government on the nuclear issue, had also come out against the introduction of Vedic Astrology but was being ignored by the government on this issue. I also made reference in my speech to the calling-attention motion on the subject that had been introduced in the Rajya Sabha by Dr. Raja Ramanna. My reference to Prof. Jayant Narlikar was purely in the context of an eminent scientist who opposed the introduction of Vedic Astrology but whose voice was not being heard. I made no statement that could even remotely be summarised or construed in the manner that appears in the quotation. I must reiterate that I am completely aware of and deeply respect the constant public interventions of Prof. Jayant Narlikar against the move to introduce Vedic astrology and other such obscurantist ideas in university and school curricula. I also deeply appreciate the fact that a well-known scientist like Dr. Raja Ramanna has also spoken out on this issue. I, like other scientists all over the country, consider their public interventions in this matter to be significant and important. T. Jayaraman Chennai