The Week India – August 04, 2019

6 THE WEEK • AUGUST 4, 2019

LETTERS

Editor Philip Mathew

Chief Associate Editor & Director Riyad Mathew

Editor-in-Charge V.S. Jayaschandran

Senior News Editor Stanley Thomas

News Editor Lukose Mathew

Deputy News Editors Mathew T. George, Maijo Abraham,

Ajish P. Joy

Resident Editor, Delhi K.S. Sachidananda Murthy

Chief of Bureau, Delhi R. Prasannan

Contributing Editors Barkha Dutt, Anita Pratap,

Anuja Chauhan

Chief of Bureau, Mumbai Dnyanesh V. Jathar

Deputy Chiefs of Bureau, Delhi Vijaya Pushkarna, Neeru Bhatia

Chief Subeditors Susamma Kurian,

Navin J. Antony

Senior Subeditors Anirudha Karindalam,

Anirudh Madhavan

Subeditors Diya Mathew, Karthik Ravindranath,

Reuben Joe Joseph, Nirmal Jovial

Photo Editor: Sanjoy Ghosh

Deputy Photo Editors

Bhanu Prakash Chandra, Salil Bera

Chief Photographers

Delhi: Arvind Jain, Sanjay Ahlawat

Mumbai: Janak Bhat,

Amey Suhas Mansabdar

Photographer

Delhi: Aayush Goel

Chief Picture Coordinator

Bimal Nath C.

Research: Jomy M. Joseph

Art Editor: Jayakrishnan M.T.

Assistant Art Editor: Binesh Sreedharan

Senior Infographic

Designer: Sreemanikandan S.

Illustrator: B. Bhaskaran

Layout Artist: B. Manojkumar

Designers: Deni Lal, Job P.K.

Graphic Designer: Syam Krishnan

Artists: Rajesh A.S., Sumesh C.N.,

Sujesh K., Ajeesh Kumar M., Jairaj T.G.

Research Head: K. Manoharan

Senior Researcher: Rani G.S.

THEWEEK.IN

New Media Coordinator Neeraj Krishnan

Deputy New Media Coordinator Sarath Ramesh Kuniyl

Senior Subeditors Hazeeda Vijayakumar, Sumitra Nair,

Vaisakh E. Hari, Ancy K. Sunny,

Jose K. George, Justin Paul George

Subeditors Vinod V.K., Anita Babu, Elvis Kurian

John, Varun Ramesh Balan

Senior Researcher Saju C. Daniel

Multimedia Rahul J. Mohan, Vipin Das P.

Executive Director George Jacob

Vice President, Marketing,

Advertising Sales Varghese Chandy

Vice President, Circulation M. Rajagopalan Nair

Senior General Manager, Sales Hari M. Varrier

MUMBAI

Resident Chief General Manager Shree Kumar Menon

CHENNAI

Regional Chief General Manager K.C. Suresh

BENGALURU

Regional Chief General Manager Ranjit Kurien

NEW DELHI

Chief Marketing Officer (North) &

Head, Special Projects R. Rajmohan

SENIOR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS

Delhi: Rekha Dixit, Mandira Nayar,

Namrata Biji Ahuja, Soni Mishra,

K. Sunil Thomas

Srinagar: Tariq Ahmad Bhat

Lucknow: Puja Awasthi

Kolkata: Rabi Banerjee

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS

Delhi: Pratul Sharma, Namita Kohli,

Pradip R. Sagar

Mumbai: Rachna Tyagi

Bengaluru: Prathima Nandakumar

Thiruvananthapuram: Cithara Paul

Mumbai: Nachiket Kelkar

Chennai Lakshmi Subramanian

Bhopal: Sravani Sarkar

Ahmedabad: Nandini Gunavantrai Oza

PRINCIPAL CORRESPONDENTS

Delhi: Soumik Dey

Hyderabad: Rahul Devulapalli

Kochi: Anjuly Mathai

SENIOR CORRESPONDENTS

Bengaluru: Mini P. Thomas,

Abhinav Singh

Delhi: Sneha Bhura

Mumbai: Priyanka Bhadani,

Pooja Biraia Jaiswal

CHIEF REPORTER

UAE: Raju Mathew, Dubai

unanimous opinion that

H.D. Kumaraswamy was

ineffective. While Kumar-

aswamy in his earlier stint

as chief minister managed

to protect his flock, HDK

2.0 was a total disaster.

K.S. Jayatheertha,

On email.

The BJP should not have

been in a hurry to form the

government in Karnata-

ka. It was a political coup

orchestrated by the BJP,

and was quite evident. It

is easy for the so-called

rebels to blame the crisis

on the manner in which

the coalition was being

run. But there is more to

it than meets the eye. The

BJP will get a befitting

response from the people

in Karnataka.

Tigin Thomas,

On email.

Don’t play that

game

Mani Shankar Aiyar let the

cat out of the bag when he

said, “Whether they hold

formal post in the party

or not their influence will

continue to be immense,

even decisive” (‘Manifes-

to’, July 21). That means

whosoever becomes the

Congress president, the

members of the Gandhi

family will wield power

without responsibility.

This will be like how Sonia

Gandhi wielded power

when Manmohan Singh

was the prime minister,

from 2004 to 2014.

Everyone knows back

then Singh was a puppet

prime minister. If such

hypocrisy continues,

people will see through

it, and the BJP’s aim of a

‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ will

succeed very soon.

D.R. Srinivasan,

Bengaluru.

Worth the read

Amish Tripathi is a great

writer and I am sure Raa-

van: Enemy of Aryavarta

will be a book worth the

read (‘Spilling dark ink’, July

21). It always makes me

wonder how Amish, who

was a zealous atheist in

college, was reclaimed by

faith just before he wrote his

first book. The gods must

have intervened back then,

I suppose.

T.K. Prasad,

On email.

Smart Gandhi

Despite volumes being writ-

ten on Mahatma Gandhi,

the completely new facets to

his personality, mentioned

in your cover story, were

pleasantly surprising for

the reader (‘The unknown

Gandhi’, June 30). At the

same time, I also agree with

Mark Tully that Gandhi,

despite being deified, was

also a ‘smart’ (a euphe-

mism) politician, who,

perhaps, could not have

given us freedom from the

British yoke had he been

nothing else, but the higher

soul—‘Mahatma’.

Putting Gandhi on a ped-

estal and surrounding him

with a halo has forced us to

always look at him through

tinted glasses, making him

more ‘mythical’ than ‘hu-

man’, and, in the bargain, we

tend to eclipse the contribu-

tions of his contemporaries.

Vijai Pant,

On email.