It was gratifying to hear President Pranab Mukherjee speak out against the dharna that took place in Delhi recently. It is a delightful sign of our maturing democracy that we have a Chief Minister holding an open protest against the Central government one week and the President airing, with matching candour, his views on the issue in a national address the next. Earlier, such political aberrations tended to become part of a muted debate, covert enough that the nation was forced to continually revisit the issue — often twisted, in the meantime, by political parties to draw mileage from or point fingers over — for decades without any clear outcome or perspectives emerging. Hopefully, this R-Day presidential address will lead citizens to eschew rhetoric and partisan stance-taking.
R. Narayanan,Ghaziabad
If authoritarianism and monarchy were challenges the nation faced in the past, anarchy is what is staring it in the face now. An ‘Indian Spring’ will in no way help the nation achieve its ambition of becoming a superpower. The Aam Aadmi Party may well encourage a “debate on populist anarchy”. We may as well have debates on “how monarchy provides for a stable government”, or on “how authoritarianism provides for rapid development”. Lest Mr. Kejriwal forgets, it is democracy that has even enabled them to urge for a debate.
Sweety Gupta,New Delhi
