A courageous and compassionate prime minister is high on the wish list of our countrymen ( >“Choosing courage over strength,” May 13 ). However, in the discourse of election debates, courage and compassion were conspicuous in their absence with the use of unparliamentary language, acrimony and run-ins being the in-things. Laws were flouted and institutional procedures cast to the wind by lawmakers with spiteful hate speech having all but drowned out intelligent debate. It is wrong to conclude that caste and communal issues do not matter to the youth in India. If the youth were oblivious to them they have been reminded about them through the casteist and communal rhetoric of electioneering in 2014.
Mathew Varghese,
Bangalore
The writer of the article seems to be a pessimist which is evident from his claim that “whatever the outcome of these elections, it will not bring much peace and progress to our society.” I would like to remind him that voter turnout in this election has been remarkable if not record-setting which shows that people believe in democracy. However, Mr. Mohan is right in making the point that political discourse during campaigning was not on issues that really demanded attention.
Abhijeet Deshmukh,
New Delhi
The fault with our democracy is that it may be the largest but it does not address the issues of the oppressed and the marginalised.
Vishnudath K.,
Palakkad
