This refers to the report on Girish Karnad’s criticism of Professor K. J. Shah (March 2). I do not want to say anything more on that subject, except that I too was among the ‘friends’ Shah had invited to that symposium and it never struck me that any impropriety was involved. I am writing this to record that Shah was a very close friend of mine for over four decades — from 1949 when he had just returned from Cambridge to his untimely death in 1994 — and he was utterly incapable of any dishonourable conduct. He was of course an immensely influential philosopher, and I have acknowledged my intellectual debt to him in my dedication to him of my book Towards Water Wisdom: Limits, Justice, Harmony . It is a great pity that he has left behind very little published work. Mr. Karnad’s remarks about Shah diminish Mr. Karnad himself, not Shah.
Ramaswamy R. Iyer,
New Delhi
