While the writer (“ >The question of forgiveness ”, April 20) has tried to be politically impartial, he appears to have missed out the most prominent and least “justified” atrocity that continues to happen day after day — the apology that the rest of India owes to the families of over 3,00,000 farmers. For over two decades now, we have been near silent about their never-ending distress.
R. Swarnalatha,
New Delhi
The article has beautifully explained the need to apologise for one’s mistakes as an act of seeking redemption — which could work wonders in society and bring back long-lost peace and harmony. Our politicians need to take that step in making India a better place by acknowledging the mistakes of the past and promising an unblemished future.
Arsath Khan A.,
Salem
While Shiv Visvanathan quite passionately argues about the need to tender an apology, extending this argument to the Godhra riots or anti-Sikh riots is a bit strange. The incidents of the Holocaust, Jallianwala Bagh, slavery, Japanese atrocities against some Asian countries during the Second World War are unique ones where the oppressors chose to wilfully exterminate their subjects based on their race or ethnicity or colour or religion. While the Godhra and Sikh riots are glaring examples of the government’s failure in protecting the lives of its citizens, I presume they are certainly not a case of comparing heinous, state-sponsored crimes against humanity with communal riots. Episodes against humanity such as colonial atrocities, apartheid and the medieval invasions need to be analysed dispassionately.
K. Manas Teja,
Hyderabad
Every concerned citizen who believes in the efficacy of contrition and apology in healing the scalded psyche of the victims of mass violence would readily endorse the writer’s demand for sincere and unqualified apology. No leader, however popular and great, but tainted with the blood of riots and genocidal killings, can find solace in the adage that “public memory is short” and in the fact that he/she has won an overwhelming mandate at the hustings. If one were to analyse the history of riots and pogroms, it would be very obvious that the provenance of such mass killings is either unmitigated avarice for political power and territorial expansion or inexorable intolerance for the people of other faiths, races, sects and societies. Timely apologies and prompt expressions of regret offer to the victims not only satisfaction that the loss and suffering that they had to undergo for no fault of theirs has been recognised but also neutralise any smouldering urge for retaliatory violence. In today’s global politics, the U.S. owes us all an unqualified apology for the chaos it has created because of its self-centred and divisively disastrous foreign interventions.
S. Balu,
Madurai
