MyVoice: Views of our readers 1st April 2021

Make state govt employees more accountable

Nowadays our Telangana ministers are busy in the election meetings. When one election process is over the next one is announced. So this is a continuing process and the question does arise when they would focus on their ministries and concerned offices. There is a need to surprise check all offices situated in Hyderabad and district offices by the ministers. With the surprise check the staff will be vigilant and give their 100 per cent duty.

Even there is a need that our Chief Minister should make a surprise visit to the various state departments and check their service record whether they come with punctuality and keep the record intact. There is a need to check the corruption angle in the state departments.

The state government has increased the monthly salaries of government employees, so there is a need that staff should be regular and complete the work without pending. Hope our Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao will take cognisance and to start the regular surprise check of all state departments and give directions to all Ministers to visit the concerned department offices for surprise check. Even in the surprise check there is a need to look whether the staff keep the office clean and follow the Covid guidelines properly or not.

Syed Nisar Mehdi, Hyderabad

Modi's street-smart politics

It was quite a strange spectacle to see Prime Minister Modi campaigning for one of the respected technocrats turned BJP leader in Palakkad in Kerala. What is more intriguing is the 88-year-old on becoming a politician needs a Gujarati-speaking 70-year-old Prime Minister seeking votes for him from Malayalam-speaking voters which can happen only in India. One wonders what would be going into the minds of those senior BJP leaders who have been placed in Margdarshak Mandal for crossing the 75 years age restriction imposed by the party. Selective exemption on age restriction would help Modi to continue beyond BJP's superannuation age. Modi seems to be an astute politician gathering supporters for his own future to thwart attempts to send him to Margdarshak Mandal.

N S Rajan, Hyderabad

No governance, only politics

The two visuals of Manjul on cover page of today's THI are worth trillions of words. Very appropriately shown on prevailing administration of government. All political parties more so ruling party is busy and pre-occupied with focus on elections to win as one election or other is held, every year, in some State or other; by election to MP seat or MLA; Municipality or Panchayat. Central ministers queued to campaign in Hyderabad municipal elections. The government is coming to a standstill, not concerned about Good Governance.

G Sivaramakrishna, Hyderabad

Needed a new narrative on caste system

It was distressing to read the news item that parties are using the caste card to win elections in Tirupati. It is extremely unfortunate that we went so wrong in understanding and correcting a terrible discourse after independence. The only reality of the Indian social systems are the castes (jatis); thousands of them which have vibrantly and dynamically evolved or dissolved across centuries. These castes are based on many things and Indian experience has been that political, social, and economic power lay with different castes at different times.

Varnas have been always four in number and these have been categories. The one-to-one correlation between the jatis and varnas has been one of the most dubious and difficult exercises across all times. One cannot give a hierarchical ordering to Varnas but extreme cherry picking and selective readings of the colonials (especially the reading of the Purusasukta) created a hierarchy of varnas. There have been equally valid and important texts which calls for equality of all the varnas or even reverses them. The colonials and our scholars have conveniently ignored them. The colonials did not 'create' the caste system but this was an 'experiential unity' for them of the hundreds of jatis and the social system they saw in India.

The country is dividing deeply as new castes come into existence and the existing discourse solidifies further. The political pundits complicated the issue by introducing further classifications like 'forward', 'backward' (with sub-categories), 'scheduled' and so on. These have only created frictions and angers in our society when we should be moving forward in harmony and unity. The Varna Vyavastha and the jatis have been the bedrock of our civilisation and the reason we could survive so many physical and intellectual onslaughts to obliterate us. But we need new narratives- based solely on our past traditional understanding ironically. The people who should remain far away from creating fresher narratives to the agitated country where everyone is fighting for rights based on 'caste' are the politicians. Ironically, they are the most significant people in charge. Meanwhile, we learn that caste system is bad and ugly, while at the same time mentioning our caste in every application form.

Dr Pingali Gopal, Warangal

Enhance awareness drives

It is a matter of grave concern that the cases of coronavirus pandemic increase day by day in AP. In the wake of this harsh reality, the police take stringent action against the people who avoid wearing face masks in public places. Violators of Covid protocol are penalised differently in different districts according to the whims and fancies of the SP's. During the previous lockdown, the frontline warriors of different departments strained every nerve to contain the disease. Yet, there are victims of it. Focus on mask wearing is not enough. All public places are the scenes of no social distancing. There is no proper social and personal sanitisation. Awareness drives should be enhanced instead of emptying the pockets of the public in the name of fines for not wearing masks.

Tulluri Venkateswarlu, Bapatla