V.Isvarmurti

Senior Indian Congressman, Thinker and Intellectual

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Visva Bharati and others

Posted on January 19, 2008 by V.Isvarmurti

His Excellency Gopalkrishna Gandhi,
Governor,
Raj Bhavan,
Kolkatta

Dear Your Excellency Gandhi,

Sub: Visva Bharati and others

Hope you remember me.

Today I read in the Kolkatta daily, Telegraph, about the incidents at Santiniketan. Immediately I spoke to my friends there and got some idea of the happenings.

Since I had earlier visited the place along with my family a year ago and wrote about its present conditions and you were good enough to respond then.
Now, there are two things I thought I should write and share with you my thoughts.

Of course, the shooting at Santiniketan. One can rationalise that things are deteriorating in the university campuses and this cant be an exception. But my friends tell me that the new VC, Dr.Roy doesn’t stay there for long and they cited some statistics. However, the issue there might be complicated and may require some effort to improve things.

I remember when Pandit Nehru was the Chancellor we as students went on some strike! On some tiny issue. Then, the redoubtable Prof.Satyen Bose (of the famous Bose-Einstein theory fame) was the VC, a very great man, genius and a difficult person to get along in normal course!  Of course, I was personally grateful to the giant that when I told him I wanted to go to Oxford he said: “No, go to Cambridge and I give you a letter” And he took his letter head and wrote out in his beautiful, large handwriting a nice introduction! That was a great gesture. Yes, he was so unpredictable and that was his greatness.

Then, Pandit Nehru, as soon as he heard about the student strike, he sent out  the late A.K. Chanda(who was then a Deputy Minister under Nehru),an old Santiniketan hand, we all knew the entire Chanda family, and his son and his later wife were my class mates and so Chanda came and he couldn’t resolve the dispute. So, when Nehru came later for the convocation he called us, students who went on strike and I was privileged to sit at his feet!
It is a long story and Prof.Bose was “eased” out.
Now, I leave the matter at this point.

The second and most important point I wanted to write here is about India’s nuclear power deal.
I have lots of reservations here.
One needn’t cite Mahatama Gandhi or be a Gandhian to see that what Dr.Manmohan Singh does, his government does it unacceptable to great many people. I am one of them.

Apart from what the standard opposition to the deal is, from atomic scientists and from Left and others, my objection is that this deal is aimed at, ultimately to turn India into a nuclear weapon state, openly and officially, right?
This, as Jimmy Carter pointed out, is morally wrong for India.

India doesn’t want to sign the CTBT and other international obligations to renounce tests in future. That means that India wants to become a weapons state and also doesn’t want to adhere to any international treaties banding India to go further in testing the weapons or weapons making capabilities, right?

Can this be a morally justifiable stand?
And the PM expects China to openly endorse India’s stand!

Also, the PM’s political legitimacy on such a sensitive and such a stand that has so many long-term implications, can this be justified and can the country be expected to silently or openly welcome such a stand?

These are the issues I thought the country must debate openly and also wait for the next elections and people must be informed clearly about the various implications in what the PM is trying to achieve right now.

Anyway, I have enclosed herewith some of my writings that you might just give a glance.

With warm regards,

Yours sincerely,
V.Isvarmurti

About Author

V. Isvarmurti is a leading public figure from south of India. He is a former member of the then Madras Legislative Council. He had his education at such reputed institutions like Tagore’s Santiniketan and Oxford University. Read More

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