Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Five years after

The article "Five years after Godhra and the pogrom" (Feb. 28) is a reminder of the plight of the victims of the post-Godhra riots amidst criminal neglect by a heartless government. It is to the credit of our secular democracy supported by a vigilant media that such open exposure is possible and remedies are sought within the system, though the ultimate redress may be excruciatingly slow and follow quite a torturous path for the victims.

Kasim Sait,
Chennai

* * *

I read with interest the letter that said the article was inflammatory in nature and rubbed salt into the wounds of the survivors (March 3). I would like to recall Archbishop Desmond Tutu's words when he was appointed to chair South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995: "I hope that the work of the commission, by opening wounds to cleanse them, will thereby stop them from festering. We cannot be facile and say `bygones will be bygones,' because they will not be bygones and will return to haunt us. True reconciliation is never cheap, for it is based on forgiveness, which is costly. Forgiveness in turn depends on repentance, which has to be based on an acknowledgement of what was done wrong and therefore on disclosure of the truth. You cannot forgive what you do not know."

Dami Rambhia,
Glastonbury, Connecticut

* * *

Not a day passes without condemnation of the Gujarat riots and the plight of the minorities. But nobody talks of the thousands of Kashmiri Pandits who were driven out of their homes at gunpoint. They have been living on the streets for years for no fault of theirs except belonging to a particular community. Neither the media nor the government speaks for them, perhaps because they do not constitute a vote bank.

G. Badrinath,
Hyderabad

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