People's Action - must read !
14th June 1999
Preeti Goel @vsnl.com
Dear Interact Inn Members,
A very thought provoking material was published in 'The Hindustan Times'
of Sunday, 6th June, 1999. Reproduced below are the full contents of the
said matter since the same concerns all INDIANS. My appeal to the members
would be to read till the last line of this mail... which includes a reply
email we received from Sanjaya.
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The matter ran on one of the prominent pages of the said English daily and
the Headline read...
' 46 Indian Jawans came back dead from Kargil on June 1st.
But the Congress was playing with inflatable balloons.'
Isn't it amazing that while the country is warding off a severe threat to
its borders, the leading opposition party finds time to make inflatable
bus replicas and attack the government. And they do it in style. They hold
a press conference and state that they fully support the air strikes
against the infiltrators, and then they strike back with an overturned
bus, lampooning it as Delhi-Lahore-Kargil, making light of a serious
situation when our brave brothers are laying down their lives protecting
their motherland at Drass-Kargil.
They also forgot that one of India's beloved sons was held captive in
enemy territory ; what a cruel and insensitive way to make their point,
knowing what Nachiketa's parents, and the families of the twelve jawans
missing in action, must have been going through.
Let it be known, that all Indians stand behind the Indian Armed Forces and
the Indian Government like a rock. Let us tell our brave brothers in
Kargil and all along the frontier, that we know and appreciate and
understand the price they are willing to pay for our security and safety.
Let them know that we stand with them, without guns and bayonets, but with
all the strength of our character, and let us tell them in one loud voice
that they do not walk alone ; that their families are our responsibility ;
that their death will not go in vain.
It is time all Indians come together and thwart the designs of all those
who seek to weaken the Indian State. It is time all Indians stand up and
send a strong message to the world - India's security is not something
that should be toyed around with.
People's Action
People's Action is a response to the irresponsible politics of
irresponsible politicians. It seeks to provide a platform for right
thinking Indians to make their voice's heard, their presence felt. If you
feel strongly on this or other issues, write to us and join in forming a
pressure group that puts back a semblance of respectability in Indian
public life. Contact Sanjaya at [email protected] or write to A-6, Preet
Vihar, Delhi-92 and register your opinion. It counts.
__________________________________________________________________________
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Like thousands of other Indians, I also wrote back and received a reply
email which is given below. It is really heartening to note that people
like Sanjaya have the guts to go ahead and speak their minds out, it is an
equally laudable effort in the sense that unlike most of us who believe in
thinking 'individually' atleast someone has bothered to make an effort to
bring 'like-minded' people together.... after all mobilising Public
Opinion is the need of the hour... unless people decide to come together
it is difficult to think of any CHANGE.
'Isolated Individual expression of thoughts' is not going to help us...
only a joint, common voice can create an impact which INDIA needs so much
at the moment. And for once let us not look at this piece and then forget
all about it after a day's work... let us ACT.... because THINKING on its
own is not the solution... but THINKING coupled with ACTION surely is.
We must ask ourselves... Why do we have to wait till the General Elections
'every year' to voice our opinion...? Why cannot we come together for a
cause... come together for INDIA... for ourselves... ? What is stopping
us from coming together... why this inertia...?
Remember... Every drop counts... every small effort counts. As Literate
Indians WE ALL have the capacity to make a meaningful contribution towards
this cause provided we REALLY want to do it. As the saying goes in our
Ancient Hindu Scriptures...
'People need to be Good...
Good people need to be Active...
Good and Active people need to be organised'.
After all... Good should be as Aggressive as Evil... !
Preeti
-----Original Message-----
From: Sanjaya
To: P.M.Raghavan Unni ; PADMA GOVINDUGARI ; paradigm ; parthi rajasekar
Pavan Sethi ; Payal Shah ; ppc ; prabhu vv ; Pradeep Anand ; Prakash
Ramanathan ; Prasannakumar ; pratham ; PRAVEEN PALANISWAMY ; Preeti Goel ;
puri Date: Thursday, June 10, 1999 11:26 AM Subject: People's Action
Sub: your response to People’s Action
Dear Compatriots
It became clear to us about three hours after the ad. appeared that we
shall not be able to answer each of you individually. The response has
been staggering, to put it mildly. It’s a pity we aren’t going to be able
to communicate one-to-one, because we have so much in common and so much
to discuss and talk about.
But let that wait until we formulate a dialogue system through a web site
which has been commissioned after the ground swell of support we have
received from all of you.
In the meantime, we have much to do. To begin with let us prioritise our
objectives. Our present concern is to send positive signals to our jawans
and to the world community about our appreciation for their sacrifices,
their prowess and their state of preparedness.
This is important because the current politicisation of the issue by the
Congress and the many contradictory views that have appeared in the press
have caused immense damage to the pride and institution of the defence
forces. This must be attended to urgently.
We are initiating moves to inspire all Indians to write down their
feelings of appreciation for the soldiers at the frontier and arranging to
have them sent to the outpost through the defence ministry. This campaign
is expected to begin tomorrow with the appearance of an advertisement in
the Indian Express, Hindu, Hindustan Times and maybe, the Times of India.
Some of these papers may carry the ad. on Saturday. Please be on the
lookout. Please look for the advert,. send in your letter of support and
get as many people as you can to do the same. Don’t e-mail messages,
because we want to hand over letters to the Jawans individually, if
possible. This is the least we can do for our Jawans. Please action this
urgently.
May I also request you to spread the word about People’s Action to all
your friends, associates or colleagues in Indian or NRI’s abroad. We need
to create an army of our own; a powerful army of thinking individuals,
progressive people who are committed to action, not just a lot of talk,
if we wish to achieve any effect. Please do your bit and please ask all
your contacts to do the same.
We shall soon be enclosing membership details that you may wish to fill
in and become active members of People’s Action. We are also looking for
city wise representatives of People’s Action, so please indicate your
availability for undertaking this responsibility.
Some of you have volunteered time and effort and ideas, even monetary
assistance; to all of you I am writing individually taking up your
suggestions and setting up further discussions for concretising plans of
action. Please bear with me if this is taking time; I have to go through
lots of such mail.
I look forward to more interaction with all of you in making People’s
Action a broad based people’s movement all over the country.
Best Regards
Sanjaya
