The Hindu did not disappoint. It did not publish the letter about Swamy. Fine. What is baffling is the captive behaviour of The Hindu when it comes to Swamy. Perhaps, a quid pro quo for helping in the withdrawl of a bunch of defamation suits filed against it by Jayalalithaa in 2004, or as an investment for a future help when Swamy and the BJP and Jayalalithaa team up on the winning side in the next elections. Swamy can be a nasty adversary if you are on the other side. Ram has already predicted in an interview he had with Advani that the P.M. in waiting would be the next P.M. Who is cleverest is not too difficult to guess.
Yesterday is behind. Ahead is tomorrow. so, I sent a suggestion to the Readers' Editor of The Hindu. Here it is:
Dear Readers’ Editor,
As you know, almost all the reputed newspapers all over the world publish on their website all their readers’ letters that are not scurrilous or defamatory, though, for obvious reasons, they print only a select few. May I ask why The Hindu does not follow that practice?
The feeling I get is that The Hindu expects its readers to choose only the topics it favours and respond only the way it approves. Those who sense this and would die to get their letters published might willingly or grudgingly oblige. But do you think this is right for a paper that is known as ‘liberal and left-leaning’ and is interacting with its readers through a Readers’ Editor?
Regarding the editing of the letters, I believe the Letters column can be maintained as an insulated sand-box where the readers can be left to express their views freely sans any censoring except to weed out the outrightly boorish.
Regarding the letters that cannot be printed for want of space, I suggest The Hindu may post them on its website.
Always appreciative of the great work you are doing,
P.P.Sudhakaran
P.S. I am a retired Professor of History
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