Letters from the past

Gulf News looks back over the years at concerns and issues raised by readers in their letters to the newspaper. It's a retrospective that offers an insight into the community, the development of the country and the people. This week's letters are from 1982.

Where is the game?
There must have been some good and valid reason for Dubai's Channel 33 not covering the opening of the Sixth Gulf Football Championships in Abu Dhabi on Friday, March 19. The News at Ten showed the opening ceremony very briefly, and the Sports News merely gave the result of the opening match between the UAE and Qatar.

That was followed by a film report on horse racing somewhere in the UK. On the same day India and Pakistan met in the finals of the Asian Cup Hockey, and it was the fifth and last day of the Second Cricket Test between Pakistan and Sri Lanka. These two international sporting events in the neighbouring countries were not even mentioned.

The following night, however, the result of the Asian Cup Hockey final was announced, and since then there has been a film report on the Sixth Gulf Football Championships being played in Abu Dhabi. The World Cup Hockey was played in Mumbai in January 1982 and received very poor coverage, and to the best of my knowledge the Test Series between Sri Lanka and Pakistan has not been featured in the news at all.

If, for technical reasons, it was not possible to broadcast the events live - the World Cup Hockey final between West Germany and Pakistan and the Asian Cup Hockey final between India and Pakistan - I feel certain arrangements could have been made to at least telecast recordings at a later date. We are grateful and appreciative of the kindness and generosity in providing an English language channel for the benefit of expatriates, a large number of whom are from the subcontinent.
From Mr K.S. Shahab Al Deen
Dubai

Who's to blame?
I think Mr K. Nadarajah's analysis of the forthcoming elections in the Indian state of West Bengal makes a mockery of the electorate and ridicules their intelligence. "Parties are judged by their leaders and sometimes policies assume lesser importance than persons," said Nadarajah.

"How else could one explain the sweeping success Mrs Gandhi scored in January 1980 after the humiliating defeat she suffered barely two years ago?" Let us pose the question differently: Why did Mrs Gandhi, despite her so-called charisma, suffer such a humiliating defeat in 1977? What happened to her vote-pulling charisma before the electorate's intelligence?

Furthermore, Nadarajah attempted to use the same "charisma-factor" argument to explain the voters' behaviour in the West Bengal constituency. If Gulf News' writer were familiar with reality he would not have given the kind of importance to Jyoti Basu, the incumbent Marxist chief minister, as he has to the extent of making him look like the explanation for an assured Left Front victory.

What in fact accounts for the bright prospects for the Marxists in the coming elections is their record and mass popularity coupled with the absence of any organised opposition, not Jyoti Basu's incorruptibility, as your writer suggests.

To explain the last point further, I would ask this question: whose incorruptibility? Is it that the Marxists have been returned to power time and again since 1957 in the southern state of Kerala? I think there are essentially two organised forces in India today.

The Communists as opposed to political superstars on the one hand and Hindu revivalist forces in the form of RSS and the Bharatiya Janata Party on the other. As for the Congress, as Nadarajah correctly pointed out, it can hardly be called a party. The Indian electorate are well aware of that.
From Mr J.V.N.
Dubai

It's not important
We draw your kind attention to news about an Indian actor, Amitabh Bachchan, which appears daily on the front page of your reputed paper. It reflects the intention to popularise the person, otherwise his news could be published on the film page or inside page.

Probably you do so in competition with your rival paper or maybe to increase your readership among Indian nationals. For regular readers of Gulf News it is somewhat annoying to see important stories being ousted by Amitabh, who is neither a leader nor a person of world fame.
From A Reader
Abu Dhabi
Name withheld by request