LETTERS – APRIL 2024
Understanding Russia
It was fascinating to read the interview between Nitin A. Gokhale and MJ Akbar in your March issue (‘Capacity counts’), as it offered a very perceptive view of Russia’s continuing war in Ukraine that might not be very palatable to many Western readers.
Whether one believes this is an ‘unjustinvasion’ by Russia (as the Vatican recently stated in something of a backtrack, following Pope Francis’call for Ukraine to show ‘the courage to raise the white flag’ for peace), or a justifiable act over concerns of NATO’s expansion in the region (as Akbar hints in highlighting Russia’s case that it ‘cannot permit the NATO embrace to go beyond its defining line’), the reality is that Russia seems to be winning, despite Ukraine’s valiant fight-back.
The world’s attention isnow focusing ever more on the conflict in Gaza and Ukraine has very much taken a back seat.Akbar’s comments about the country’s ‘unacceptable’ wasting of ammunition provided by its allies, and the depletion of Europe’s military capacity as a whole, paints a dark picture of a large part of the Western world in defence crisis. Conversely, as Russia has continued to ramp up its own weapons production, the possibility of Moscow prevailing in Ukraine seems increasingly likely.
As Britain and certain other European countries pour ever less money into their defence budgets, Akbar’s statement that ‘military capability is the essence of any nation’s rise or fall’ – for defence rather than offensive purposes – has never seemed more true, or more critical.
Peter Methven
Leamington Spa
Gandhi’s enduring legacy
So glad to read Dr William Crawley’s review on Gandhi: A Life in Three Campaigns, which is a captivating book that I hope will be read, and absorbed, by many young Indians of my own generation. In this age of ubiquitous social media, it is easy to forget that the Mahatma drew so many people to his cause of Indian independence and message of peaceful protest without the power and reach of the internet. And, as a result of the demands of social media today, which lead us to have unrealistic expectations of perfection from our political and other heroes, it is heartening to know that Gandhi had his fair share of human flaws, yet was a great man and leader nonetheless.
Rea Kumar
Jaipur
Voting matters
Dear Editor
With several nations across the world going to the polls this year, as covered in various articles in recent issues of your magazine, it was a pithy sentence by Pervez Hoodbhoy in ‘Yes, I voted – here’s why’ (March issue) that really hit a nerve: ‘The hope that things can change made me head towards the polling station’.
In my own country (the US), many people say they feel uninclined to vote, even as we have a dictator-in-waiting with one foot in the door of the White House, while several British friends show voter apathy in the belief that the two main parties are ‘essentially the same’.
As Yvonne Gill suggests in her piece in the same issue, regarding the Indonesian elections (’Democratic backslide?’), engaging in electoral processes is still no guarantee against authoritarian styles of governance creeping in. But failure to vote tells our ruling classes that we do not care about who governs us – a deeply dangerous message to convey.
Marianne Campbell-Duff
Ansonia, Connecticut
United States of America
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