“Rebel with a cause”

I read with interest Roda Hakim’s letter "Rebel with a cause” (Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, November 21, 2009) regarding Kobad Ghandy and cannot agree with her. I admire the man who has given up a life of comfort and ease to fight for the poor and downtrodden.

It is over 60 years since we got independence, but nothing has been done for the tribals in the forest areas of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Gadchiroli, Jharkhand, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and parts of Assam and West Bengal, either by the government or by society. The tribals have lived a life of squalor and deprivation all these years, with no improvement in their living conditions. I have seen half naked men and women, among the tribals of Orissa, with bows and arrows, foraging for food; tribals in Assam killing snakes and eating them raw; families in Bihar/Jharkhand crawling into what they call homes barely three feet high. How did the Naxalite movement start? It was at the time of the Bengal famine in the 1960s when people in these areas were deprived of food.

There are few Parsis who would willingly give up their comforts and fight on behalf of such people.

FRENY K. WADIA

Poona