“There is much that goes on around us in the world today that is so angular that respect for that alternative point of view, the willingness to debate it without anger but with calm and measured argument…we must strive for….”
As Deccan Chronicle celebrates ten years in this cerebral city, these words by consummate diplomat, Nirupama Menon Rao, India’s former ambassador to Washington – and a star resident of Bengaluru - addressing a recent convocation at Asoka University, speaks tellingly of the times we live in.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government marks it fourth year in office, also on May 26, there is rancour and invective. A similar discordant vitriol marked the recent assembly polls here where a post-poll arrangement between two arch rivals, JD(S) and the Congress, invited the wrath of the BJP, which deprived of the spoils of war has rained on the unlikely coalition’s parade as it formally took office on Friday.
But, as DC, coincidentally, turns ten - our birth on May 26, 2008, coincided with the BJP’s first foray into the south - we have the satisfaction of knowing that this is a forum that goes beyond the politics of hate. We have grown not just into the chronicler of our times, but into a meeting ground where every point of view, be it “angular” or “alternative”, is heard.
