Letter of the WEEK

: The transition to democracy is not easy for many countries. Witness Pakistan. However, the monarch and the people of Bhutan seem to have done a remarkable job. Saad Ullah Khan from Aligarh argued in a letter (‘Himalayan feat’) earlier this week that Bhutan offers a lesson in establishing democracy without bloodshed.

• The people of Bhutan must be congratulated on beginning the transformation of their country to a democratic state. Democracy will hopefully make Bhutan more stable and powerful. The United States, which always loudly champions the cause of democracy in the Middle East, should learn something from Bhutan. It should note that the Bhutanese have been able to introduce democracy without shedding a drop of blood.

• The editorial ‘Game theory’ seems to belittle the influence of violent computer games on young minds. All media imagery — particularly repetitive audiovisual imagery — exerts enormous influence on both adult and young minds. After all, this is what makes sub-liminal advertising a trillion-dollar business; it also makes political and religious propaganda work. Even the simplistic cowboy and war comics one read in the ‘60s convinced one, at least for a while, that all heroes were white Americans or Englishmen, that all ‘redskins’ and Japs were cruel villains. We learned otherwise thanks to some counselling from parents and teachers, who read the same comics.

But unlike comics, today’s computer games are interactive and use incredibly realistic graphics to depict pain and death; they also allow the young gamer a choice of weaponry to massacre the ‘Other’. Significantly, in many of these games, the bad guys have darker skin and a certain ‘Middle Eastern’ look about them. But most dangerous is the fact that most adults have little or no idea about what kids are playing. Therefore, these children cannot even talk to adults about what they feel, and may grow up insensitive to another’s pain, and with deep preconceptions about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ people. Thus, we ignore the power of media imagery at our own peril.

— R.P. Subramanian

Delhi

Service democracy

• Shiv Visvanathan voices the anguish of an intellectual when he shows how over-bureaucratisation and bureaucratic elitism serve little or no purpose. The organisation of knowledge and resources cannot be restricted to a single cadre or service. Posting restrictions, based on the service one belongs to, is a fading idea — supported by the Sixth Pay Commission’s suggestions....