Indira Gandhi

To the Editors:

Most Indians will remember Indira Gandhi [WORLD, Nov. 12] as a woman of great fearlessness, even though her reputation will always be hemmed in by qualifying clauses. Despite her aloofness, she appeared strangely accessible. It would be an injustice to mistake her stoicism for stony heartlessness. As she said in an interview after her younger son's death, 'The wounds are there, but perhaps some scars do not show."

Shormishtha Panja

Providence

Indira Gandhi was a complex personality who, depending on the situation, could be kind, endearing, humble, firm, stern, maybe even ruthless. She never lost sight of her goal: the best for India.

Asha Narang

Marysville, Mich.

After the tragic murder of Indira Gandhi, some Sikhs rejoiced and danced in the streets. There cannot be much happiness left now that death and persecution have come to thousands of them. Why is it that so many people still refuse to see that violence only brings more violence?

Aida Feierbach

La Paz, Bolivia

Indira Gandhi's assassination underscores how important it is to keep religion out of politics. Religious fervor is not born of reason and therefore no objective discussion can take place. A democracy can be destroyed unless religion and politics are kept separate.

Prakash Kotagal

Euclid, Ohio

India comprises many communities with differing religions and life-styles and more than 20 major languages and some 250 dialects. If the Sikhs were granted autonomy, then why not the Assamese, the Tamils and all the others, until India would be reduced to a cluster of tiny independent countries? How naive to imagine that the Soviets and Chinese would respect India's borders. It is a case of united we stand, divided we fall. American as well as Indian interests lie in a unified, strong, democratic India.

Mithoo Sinha

New York City

Rajiv Gandhi has been criticized as too inexperienced to head the world's largest democracy and handle the present situation in India. When Indira Gandhi entered politics, she lacked experience, yet she emerged as a good leader. India is a country in shock and anger, but Rajiv Gandhi can lead India in unity and peace, perhaps better than his mother.

Jayesh Parmar

Teaneck, N.J.

What made the assassination of the proud but vulnerable Mrs. Gandhi particularly pathetic was that it was committed by members of her bodyguard whom she had continued to trust against all warnings. The so-called disciples of India's revered Guru Nanak, contemptuously basking in foreign shelter in Western countries, have no reason for jubilation. I feel sad about the shame brought upon my Sikh countrymen by those traitors. They emptied their guns into someone who, with all her real or imagined power, was a small, frail old woman.

Bharati Banerjee

Heidenheim a.d. Brenz,

West Germany

Your coverage of Indira Gandhi was too flattering. At best, she was a Soviet client who ruthlessly inflicted her dynastic rule and divided the people just as her British masters had done. India is neither democratic nor secular. The U.N. Commission on Human Rights needs to take a close look at Hindu India.

Mahmood Ali Shakir

Oklahoma City

Heartbeats

I am outraged by the Baby Fae incident [MEDICINE, Nov. 12]. A healthy and active animal has been killed, and a human baby was condemned to days of unknowable suffering. This is not science at all; it is arrogance. Never was it more clear how desperately some of our so-called professionals need a course in practical ethics. We should learn something about acceptance of death through natural causes.

John A. White

Rochester

The transplant of a baboon heart into a human infant is not a medical cure. It is using a human as a guinea pig for medical research. Human organs are designed by evolution to serve up to about 100 years; those of a baboon are structured to last only 25 to 30 years. It will be a real scientific breakthrough if the heart from a mouse with a two-year life span can exist eight years in a mouse that belongs to a long-surviving group. Until the rate-of-aging problems are solved, using newborn babies for experimental purposes is premature.

Zhores A. Medvedev

Medical Research Council London

I believe in the humane treatment of animals, but when people show more emotion about the death of a baboon than they do about the life of a little baby, surely it is their ethics that are to be questioned and not those of the surgeons at Loma Linda University Medical Center.

(The Rev.) Aaron E. Wheaton

Patoka, N.J.

I would, without hesitation, give my pet's life to save a child if it were medically feasible.

Mary Bednar

San Diego

As the mother of an infant who was born with hypoplastic left-heart syndrome, I know the wrenching pain and helpless feeling of being told that my daughter's condition was 100% fatal. My husband and I would not have hesitated to sign the consent form agreeing to surgery had we been given the choice.

Joyce O'Sadnick Sward

Auburn, Wash.

Taking Faith in Reason

Reason and faith are not enemies but essential complements, however much in tension they may exist [ESSAY, Nov. 12]. Reason without faith would be cold, calculating and ultimately diabolical. Faith without reason becomes sentimental folly or egregious fanaticism. The separation of church and state is a matter of principled and pragmatic accommodation in a pluralistic society. To attempt to separate religion and politics is perilous and, finally, impossible.

(The Rev.) Byron C. Bangert

Kalamazoo, Mich.

Faith, rather than a belief without reason, is belief beyond reason. Reason can take us only so far.

Ted Risk

Placentia, Calif.

Roger Rosenblatt's Essay went too far in equating the church with passion. Traditionally, the Christian church has emphasized the importance of reason in man's life, especially in his religion. As Pascal said, "If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have nothing in it mysterious or supernatural. If we violate the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous."

Heather E. Peterson

Annapolis, Md.

The point of view presented by the author in this Essay reminds me of a man mildly curious about church who glances through a stained-glass window and satisfies himself that it is all shadows and no substance.

(The Rev.) David M. Gregson

Willow Grove, Pa.

There is much wisdom, perhaps crucial wisdom, contained in your Essay. Is anybody listening?

Diane Lowrey

Houston

The U.S. Catholic bishops' past and future pastorals are attempts at being both passionate and reasonable. Governments without passion are impotent. Churches, synagogues, ashrams and mosques without reason are flaming candles without light. What God has joined together, let no Rosenblatt put asunder.

Edward Vacek, S.J.

Cambridge, Mass.

Neutering the Bible

Your article "More Scriptures Without Sexism" [RELIGION, Oct. 29] trivializes a very important matter. Masculine terms in the Scriptures can and often do leave women feeling excluded. When the word of God is read in church, certainly that word is meant for both women and men. Why not use language that clearly addresses everyone in the congregation? Contrary to the implication of your article, An Inclusive-Language Lectionary was warmly welcomed by many who want all of God's people to hear the message of the Scriptures.

David Ng

Associate General Secretary

for Education and Ministry

National Council of the Churches of Christ

New York City

Political Pen Pal

I do not buy the Doonesbury defense that Artist Garry Trudeau ridicules politicians of both parties [PRESS, Nov. 12]. Reagan is a villain, and Mondale's neckties might be criticized for being wide. See, I am fair. I laugh at everyone.

Warren P. Snyder

Evanston, III.

Why all the fuss over Trudeau's acerbic cartoons? After all, he does no more than tell it like it is. The way I see it, Doonesbury may be the only voice capable of keeping the Administration in check over the next four years.

Colleen Barron

South St. Paul, Minn.