WHICH side of the debate are you on over the online mocking of the new Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya’s proficiency with English?
One side objects to these attacks as ridiculous, unfair and pompous. For early disclosure, I am on this side. It brings back to me the famous—but now forgotten—words that late Raj Narain spoke when visiting London as India’s health minister in the Morarji Desai/Janata Cabinet of 1977-80.
He was asked by journalists how could he run his ministry if he knew no English. Socialist Raj Narain, who we could describe as the original ‘Lalu Yadav’, was unfazed.
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