Pranab Mukherjee bemoans loss of “letter writing habits”

Former President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday, September 24 launched late former External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh's latest book Treasured Epistles, a compilation of letters written to Natwar Singh by several important personalities including Indira Gandhi, C Rajagopalachari, Lord Mountbatten, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and EM Forster.

Mukherjee, while appreciating gratitude for the effort of bringing together the letters of such eminent personalities, bemoaned the present loss of "letter writing habits" due to modern instant communication systems such as email and instant messaging apps, saying the practice would "perhaps be a piece of archives for the next couple of decades".

"Natwarji brought out together the letters which he received on different occasions from very distinguished personalities from different walks of life over a long period of time... Now a days, with the instant communication, the habit of writing letters, taking the trouble of putting thoughts in details on a piece of paper, it would perhaps be piece of archives for the next couple of decades," Mukherjee said.

Remembering his student days, the former President said: "Letter writing was regular part of the curriculum 'how to write a letter'. And therefore we developed the practice of writing letters... I have no doubts that future readers would be deprived of a great taste which are being received from the collection of letters," he said.

Mukherjee mentioned the letters written by first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to his daughter and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from Naini jail in Allahabad in the 1930s. "Indiraji was quite young and perhaps could not understand many of Panditji's observations written by him in his letters to her. Those letters would later become the substance of Panditji's famous book Glimpses of World's History, in which he spoke about the history of civilisation, conflict of culture and the synthesis which has evolved over the years."

Mukherjee also describes how Mahatma Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy and Rabindranath Tagore who used to write letters, saying "letters reflect the thinking on the contemporary issues..."