Sophomore's Plagiarism Indicative of Cultural Trend

To the editors:



Re: “One Week Later,” comment, April 28:

Why the big fuss? Kaavya Viswanathan’s plagiarism was no more than a case of standard ghost writing, the legitimacy of which has been so perfectly “internalized” by the “intelligentsia” in the country of her origin.

It is not at all rare in India for parents to do school work of their children. When the project is found to be beyond their caliber, they resort to engaging professionals for the purpose, and any number of children get their grades based on these submissions. The practice is particularly rampant among offspring of “chosen ones”—politicians and employees of giant state-owned corporations, high-profile government officials, and figures at prestigious public sector institutions.

Gradually, there has been a drastic decline in moral values in India to the point where no value is attached for originality or creativity. Naturally, every other movie produced in India is an unabashed rehash of a Hollywood chart buster. Complete sequences are lifted with no semblance of any acknowledgment to the original. The government routinely confers national honor on directors, actors, and editors of such “clever” creations of art. Until, hopefully soon, globalization corrects the situation, claims of “literary prodigies” of Indian origin will have to be verified and re-verified a thousand times.



SAMPATHKUMAR IYANGAR

April 29, 2006

Ahmedabad, India