Left in the lurch
Karats can seek succour in Venezuela to repent for their chamcha-ing Antonia.
kalyanaraman
Left could go down to 22 seats in Bengal
Kanchan Gupta | Kolkata (Pioneer, Sunday, April 26, 2009 )
Muslims, one in 3 voters, desert CPM
As people in West Bengal prepare to vote on April 30 in the first of three rounds of polling for the 15th Lok Sabha, the ruling CPI(M)-led Left Front faces what could turn out to be its worst-ever electoral performance.
According to conservative estimates cutting across party lines, the Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance could notch up an impressive tally of 14 to 17 of the 42 seats in the State. If the popular mood prevailing from north to south Bengal is any indication, the Opposition could end up winning anything between 18 and 20 seats.
Whatever the final tally, there is mounting apprehension at Alimuddin Street, where the CPI(M)’s headquarters is located, that the Marxists will suffer a setback worse than that of 1984 when the Congress won 16 seats in the election that followed Indira Gandhi’s assassination.
In that election, the Left suffered reverses in urban areas. This time, the losses are stacking up in rural constituencies. The projected losses are largely concentrated in south Bengal where the Trinamool Congress is running an aggressive campaign.
Little over a fortnight ago, the CPI(M)’s election strategists were horrified to find that the Left Front’s 2004 tally of 35 seats was at risk of being whittled down to 20 to 22 seats.
All hands were called to deck and a massive effort was launched to paper over differences within the CPI(M) and between the party and its allies in the Left Front. Simultaneously, zonal and local committees were asked to reach out to disgruntled party supporters who were toying with the idea of voting against the Left. Third, the counter-attack on the Trinamool Congress was sharpened, focusing on Mamata Banerjee's inability to come up with a positive agenda.
These steps appear to have had some impact in preventing the Left’s electoral fortunes from declining further. What has helped the CPI(M) recover some lost ground is the Trinamool’s over-emphasis on running a vitriolic campaign which includes large posters and banners that are graphically illustrated with gory visuals of charred bodies, allegedly victims of Marxist violence.
Two visuals that have been used repeatedly are those of Tapashi Mullick, who was raped and killed in Singur. The first visual shows an innocent faced teenaged girl. The second shows her half-burnt body. In a variation of this theme, some posters show four men pinning down Tapashi Mullick while a fifth man rapes her.
Such graphic depiction of violence has begun to put off people. Sensing the disquiet over the Opposition’s campaign, the CPI(M) has used all available space to publicise its ‘development agenda’ and how Mamata Banerjee is preventing the State from moving ahead. “We have a positive agenda. She is running a negative campaign,” says CPI(M) State secretary Biman Bose.
But nothing that the CPI(M) does or says at this stage will stop this poll from turning out to be the tipping point that has eluded the Opposition in West Bengal for three decades.
The push that will enable Banerjee to cross the hump which stands between victory and defeat will be provided by Bengal’s Muslims who are said to comprise 26% of the electorate but in reality could account for one in every three voters. Banerjee claims (since it suits her to do so) and most people believe (since they are
influenced by TV news) that Muslim alienation from the Marxists is on account of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s farmland-for-industry policy, which has been kept in limbo ever since the Singur disaster. But the real reason why Muslims have decided to disown the Marxists lies elsewhere.
Ironically, that reason is the revelation by the Sachar Committee, which was supported by the Left to spite the BJP, about how Muslims in West Bengal are far worse off than in any other State, including Narendra Modi’s Gujarat. Confronted with this reality, Bengal’s Muslims have begun to question the wisdom of supporting the Left.
The man who took the Sachar Committee’s revelation to the Muslim masses is Siddiqullah Chowdhury of the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind. He has put up a dozen candidates in Muslim-dominated constituencies. But that could be a red herring, meant to divert attention as the community quietly consolidates behind Banerjee. And gives her the cutting edge she needs to defeat the CPI(M) in West Bengal.
How the table has turned
• CPM will take rural hit
• Mamata-Cong eye windfall of up to 17 seats
• Overkill of graphic imagery of Singur rape case may hit Cong http://dailypioneer.com/172194/Left-could-go-down-to-22-seats-in-Bengal.html
Array and disarray in the Left
MJ Akbar (Pioneer, Sunday, April 26, 2009 )
Leaders come in two cultures. One sort of leader accepts the necessity of accountability in public life. This group is in a minority. The majority follows a law, which their followers know only too well: “If we win, I get the credit; if we lose, you get the blame”.
It is ironic that the best democrats in Indian democracy are the Marxists, whose ideology demands class war rather than the more genteel business of planting your finger on a symbol. They treat their party as an institution, not an individual’s or family’s private property. Decisions are made through a collective system, not sent to a single individual for a royal assent or dissent. Responsibility is assigned to individuals, and individuals are stripped (as far as is humanly possible) of their ego. This is perhaps why ex-Marxists become so egotistic; all those decades of suppressed ego is suddenly let loose upon the world. There are rewards for success, even when this leads to stagnation. During 33 years of Marxist rule in West Bengal there have been only two Chief Ministers, Mr Jyoti Basu and Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Mr Basu left because of age; he was not pushed out. No one is pushed out. More remarkably, there have been only two Finance Ministers, Mr Ashok Mitra and Mr Ashim Dasgupta. Mr Mitra resigned on an issue of principle, otherwise he might have retired only along with his friend, Mr Jyoti Basu, once again because of age. If you win elections you can do no wrong.
And that is what the problem might be in 2009. Mr Bhattacharjee could lead the Left in West Bengal to its first major setback in three decades.
The buzz in Kolkata has already moved towards post-modern: Mr Bhattacharjee has decided to resign if he cannot ensure 25 seats out of 42 for his side. How do the Kolkata addawallahs know? Political information is always porous. The man at the top of the pyramid has merely to make an observation to a confidant or two; the latter discuss the possibility with their close comrades, and word rolls down along the sides of the pyramid to reach the dabblers and journalists on the lower ledges.
There are at least three distinctive aspects of this story.
First, a Chief Minister is planning to take responsibility for failure. Politicians across the country will do badly; after all, someone has to lose for another to win. Every other politician is thinking deep thoughts on how to cling on despite defeat. This of course does not apply to dynasts, who will look for generals to hang.
Second, 25 seats out of 42 is still a clear majority. But the Left has set the bar high and will not lower it.
Third, by levelling the bar at 25, the Left has already psychologically conceded 17 seats to the Trinamool-Congress combine. Even at the height of the Congress wave following the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi, the Left had conceded fewer seats.
There are two reasons for this. The Muslim vote, estimated to be over 35 per cent, has switched away in large numbers. And there is no split in the anti-Left vote after the Congress accepted the slightly humiliating terms that Ms Mamata Banerjee offered during seat-sharing talks. The Marxists tried, with Mr Pranab Mukherjee’s help, to sabotage this, but final orders came from Ms Sonia Gandhi in Delhi and it went ahead. The Congress, which had six MPs in the last Lok Sabha, accepted only 16 seats out of 42. Ms Mamata, who had only one, catapulted to 28.
The Left read a clear message in this decision. The Congress was treating the Left, rather than the BJP, as its principal enemy in this general election. How? Because in the States where an alliance would have hurt the BJP, like Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the Congress rejected an alliance with leaders who could have helped defeat the BJP, like Mr Shibu Soren, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan and Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav. The distribution of seats in Jharkhand had even been announced, but the arrangement collapsed suddenly, and inexplicably, at the last minute. As a consequence, the BJP will pick up vital extra seats in a State where it was comprehensively defeated five years ago.
The Marxists do not consider this accidental. They believe this to be part of a careful Congress strategy to marginalise the Left. There is nothing personal or sentimental about their response. They will not permit the Congress to lead another Government because they are convinced that it will use every tactic, political and administrative, behind a screen of conciliatory words, to pursue the same objective if it returns to Government. They know it is a battle of survival and they intend to survive.
They can also sense an opportunity to do unto the Congress precisely what the Congress did unto them: Use power, with the Congress support in Parliament, to target policies which the Congress has made part of its core personality, economic reform and the India-US nuclear deal. That is the dilemma which the Congress faces. Can it support a Government with a Marxist Foreign Minister who announces an abrogation of the nuclear deal? Surely Mr Manmohan Singh would never find the flexibility to support a Government in Parliament that sabotaged his main achievement. What would the Congress do in such circumstances? It is not a question of swallowing one’s pride. It would be political suicide.
Nor should anyone believe that Marxists would compromise in order to save a non-Congress, non-BJP patchwork Government. They have an agenda, which is in the public domain. They will implement it. The CPI(M) is not going to enter the history books — this is the first time they will join a Government in Delhi, if the chance arises — as having betrayed its core commitment, anti-imperialism, in order to stick to office. This is high on its list of campaign themes, as anyone interested in West Bengal and Kerala will know.
The Left will not do well. It will be mowed down in both Kerala and West Bengal, but it will still have around 40 seats in the next Parliament. Both Mr Sharad Pawar and Mr Manmohan Singh acknowledge, the first happily and the second reluctantly, that a non-BJP Government is impossible without the support of the Left. Curiously, the Left, with 60 MPs, may have been less relevant to a Government’s survival in 2004 than it could be with 35 or 40 in 2009.
It would be paradoxical, would it not, if Mr Prakash Karat were being sworn in as Foreign Minister in Delhi and Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee were submitting his resignation in Kolkata? But stranger things have happened.
Let me suggest one of them. If the BJP becomes the single largest party, you would be surprised by the number of small parties which suddenly discover the virtues of stability at a moment of economic crisis. The Left will be actually relieved: It can be where it is happiest — in the Opposition.
-- MJ Akbar is chairman of the fortnightly news magazine Covert.
http://dailypioneer.com/172017/Array-and-disarray-in-the-Left.html
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Combat red terror -- Former Chief of Army Staff
http://sites.google.com/site/hindunew/redterror
To combat red terror, tackle its root causes
Shankar Roychowdhury (Asian Age, 21 April 2009)
April.21: Many people might have missed the small news item on the inside pages of newspapers, and the brief mention on the news wires scrolling at the bottom of certain television channels. Nine personnel of the CRPF’s 55th Battalion killed and 11, including an assistant commandant, injured in a two-hour clash with Naxalites on April 10 in Dantewada district of the southern Bastar region of Chhattisgarh. A couple of days earlier two police constables had been killed in the same area when their jeep was blown up by a landmine. A fairly major encounter in terms of casualties, but passing almost unnoticed with national attention focused on the elections and IPL.
Then, a couple of days later, bigger news: Naxalites in strength, between 70 and 120 of them, attacked the National Aluminium Company’s bauxite mining complex at Damanjodi in Orissa’s Koraput district, in a bid to hijack explosives, weapons and ammunition. The information is sketchy, but up to 10 or 11 CISF persons were reported killed, around the same number injured, while the attackers reportedly suffered up to seven casualties. They ransacked the CISF armoury and appeared to have got away with some amount of explosives.
But the full fury was to come four days later, April 16, the first day of the five-part general election across the country. The Naxalites struck in many of their old battlegrounds — in a series of rapid-fire attacks across Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and Maharashtra. Eleven police and paramilitary personnel as well as eight civilians, including personnel on election duty, were killed. Just a day earlier, the Election Commission had pronounced itself "totally satisfied" with the poll arrangements. There are four phases of the election still to go — what lies ahead for us?
The electoral processes of our democracy have never held much appeal, or relevance, for many original inhabitants of this land — adivasi tribals of many ethnicities — who have often found any encounter with the Indian State a cruel and humiliating experience. Many of them have now decided to take matters into their own hands.
Welcome to the "people’s war" raging inside the guts of our country, inhabited by its most desperately poor and marginalised communities. The heartland of this faraway conflict is the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, almost a "dark continent" to much of the rest of India, where the Abujmarh, a huge forest, unsurveyed and unmapped even six decades after Independence, is virtually a "no-go" area for government forces. Comparisons with the Iron Triangle and "Special Zone D" set up near Saigon by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War are obvious and irresistible. Are we too headed in that direction?
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently described the Naxalites, officially categorised as "left-wing extremists" (LWE), as the "greatest internal security threat to the country". Let there be no doubt, Naxalism is a totally home-grown problem which we have brought upon ourselves, and for which no external elements can be blamed. Venally corrupt local administrations, particularly at the state level, have maintained a vacuum of total neglect in rural areas over the past six decades, and more specifically in the adivasi zones of extreme deprivation. Maoist LWE began in these regions, and this is now well on its way to becoming a rural insurgency in the classic Maoist mode: holding significant control of a strategic "compact revolutionary zone" (CRZ) stretching over 12 to 14 states and up to 156 districts, all predominantly of tribal communities, astride a Golden Quadrilateral deep in the Indian heartland.
More dangerously, the CRZ has created a "red corridor" of internal instability, stretching from Prachanda’s Maobadi Nepal right down to the dry and desiccated forest regions of peninsular India. In relative terms, the Maoist CRZ poses a much greater potential threat to India’s national security than either the jihadis in Kashmir, the Indian Mujahideen, or the Naga and Meitei underground in Nagaland and Manipur. The reasons are obvious — Kashmir, Nagaland, Manipur and indeed the entire Northeast are all located on the external peripheries of the country, and events there have only a limited impact on the nation’s heartland. But Maoist LWE is active deep within the geographical and geo-political gut of the heartland, and can more directly and immediately impact and disrupt the country’s political, economic, transportation, communications and security infrastructure.
Therefore, of all the internal conflicts which plague India, Maoist LWE offers the most attractive high-value low-cost strategic option for external exploitation. Rest assured: Pakistan, Bangladesh, and perhaps even "Maobadi Nepal" — as a proxy for the People’s Republic of China — are eyeing it very closely indeed.
The functional contrasts between the Maoists and the government could not be more striking, or startling. The Maoists function through a fairly centralised hierarchy and reasonably well-coordinated politico-military command and control structure for inter-state coordination, which extends right down to the villages through a network of political and military committees at central, regional, state, and zonal levels. The policy of the Union government can best be described as perplexing experimentation with decentralised anti-Naxal operations by individual state governments within their respective boundaries, according to their respective political agendas and initiatives, coordinated through a system of bureaucratic consultation through inter-state committees, where participation is often optional. State police forces and the paramilitary units they are allotted are often tied down by jurisdiction issues and problems in inter-state movement, whereas their opponents, the Naxals, can concentrate and disperse swiftly according to operational needs.
History is repeating itself: Shivaji is running rings around Aurangzeb. Time is precious, but is being wasted in a policy of drift, while the Maoists consolidate their hold in the so-called "liberated zones". Policies to alleviate the situation have to be urgently initiated. "Alleviate" is the keyword, not "defeat" — because attempts to defeat a people’s movement, which has arisen due to genuine problems, will ultimately end up defeating the nation itself, and tearing it apart in the process. Central intervention or executive direction, preferably direct, is essential in such a diverse and fragmented political milieu of totally divergent ideologies, with each state nursing problems of local personality cults and ego-perceptions. But none of this appears to be forthcoming. The Government of India and the governments of the affected states look as if they are losing this war. Whichever government comes to power after the elections, this drift has to be stopped.
Gen. Shankar Roychowdhury (Retd) is a former Chief of Army Staff and a former Member of Parliament
http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftnavigation/opinion/opinion/to-combat-red-terror,-tackle-its-root-causes.aspx
To combat red terror, tackle its root causes
Shankar Roychowdhury (Asian Age, 21 April 2009)
April.21: Many people might have missed the small news item on the inside pages of newspapers, and the brief mention on the news wires scrolling at the bottom of certain television channels. Nine personnel of the CRPF’s 55th Battalion killed and 11, including an assistant commandant, injured in a two-hour clash with Naxalites on April 10 in Dantewada district of the southern Bastar region of Chhattisgarh. A couple of days earlier two police constables had been killed in the same area when their jeep was blown up by a landmine. A fairly major encounter in terms of casualties, but passing almost unnoticed with national attention focused on the elections and IPL.
Then, a couple of days later, bigger news: Naxalites in strength, between 70 and 120 of them, attacked the National Aluminium Company’s bauxite mining complex at Damanjodi in Orissa’s Koraput district, in a bid to hijack explosives, weapons and ammunition. The information is sketchy, but up to 10 or 11 CISF persons were reported killed, around the same number injured, while the attackers reportedly suffered up to seven casualties. They ransacked the CISF armoury and appeared to have got away with some amount of explosives.
But the full fury was to come four days later, April 16, the first day of the five-part general election across the country. The Naxalites struck in many of their old battlegrounds — in a series of rapid-fire attacks across Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and Maharashtra. Eleven police and paramilitary personnel as well as eight civilians, including personnel on election duty, were killed. Just a day earlier, the Election Commission had pronounced itself "totally satisfied" with the poll arrangements. There are four phases of the election still to go — what lies ahead for us?
The electoral processes of our democracy have never held much appeal, or relevance, for many original inhabitants of this land — adivasi tribals of many ethnicities — who have often found any encounter with the Indian State a cruel and humiliating experience. Many of them have now decided to take matters into their own hands.
Welcome to the "people’s war" raging inside the guts of our country, inhabited by its most desperately poor and marginalised communities. The heartland of this faraway conflict is the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, almost a "dark continent" to much of the rest of India, where the Abujmarh, a huge forest, unsurveyed and unmapped even six decades after Independence, is virtually a "no-go" area for government forces. Comparisons with the Iron Triangle and "Special Zone D" set up near Saigon by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War are obvious and irresistible. Are we too headed in that direction?
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently described the Naxalites, officially categorised as "left-wing extremists" (LWE), as the "greatest internal security threat to the country". Let there be no doubt, Naxalism is a totally home-grown problem which we have brought upon ourselves, and for which no external elements can be blamed. Venally corrupt local administrations, particularly at the state level, have maintained a vacuum of total neglect in rural areas over the past six decades, and more specifically in the adivasi zones of extreme deprivation. Maoist LWE began in these regions, and this is now well on its way to becoming a rural insurgency in the classic Maoist mode: holding significant control of a strategic "compact revolutionary zone" (CRZ) stretching over 12 to 14 states and up to 156 districts, all predominantly of tribal communities, astride a Golden Quadrilateral deep in the Indian heartland.
More dangerously, the CRZ has created a "red corridor" of internal instability, stretching from Prachanda’s Maobadi Nepal right down to the dry and desiccated forest regions of peninsular India. In relative terms, the Maoist CRZ poses a much greater potential threat to India’s national security than either the jihadis in Kashmir, the Indian Mujahideen, or the Naga and Meitei underground in Nagaland and Manipur. The reasons are obvious — Kashmir, Nagaland, Manipur and indeed the entire Northeast are all located on the external peripheries of the country, and events there have only a limited impact on the nation’s heartland. But Maoist LWE is active deep within the geographical and geo-political gut of the heartland, and can more directly and immediately impact and disrupt the country’s political, economic, transportation, communications and security infrastructure.
Therefore, of all the internal conflicts which plague India, Maoist LWE offers the most attractive high-value low-cost strategic option for external exploitation. Rest assured: Pakistan, Bangladesh, and perhaps even "Maobadi Nepal" — as a proxy for the People’s Republic of China — are eyeing it very closely indeed.
The functional contrasts between the Maoists and the government could not be more striking, or startling. The Maoists function through a fairly centralised hierarchy and reasonably well-coordinated politico-military command and control structure for inter-state coordination, which extends right down to the villages through a network of political and military committees at central, regional, state, and zonal levels. The policy of the Union government can best be described as perplexing experimentation with decentralised anti-Naxal operations by individual state governments within their respective boundaries, according to their respective political agendas and initiatives, coordinated through a system of bureaucratic consultation through inter-state committees, where participation is often optional. State police forces and the paramilitary units they are allotted are often tied down by jurisdiction issues and problems in inter-state movement, whereas their opponents, the Naxals, can concentrate and disperse swiftly according to operational needs.
History is repeating itself: Shivaji is running rings around Aurangzeb. Time is precious, but is being wasted in a policy of drift, while the Maoists consolidate their hold in the so-called "liberated zones". Policies to alleviate the situation have to be urgently initiated. "Alleviate" is the keyword, not "defeat" — because attempts to defeat a people’s movement, which has arisen due to genuine problems, will ultimately end up defeating the nation itself, and tearing it apart in the process. Central intervention or executive direction, preferably direct, is essential in such a diverse and fragmented political milieu of totally divergent ideologies, with each state nursing problems of local personality cults and ego-perceptions. But none of this appears to be forthcoming. The Government of India and the governments of the affected states look as if they are losing this war. Whichever government comes to power after the elections, this drift has to be stopped.
Gen. Shankar Roychowdhury (Retd) is a former Chief of Army Staff and a former Member of Parliament
http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftnavigation/opinion/opinion/to-combat-red-terror,-tackle-its-root-causes.aspx
Friday, April 10, 2009
Karat doesn't know how to count.
The drift and decline of the Left
T V R Shenoy | April 09, 2009 | 20:53 IST
Prakash Karat told an election rally in Agartala on April 5 that it was 'thousand per cent confirmed' that the Third Front would form the government in Delhi after the Lok Sabha polls.
'Thousand per cent'? For India's sake I hope the general secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist is just as good a soothsayer as he is a mathematician.
India could fool around -- a little bit anyway -- with Third Front ministries back in the days when the global economy was booming; the dinosaur economics of the Left will lead only to drift and decline.
But drift and decline seem to be in the DNA of the Left. Look at the records, and you can see how the Communists have been losing ground.
Jawaharlal Nehru's Congress sprawled over the benches when the first Lok Sabha met in 1952, occupying 361 of the 489 seats. The other parties were in such disarray that the next largest category consisted of Independents, 37 MPs in all.
You could count the seats won by the Jan Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha, the ancestors of today's Bharatiya Janata Party, on two hands -- and still have a few fingers left over. The Jan Sangh had only three MPs, the Hindu Mahasabha was slightly better off with four.
The single largest party on the Opposition benches was the undivided Communist Party of India, 16-strong and led by the late A K Gopalan. The Revolutionary Socialist Party had three MPs and the Forward Bloc added a solitary representative.
The title of 'Leader of the Opposition' was not in vogue in those days. Gopalan would not have qualified in any case since the CPI did not have 10 percent of the seats, not even close to that. But it was generally assumed back then that the party would develop into a national alternative to the Congress.
The Congress is now a pale imitation of its old self; the party cannot win 361 seats, probably not even half of that. The BJP has expanded almost twentyfold since the Jan Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha days of 1952. But what of the Left?
Technically, the Left Front now has three times the number of MPs that it did back in the first Lok Sabha. But in some ways the Left has conceded space instead of going forward. In 1952 five of the CPI's 16 seats were from West Bengal and two from Tripura, both still Leftist bastions. But one MP was elected from Orissa and the other eight, half the total, were from the then Madras presidency. (The CPI drew a blank in Travancore-Cochin.)
The name 'Madras' is slightly misleading since the giant state included most of what is now Andhra Pradesh along with chunks of modern Kerala and Karnataka. Most of the Communist MPs won from Telugu-speaking areas, the exceptions being Gopalan from Cannanore and K Ananda Nambiar from Mayuram (Mayiladuthurai).
The point is that the CPI back then was strong enough to win seats on its own from Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. These are states where it now plays second fiddle to regional parties.
The CPI actually improved in the 1957 polls, both geographically as well as in absolute numbers. It had 27 MPs in the second Lok Sabha, expanding into new areas -- winning four seats in the old state of Bombay and one each in Uttar Pradesh and in Punjab. In 1962 the CPI tally went up to 29, with the party now making its parliamentary debut from Bihar too.
The Congress still dreams of winning back Uttar Pradesh though it has been whipped there in every election since 1989. The BJP has long-term plans of building a strong presence in the south, with Karnataka of course already in the party's bag. Can you imagine the CPI-M on its own managing to get a single MP elected from Uttar Pradesh, or Punjab, or Gujarat and Maharashtra (collectively the old state of Bombay)?
Fellow travellers may argue that in 2004 the Left Front registered its best performance ever in terms of numbers. How do those numbers stack up?
The CPI-M won 43 seats. Twenty-six of those were from West Bengal, 12 were from Kerala, two each from Tripura and Andhra Pradesh, and one from Tamil Nadu.
The CPI-M's junior partner the CPI won ten seats. West Bengal and Kerala each contributed three, it won two in Tamil Nadu, and one each in Jharkhand and in Andhra Pradesh. (It is a disgrace that this tattered rag of an outfit continues to be given the status of a 'national' party.)
The Forward Bloc and the Revolutionary Socialist Party each won three seats in West Bengal. Sebastian Paul, running as an independent candidate backed by the Left, won the Ernakulam seat in Kerala, as did the Janata Dal-Secular's M P Veerendra Kumar in Calicut.
Going through the lists above it is clear that the bulk of these 61 seats came courtesy of West Bengal (35) and Kerala (17). I suppose it is possible that the Left Front shall do fairly well once again in West Bengal. But it is hard to see a repeat performance in Kerala where the CPI-M chief minister and the local party boss can barely bring themselves to be civil to each other.
The problem for the Left Front is that, for all practical purposes, it does not exist outside West Bengal, Kerala, and tiny Tripura. Any major losses in West Bengal and Kerala simply cannot be made up by gains in other states.
Forget about the Third Front, there is a possibility that either the Bahujan Samaj Party or the Samajwadi Party shall overtake the CPI-M as the third-largest party in the Lok Sabha behind the BJP and the Congress. Will Comrade Karat then run around trying to create a Fourth Front?
Rereading Prakash Karat's statement, I note that the CPI-M boss spoke only of 'forming a government', not of winning a majority. That is the story of the Communist movement in India in a nutshell, it is a group that prefers to cut deals behind closed doors rather than reach out to India to win the people's mandate.
http://www.rediff.com///election/2009/apr/09the-drift-and-decline-of-the-left.htm
T V R Shenoy | April 09, 2009 | 20:53 IST
Prakash Karat told an election rally in Agartala on April 5 that it was 'thousand per cent confirmed' that the Third Front would form the government in Delhi after the Lok Sabha polls.
'Thousand per cent'? For India's sake I hope the general secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist is just as good a soothsayer as he is a mathematician.
India could fool around -- a little bit anyway -- with Third Front ministries back in the days when the global economy was booming; the dinosaur economics of the Left will lead only to drift and decline.
But drift and decline seem to be in the DNA of the Left. Look at the records, and you can see how the Communists have been losing ground.
Jawaharlal Nehru's Congress sprawled over the benches when the first Lok Sabha met in 1952, occupying 361 of the 489 seats. The other parties were in such disarray that the next largest category consisted of Independents, 37 MPs in all.
You could count the seats won by the Jan Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha, the ancestors of today's Bharatiya Janata Party, on two hands -- and still have a few fingers left over. The Jan Sangh had only three MPs, the Hindu Mahasabha was slightly better off with four.
The single largest party on the Opposition benches was the undivided Communist Party of India, 16-strong and led by the late A K Gopalan. The Revolutionary Socialist Party had three MPs and the Forward Bloc added a solitary representative.
The title of 'Leader of the Opposition' was not in vogue in those days. Gopalan would not have qualified in any case since the CPI did not have 10 percent of the seats, not even close to that. But it was generally assumed back then that the party would develop into a national alternative to the Congress.
The Congress is now a pale imitation of its old self; the party cannot win 361 seats, probably not even half of that. The BJP has expanded almost twentyfold since the Jan Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha days of 1952. But what of the Left?
Technically, the Left Front now has three times the number of MPs that it did back in the first Lok Sabha. But in some ways the Left has conceded space instead of going forward. In 1952 five of the CPI's 16 seats were from West Bengal and two from Tripura, both still Leftist bastions. But one MP was elected from Orissa and the other eight, half the total, were from the then Madras presidency. (The CPI drew a blank in Travancore-Cochin.)
The name 'Madras' is slightly misleading since the giant state included most of what is now Andhra Pradesh along with chunks of modern Kerala and Karnataka. Most of the Communist MPs won from Telugu-speaking areas, the exceptions being Gopalan from Cannanore and K Ananda Nambiar from Mayuram (Mayiladuthurai).
The point is that the CPI back then was strong enough to win seats on its own from Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. These are states where it now plays second fiddle to regional parties.
The CPI actually improved in the 1957 polls, both geographically as well as in absolute numbers. It had 27 MPs in the second Lok Sabha, expanding into new areas -- winning four seats in the old state of Bombay and one each in Uttar Pradesh and in Punjab. In 1962 the CPI tally went up to 29, with the party now making its parliamentary debut from Bihar too.
The Congress still dreams of winning back Uttar Pradesh though it has been whipped there in every election since 1989. The BJP has long-term plans of building a strong presence in the south, with Karnataka of course already in the party's bag. Can you imagine the CPI-M on its own managing to get a single MP elected from Uttar Pradesh, or Punjab, or Gujarat and Maharashtra (collectively the old state of Bombay)?
Fellow travellers may argue that in 2004 the Left Front registered its best performance ever in terms of numbers. How do those numbers stack up?
The CPI-M won 43 seats. Twenty-six of those were from West Bengal, 12 were from Kerala, two each from Tripura and Andhra Pradesh, and one from Tamil Nadu.
The CPI-M's junior partner the CPI won ten seats. West Bengal and Kerala each contributed three, it won two in Tamil Nadu, and one each in Jharkhand and in Andhra Pradesh. (It is a disgrace that this tattered rag of an outfit continues to be given the status of a 'national' party.)
The Forward Bloc and the Revolutionary Socialist Party each won three seats in West Bengal. Sebastian Paul, running as an independent candidate backed by the Left, won the Ernakulam seat in Kerala, as did the Janata Dal-Secular's M P Veerendra Kumar in Calicut.
Going through the lists above it is clear that the bulk of these 61 seats came courtesy of West Bengal (35) and Kerala (17). I suppose it is possible that the Left Front shall do fairly well once again in West Bengal. But it is hard to see a repeat performance in Kerala where the CPI-M chief minister and the local party boss can barely bring themselves to be civil to each other.
The problem for the Left Front is that, for all practical purposes, it does not exist outside West Bengal, Kerala, and tiny Tripura. Any major losses in West Bengal and Kerala simply cannot be made up by gains in other states.
Forget about the Third Front, there is a possibility that either the Bahujan Samaj Party or the Samajwadi Party shall overtake the CPI-M as the third-largest party in the Lok Sabha behind the BJP and the Congress. Will Comrade Karat then run around trying to create a Fourth Front?
Rereading Prakash Karat's statement, I note that the CPI-M boss spoke only of 'forming a government', not of winning a majority. That is the story of the Communist movement in India in a nutshell, it is a group that prefers to cut deals behind closed doors rather than reach out to India to win the people's mandate.
http://www.rediff.com///election/2009/apr/09the-drift-and-decline-of-the-left.htm
Sunday, March 29, 2009
CPM terror nexus
Squirming, CPM tells Kerala unit: stay off Abdul Madhani
Manoj C G Posted online: Mar 28, 2009 at 0114 hrs
New Delhi : With its electoral association with the PDP becoming an embarrassment and a target for attack from allies, the CPI(M) central leadership has directed its Kerala unit not to share the stage with Abdul Nassar Madhani, who is accused of having links with Islamic extremist groups, during campaigning.
It is learnt that the CPI(M)’s central leadership has taken a view that although there is nothing wrong in accepting PDP’s support, the party should not be seen as diluting its secular credentials for votes by unnecessarily promoting the PDP chief. This directive comes at a time when Muslim outfits like the Jamaat-i-Islami-Hind are upset with CPI(M)’s open flirting with Madhani.
While the Kerala unit was actively involved in defending Madhani, with state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan sharing a stage with a PDP leader in Ponnani, the central leadership has been trying hard to sell the line that the PDP is not a part of the LDF and the CPI(M) has only accepted support offered by it. This line, however, has not found favour with allies CPI and RSP, who have been maintaining that the PDP is a communal outfit. There are also reports that Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan is unhappy with the CPI(M)-PDP tie-up and has complained to the Politburo, a development though denied by general secretary Prakash Karat and VS himself.
CPI(M) leaders including Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan have been arguing that the cases against Madhani, who was acquitted in the 1998 Coimbatore serial blast case, are politically motivated at a time when a probe into Kerala’s terror links with Kashmir has revealed that many key players in the network had close links with his family or were his followers.
While it has already enlisted the support of the PDP, the CPI(M) is also wooing the Jamaat in Kerala and West Bengal and has even made a mention of the Ranganath Mishra Committee in its campaign documents. The Jamaat has been demanding implementation of the Mishra committee report which recommended 15 per cent reservation for minorities with 10 per cent exclusively for Muslims.
The CPI(M) recently held a round of discussion with the Jamaat leadership in Kerala and it is learnt that the party’s central leadership has sent a message to the outfits’s top brass here that West Bengal state secretary Biman Basu would also like to meet Jamaat leaders in the state. Interestingly, while the Jamaat’s central leadership is in favour of supporting the Left for ensuring a third alternative, the state units of the outfit are not that enthused.
Sources in the Jamaat said, it has not taken a decision so far and is weighing all options as talks are also on with the Congress. During the meeting Jamaat’s Kerala state chief T Arifali had with CPI(M) leaders, led by state minister Elamaram Kareem, it has been clearly stated that the outfit is not happy with the functioning of the Education Ministry and the CPI(M)’s decision to field PDP favourite Hussain Randathani from Ponnani, sources said. Similar is the case with West Bengal, where local Jamaat leaders have already met Trinamool chief Mamata Bannerjee. “The CPI(M) central leadership has conveyed that Basu would like to meet us. We are working out the dates and time,” a senior Jamaat leader told The Indian Express.
http://www.indianexpress.com/story_print.php?storyid=440096
Manoj C G Posted online: Mar 28, 2009 at 0114 hrs
New Delhi : With its electoral association with the PDP becoming an embarrassment and a target for attack from allies, the CPI(M) central leadership has directed its Kerala unit not to share the stage with Abdul Nassar Madhani, who is accused of having links with Islamic extremist groups, during campaigning.
It is learnt that the CPI(M)’s central leadership has taken a view that although there is nothing wrong in accepting PDP’s support, the party should not be seen as diluting its secular credentials for votes by unnecessarily promoting the PDP chief. This directive comes at a time when Muslim outfits like the Jamaat-i-Islami-Hind are upset with CPI(M)’s open flirting with Madhani.
While the Kerala unit was actively involved in defending Madhani, with state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan sharing a stage with a PDP leader in Ponnani, the central leadership has been trying hard to sell the line that the PDP is not a part of the LDF and the CPI(M) has only accepted support offered by it. This line, however, has not found favour with allies CPI and RSP, who have been maintaining that the PDP is a communal outfit. There are also reports that Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan is unhappy with the CPI(M)-PDP tie-up and has complained to the Politburo, a development though denied by general secretary Prakash Karat and VS himself.
CPI(M) leaders including Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan have been arguing that the cases against Madhani, who was acquitted in the 1998 Coimbatore serial blast case, are politically motivated at a time when a probe into Kerala’s terror links with Kashmir has revealed that many key players in the network had close links with his family or were his followers.
While it has already enlisted the support of the PDP, the CPI(M) is also wooing the Jamaat in Kerala and West Bengal and has even made a mention of the Ranganath Mishra Committee in its campaign documents. The Jamaat has been demanding implementation of the Mishra committee report which recommended 15 per cent reservation for minorities with 10 per cent exclusively for Muslims.
The CPI(M) recently held a round of discussion with the Jamaat leadership in Kerala and it is learnt that the party’s central leadership has sent a message to the outfits’s top brass here that West Bengal state secretary Biman Basu would also like to meet Jamaat leaders in the state. Interestingly, while the Jamaat’s central leadership is in favour of supporting the Left for ensuring a third alternative, the state units of the outfit are not that enthused.
Sources in the Jamaat said, it has not taken a decision so far and is weighing all options as talks are also on with the Congress. During the meeting Jamaat’s Kerala state chief T Arifali had with CPI(M) leaders, led by state minister Elamaram Kareem, it has been clearly stated that the outfit is not happy with the functioning of the Education Ministry and the CPI(M)’s decision to field PDP favourite Hussain Randathani from Ponnani, sources said. Similar is the case with West Bengal, where local Jamaat leaders have already met Trinamool chief Mamata Bannerjee. “The CPI(M) central leadership has conveyed that Basu would like to meet us. We are working out the dates and time,” a senior Jamaat leader told The Indian Express.
http://www.indianexpress.com/story_print.php?storyid=440096
Friday, March 27, 2009
CPI-M is a threat to democracy & India: Book
CPI-M is a threat to democracy & India: Book
Usha Manohar in Kochi | PTI | March 27, 2009 | 12:31 IST
As the Lok Sabha poll campaign gathers steam in the Left-ruled Kerala, a top Church official has described the CPI-M as a 'threat' to democracy and warned that India will suffer the same fate as China under Mao Zedong.
'The Marxist party will use all kinds of tactics to strengthen itself in places where it is in power. That they will do throughout India once they get to power at the Centre, will be no different from Mao or Stalin,' says Cardinal Mar Varkey Vithayathil in his book Straight From Heart.
The influential Cardinal, known for his critical views even on the church establishment, says, 'The Marxist fundamentalism is a greater threat than the religious fundamentalism of the BJP. The Navy, the Army and the Air Force will come under their complete control. We can reasonably expect that what happened in China under Mao will happen in India under their rule.'
'Where is the logic of democracy if they are convinced atheists? But if they are atheists against their conscience and belief, then they are not true to themselves. Convinced atheists cannot be democratic. Democracy is based on respect for the individual and on the rule 'of the people, by the people, for the people,' Vithayathil, also the Major Archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Church, says.
The first Communist government of Kerala, Vithayathil says, was dismissed because they took recourse to some Marxist techniques like rule by party cadre when they came to power.
'But even now, it is the party that rules in Kerala and not the government,' the Cardinal says.
Vithayathil, who is also the president of Catholic Bishops Conference of India, says he disagrees with Marxism, mainly on the issue of 'atheism' and their 'use of violence'.
'From my Catholic faith, I sometimes see Marxism as a chastisement allowed by God on the Church for not living what it preaches,' he says in the book.
Catholic Church has often come in conflict with CPI-M-led LDF government on different issues, including proposals of the state Law Reforms Panel on topics like legalisation of mercy killing, small family norm and formation of a body to manage church properties.
Praising the Congress and its allies, the book says, they have 'more respect' for an individual and his fundamental rights.
Putting his views on BJP, the Cardinal in the book says, 'The commendable thing about the party is that they want to preserve the good aspects of Indian culture like modesty of women and promoting certain moral values, for which they would opt for stricter media censorship. For them religion is very important and they support democracy and human rights.
'Besides protecting ancient culture and heritage of India, like Vedas, Upanishads and the great philosophical teachings to the six systems of Indian philosophy, BJP respects, preserves and promotes knowledge of Sanskrit and Ayurveda.'
The party is a 'great defender of our many achievements of the past', the book says.
However the saffron party, Vithayathil says, 'has forgotten that Catholics of the country also regard Indian culture, philosophy, literature and science as their heritage. The Catholic Church will certainly protect them just as it has responsibly protected and preserved Greek and Roman cultures.'
http://www.rediff.com///election/2009/mar/27loksabhapoll-cpm-a-threat-to-democracy.htm
Usha Manohar in Kochi | PTI | March 27, 2009 | 12:31 IST
As the Lok Sabha poll campaign gathers steam in the Left-ruled Kerala, a top Church official has described the CPI-M as a 'threat' to democracy and warned that India will suffer the same fate as China under Mao Zedong.
'The Marxist party will use all kinds of tactics to strengthen itself in places where it is in power. That they will do throughout India once they get to power at the Centre, will be no different from Mao or Stalin,' says Cardinal Mar Varkey Vithayathil in his book Straight From Heart.
The influential Cardinal, known for his critical views even on the church establishment, says, 'The Marxist fundamentalism is a greater threat than the religious fundamentalism of the BJP. The Navy, the Army and the Air Force will come under their complete control. We can reasonably expect that what happened in China under Mao will happen in India under their rule.'
'Where is the logic of democracy if they are convinced atheists? But if they are atheists against their conscience and belief, then they are not true to themselves. Convinced atheists cannot be democratic. Democracy is based on respect for the individual and on the rule 'of the people, by the people, for the people,' Vithayathil, also the Major Archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Church, says.
The first Communist government of Kerala, Vithayathil says, was dismissed because they took recourse to some Marxist techniques like rule by party cadre when they came to power.
'But even now, it is the party that rules in Kerala and not the government,' the Cardinal says.
Vithayathil, who is also the president of Catholic Bishops Conference of India, says he disagrees with Marxism, mainly on the issue of 'atheism' and their 'use of violence'.
'From my Catholic faith, I sometimes see Marxism as a chastisement allowed by God on the Church for not living what it preaches,' he says in the book.
Catholic Church has often come in conflict with CPI-M-led LDF government on different issues, including proposals of the state Law Reforms Panel on topics like legalisation of mercy killing, small family norm and formation of a body to manage church properties.
Praising the Congress and its allies, the book says, they have 'more respect' for an individual and his fundamental rights.
Putting his views on BJP, the Cardinal in the book says, 'The commendable thing about the party is that they want to preserve the good aspects of Indian culture like modesty of women and promoting certain moral values, for which they would opt for stricter media censorship. For them religion is very important and they support democracy and human rights.
'Besides protecting ancient culture and heritage of India, like Vedas, Upanishads and the great philosophical teachings to the six systems of Indian philosophy, BJP respects, preserves and promotes knowledge of Sanskrit and Ayurveda.'
The party is a 'great defender of our many achievements of the past', the book says.
However the saffron party, Vithayathil says, 'has forgotten that Catholics of the country also regard Indian culture, philosophy, literature and science as their heritage. The Catholic Church will certainly protect them just as it has responsibly protected and preserved Greek and Roman cultures.'
http://www.rediff.com///election/2009/mar/27loksabhapoll-cpm-a-threat-to-democracy.htm
The Communists of India
The Communist's of India
March 10th, 2009
Communism historically has a very unique twin track approach. On paper the ideals of communism are just wonderful and almost utopist in nature. When one walks through the utopian stage and dons the role of a full fledged communist the finer details emerge. The “The communist Manifesto” written by the demigod of communism Mr. Karl Marx makes quite an impact. His objectives did leave an impression on many and inspired a lot many after his time. He was a profound thinker and like most thinkers he was successful in drawing many to his thoughts. His writings appealed to the rebel in each Individual, by questioning everything. It questions civil and human rights, capitalism, and amongst others religion. It talks about class struggle. It promised a solution, an almost perfect solution that aims to rid the world of poverty, & class struggle and by bringing in an equal society. Almost like the speeches of today's politicians before elections in a democratic set up. It has an appeal that was and is hard to resist.
For a young heart, any kind of rebellion is adventurous, daring and fun because it promises action against today's evils and offers the solution that can change the world. That fatal attraction has drawn many a youth across various parts of the world to the ideology called communism. These youth fought with a song of revolution on their lips in the many of their battles against regimes across the world.
Since communist thinking was to change the existing set up, any one who prefers the continuation of the present set up is its enemy, and enemies are not ordinary enemies but enemies of the state, so they have to be eliminated. And that was done with great fervor. Consider these statistics
61 million killed in the Soviet Union
35 million killed in the People's Republic of China
2 million killed in North Korea
2 million killed in Cambodia
1 million killed in Vietnam
1 million killed in the Communist states of Eastern Europe
1.7 million killed In Africa
1.5 million killed In Afghanistan
150,000 in killed Latin America
Indian communists have haven't been able to beat those numbers but the Nandi-gramam episode recently in West Bengal / India, demonstrated that given a chance they are capable of catching up to the numbers above and may compete quite passionately to propel themselves into the top 5. The communist chief minister of west Bengal said this statement after police firing on farmers who were protesting the take over the land, “They have been paid in their own coin”. Basically what he was saying was that we do thuggery in the form of governance. Indian Media would react in a principled way against any errors in governance but it’s natural to expect them to play safe when writing about all forms of thuggery in the form of governance.
Coming back to communism, unfortunately for Mr. Karl Marx his theory of communism though had a strong run seems to be on the ebb today, with the break of Soviet Union and a systemic break down approach by the west, both by psychological intimidation and capitalistic development platform. The other big communist country China is still going strong as a communist because it has shown remarkable pragmatism in blending communism with capitalism, in a way that doesn't upset the communist grip over the nation but at the same time moving in the direction of progress and prosperity. Cuba is set up in the communist mould because people may be tired of another revolution and more over its leaders have mastered the lust and privileges of being in power. Talking about lust, yahoo online reported that the Cuban leader Mr. Fidel Castro had had sex with a different woman each day all through his regime. Unlike Indian communists who show a tendency to stop socialism at their doorsteps, he welcomed it even to his bedroom. That was his passion for socialism.
Communism & Religion: There is famous statement in communism, "Religion is the opium of the masses”. Communism has had this fundamentally strong dislike towards religion. It appears that religion comes in the way of the communists exercising their control over the masses. They prefer to be the sole authority when it comes to having a control over the masses. That is the reason the communist rulers of the former Soviet Union banned religious practices and most of the orthodox Soviet church went underground and there were hardly any services. However with the break up of the communist regime, true feelings are coming out openly and the Russian Orthodox church is active once again, with even the supremo of Russia Mr.Putin, an ex KGB agent proclaiming his religion without fear or prejudice. Closer to home, in China the only path to God was taking a membership of the communist party of China. Indian communists however seem to quite confused. While publicly they are forced by their chosen ideology to be atheists, we all know that quite a few times their mask has come out. They participate in religious activities while their families visit religious places as any devout religious person would do. However in India communism does not seem to have a uniform policy against religion. They show surprising agility when it comes to influencing Hindu behavior and Hindu religious practices with communist ideology while simultaneously displaying an almost servile respect when it comes to minority religions in India. This seems be a primary bone of contention between communists and Hindus.
Dr Babu Suseelan writes, “For several years, Marxists in Kerala and West Bengal have been tinkering with our education, revising temple festivals, rituals, and spiritual practices. Their goal is to obliterate our culture and our customs by systematic deconstruction. Marxists have introduced Devasom Bill in Kerala for the takeover of Hindu temples including Guruvayoorappan Temple, Sabarimala Temple and various high income producing Hindu temples. Marxist government has introduced several restrictive ordinances to permanently ban traditional percussion, fireworks and timeline to permanently ban temple festivals and traditional cultural programs. For Hindus, the temple is the abode of God, the focus for all aspects in life of Hindus-religious, spiritual, cultural and social. It is a center where God can be approached and where divine knowledge can be discovered. Marxists are keen on destroying our temples founded on a platform with a devilish mixture of deception, coercion, and propaganda and government power. It represents one of the most deceptive and dangerous cultural destruction plan in India- a fact which most pseudo secularists and political leaders either do not know or choose to ignore. There is something sick in these destructive plans to loot temple wealth and permanently destroy and exterminate or vanquish our cultural values. These morally aberrant policies have the infinite capacity to inflict harm to Hindu society”.
This philosophy of communists manifests itself into a multitude of anti- Hindu activities at the street level which are being absorbed by the ever tolerant Hindu, albeit in quite disbelief. Hindu anger is building up as tiny rivulets from across the streets, towns and cities of communist ruled India. These tiny rivulets are then further attacked by a combination of anti Hindu forces. The attacks are in the form of a smear campaign. The attackers are emboldened by the passive non-confrontationist approach lifestyle of the average Hindu. Any practicing Christian or Muslim would erupt in anger when the control of their religious places of worship is taken away by the communist or other government's, but the passivity of Hindus seems like a deep spring from which the fountain of patience, kindness, endurance and in-difference flows incessantly. This fountain can have the inherent power to work against its adherents even before the rivulet of anger takes shape into a flood of meaningful thinking.
The eruption of Christian and Muslim anger and its backlash has been demonstrated time and again in India and most Indian politicians, the communist included respect the gene of servility in them and hence stay clear. The "Anger of Indian Christian's" is backed by support of Christian western governments and "Anger of Indian Muslim's" is backed by support of Muslim countries of the Gulf. A classic example of Christian international support is the “advice” by US against the toothless anti conversion bill introduced by some states in India and the example of International Muslim support is the routine IOC resolutions against India on various matters relating to the internal affairs of India. The combination of home-grown protests and the international backing for such protests could be the reason for the absolutely zero interference by Communist governments of India in the religious affairs of Christians and Muslims. While there are a multitude of organizations and groups operating freely in India who have their "valid" reasons to molest Hinduism, for communists of India its communist ideology. This anti-religious fervor of communists seems to waft to and fro from the northern border. The recent attempt to take over the Hindu temple of Nepal by the new born communists of Nepal, is a page from the leaf of what China has been doing to religious Tibet for the past 50 + years. The levels of in-sensivity to the aspirations, sentiment and self-dignity of the common man by communist governments, may make Mr Karl Marx re-think his thoughts on communism.
Primary Objective of Communism in India: Indian Prime Minister Mr.Man Mohan Singh has said that Marxist violence in parts of the country is the biggest threat sweeping the nation. An entire patch from central India to southern India is under the grip of Marxist violent movements known in India as naxalism. There is no government administration in such areas as no government official dares to go there. This is a complex issue where the mis governance of successive governments has given place to deep resentment against the government. This resentment has been hijacked by the communist movement under the guise of socialism. They wage war against the government with real arms and ammunition.Its interesting to note that there is little or no naxalism in states which are governed by Communist parties like West Bengal or Kerala, because the goal has been achieved, that is to gain power. It’s equally interesting that they use their mantra of revolution only in states they are not in power. They indulge in Marxist propaganda with positive sounding slogans such as "inclusion", "human rights", "feminist empowerment", "classless society", "women's rights", “ equality”, “ fight against oppression” to mobilize the poor people. For the poor and oppressed this seems like the divine opening they have been praying all their lives and are moulded into believing that take cudgels against the government of India on behalf of the communist parties will bring in a solution to their problems. They have invited the security forces of India to their door step thus pushing them into being enemies of the democratic state.The poor who have endured the worst of corruption in governance are now forced to bear the baton and bullet of the security forces. There is an extension of their inherited suffering. All this in the name of socialism.
While on one had the communists enjoy power both at states and in the centre by some clever political maneuvering, they at the same time engineer unrest in states they don't rule with the sole aim of coming to power. So is communist ideology in India just a rue to come to power. This unfortunately seems to be the reality as is with any other political party of India. If we assume that what we are writing cannot be true, then quality of life and governance in communist ruled states of India must be on par with developed countries.. right? To challenge us please take a walk through the communist ruled states of India and advice us that we are wrong. We will concede if proven wrong. Rich and powerful Marxist leaders live in luxury houses, drive deluxe limousines, send their children at expensive boarding schools and lead an elite life. The Marxist political leaders are at a huge, incalculable distance from the average citizen deeply ensconced in the twin towers of power and communist ideology.
It is said that winning elections is done in true communist traditions. Elections are under the tight grip of the communist party member’s right down to the street level. People are gently advised to vote for the communist party and offered "pleasant" experiences if they do not. Every movement of the ordinary people is tracked to make sure that votes are cast only for the communist party. Its authoritarian rule under the mask of democracy. That may explain the reason why the communist parties have managed to remain in power for as long as memory can know in West Bengal. The communist parties of India are on the same platform as other political parties of India. They indulge in corruption, work towards gaining personal wealth, demonstrate bad governance, display lack of vision on issues of welfare, infrastructure development and prosperity. They also give selective holidays to their communist ideology and engage in multiple forms of political alignments in order to capture / retain political power.
Nationalism vs. Ideology: Two things come to mind, The Nuclear deal with USA episode and the silent support of Indian communists to China on the 1962 war and subsequent non resolved border dispute between India and china. The vehement opposition of the Indian communist parties to the nuclear deal was based on the cold war ideology of the communist movement to oppose any dealings with the progressive west. So when they opposed it, the primary objective was its adherence to its ideology over what can be a perceived benefit to the Nation. It’s said at least on paper that the nuclear deal with US would open the door to overcome the power shortage that India is currently facing and also address the future power needs of the power hungry India. We don't know if that objective would really be achieved or if that stated objective is the real objective. But the communists of India opposed it. They had a chance to poke a thumb at the west, their eternal enemy. It did not matter to them that opposition would mean depriving the nation of that extra wattage of power. That adherence to ideology even it means working against national interest is a shocking reality that seems to have got immersed unquestioned and un challenged into the torrid waters of great churning lake called “the Kurushetra of modern Indian politics”. The communists of India seem to have given ideology a preference over common sense thinking of neighboring china. If china were to follow the same communist ideology of opposing any dealing with the west, would it have registered a trade surplus? Consider this report from the China daily,According to China customs statistics, China's exports to the United States were US$52.1 billion in 2000 and reached US$162.9 billion in 2005, an increase of 212 per cent. According to US customs statistics, the US exports to China were US$16.2 billion in 2000 and reached US$41.8 billion in 2005, an increase of 157 per cent. Had Indian communists raised issues like nuclear safety, it would amount to showing interest in the safety and welfare of Indians, but they did not do that. This approach of not blending national priorities as part of their Ideology can be a hindering factor in the development of India. Wish the commonsense nationalistic approach of communist china rubs onto to Indian communists.
As for the support of Indian communists to China, It was reported that during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971, China more or less asked the Indian naxalites to support the side of Pakistan. An interesting paper by Mr.D.S.Rajan (He was earlier Director, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, and New Delhi ) in the online portal http://www.saag.org/common/uploaded_files/paper1565.html presents the collusion between communists of India and China. That makes quite an insightful reading. As a starter it would be nice if at least on public platforms Indian communists blend nationalism with communist ideologies. They should step out of their cocoon of ambiguity and come out strongly in support of India on the border dispute with China.
The passive and non-mainstream communists of India scattered across the nation in various "avatars" are effectively complementing the "work" of main stream communists by an gusto that combines ignorance and misinterpreted affinity to ideology. This includes the "The Hindu" God "Shri Ram" who resides on the Mount road of Chennai, south India. Surprisingly there also seems to be a preference for " communist anonymity" and also a tendency to present a "secular" face to the public.
Indian communists haven't been air-dropped onto India.Its the blood of India that runs in them.They are Indians at heart, body and soul..Look at this picture of Ms. Brinda Karat, one of the leaders of one of the communist parties in India.
In spite of being both an atheist and an communist this picture of the Indian communist leader identifies itself with Hindu culture, much to the dismay of the pink chaddi spirit of modern India. The question is why don't Indian communists come out in open and acknowledge their Hinduistic true form which is their inherent foundation. If all or some choose to come out in the open and acknowledge both, their communist avatar and the inherent Hindutvam then we would extend a warm welcome with open hands to The communists of India!.
References:
http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/Genocide/pol_pot.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag
The Communist Chinese Ant Hill Suzanne Labin, Edward Fitzgerald
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM
http://sneakpeaks.blogspot.com/2008/03/worlds-most-beautiful-politicians.html
The Marxist invasion of India : Dr Babu Suseelan
http://theundercurrent.ca/ind_pol_10.htm?id=8522
March 10th, 2009
Communism historically has a very unique twin track approach. On paper the ideals of communism are just wonderful and almost utopist in nature. When one walks through the utopian stage and dons the role of a full fledged communist the finer details emerge. The “The communist Manifesto” written by the demigod of communism Mr. Karl Marx makes quite an impact. His objectives did leave an impression on many and inspired a lot many after his time. He was a profound thinker and like most thinkers he was successful in drawing many to his thoughts. His writings appealed to the rebel in each Individual, by questioning everything. It questions civil and human rights, capitalism, and amongst others religion. It talks about class struggle. It promised a solution, an almost perfect solution that aims to rid the world of poverty, & class struggle and by bringing in an equal society. Almost like the speeches of today's politicians before elections in a democratic set up. It has an appeal that was and is hard to resist.
For a young heart, any kind of rebellion is adventurous, daring and fun because it promises action against today's evils and offers the solution that can change the world. That fatal attraction has drawn many a youth across various parts of the world to the ideology called communism. These youth fought with a song of revolution on their lips in the many of their battles against regimes across the world.
Since communist thinking was to change the existing set up, any one who prefers the continuation of the present set up is its enemy, and enemies are not ordinary enemies but enemies of the state, so they have to be eliminated. And that was done with great fervor. Consider these statistics
61 million killed in the Soviet Union
35 million killed in the People's Republic of China
2 million killed in North Korea
2 million killed in Cambodia
1 million killed in Vietnam
1 million killed in the Communist states of Eastern Europe
1.7 million killed In Africa
1.5 million killed In Afghanistan
150,000 in killed Latin America
Indian communists have haven't been able to beat those numbers but the Nandi-gramam episode recently in West Bengal / India, demonstrated that given a chance they are capable of catching up to the numbers above and may compete quite passionately to propel themselves into the top 5. The communist chief minister of west Bengal said this statement after police firing on farmers who were protesting the take over the land, “They have been paid in their own coin”. Basically what he was saying was that we do thuggery in the form of governance. Indian Media would react in a principled way against any errors in governance but it’s natural to expect them to play safe when writing about all forms of thuggery in the form of governance.
Coming back to communism, unfortunately for Mr. Karl Marx his theory of communism though had a strong run seems to be on the ebb today, with the break of Soviet Union and a systemic break down approach by the west, both by psychological intimidation and capitalistic development platform. The other big communist country China is still going strong as a communist because it has shown remarkable pragmatism in blending communism with capitalism, in a way that doesn't upset the communist grip over the nation but at the same time moving in the direction of progress and prosperity. Cuba is set up in the communist mould because people may be tired of another revolution and more over its leaders have mastered the lust and privileges of being in power. Talking about lust, yahoo online reported that the Cuban leader Mr. Fidel Castro had had sex with a different woman each day all through his regime. Unlike Indian communists who show a tendency to stop socialism at their doorsteps, he welcomed it even to his bedroom. That was his passion for socialism.
Communism & Religion: There is famous statement in communism, "Religion is the opium of the masses”. Communism has had this fundamentally strong dislike towards religion. It appears that religion comes in the way of the communists exercising their control over the masses. They prefer to be the sole authority when it comes to having a control over the masses. That is the reason the communist rulers of the former Soviet Union banned religious practices and most of the orthodox Soviet church went underground and there were hardly any services. However with the break up of the communist regime, true feelings are coming out openly and the Russian Orthodox church is active once again, with even the supremo of Russia Mr.Putin, an ex KGB agent proclaiming his religion without fear or prejudice. Closer to home, in China the only path to God was taking a membership of the communist party of China. Indian communists however seem to quite confused. While publicly they are forced by their chosen ideology to be atheists, we all know that quite a few times their mask has come out. They participate in religious activities while their families visit religious places as any devout religious person would do. However in India communism does not seem to have a uniform policy against religion. They show surprising agility when it comes to influencing Hindu behavior and Hindu religious practices with communist ideology while simultaneously displaying an almost servile respect when it comes to minority religions in India. This seems be a primary bone of contention between communists and Hindus.
Dr Babu Suseelan writes, “For several years, Marxists in Kerala and West Bengal have been tinkering with our education, revising temple festivals, rituals, and spiritual practices. Their goal is to obliterate our culture and our customs by systematic deconstruction. Marxists have introduced Devasom Bill in Kerala for the takeover of Hindu temples including Guruvayoorappan Temple, Sabarimala Temple and various high income producing Hindu temples. Marxist government has introduced several restrictive ordinances to permanently ban traditional percussion, fireworks and timeline to permanently ban temple festivals and traditional cultural programs. For Hindus, the temple is the abode of God, the focus for all aspects in life of Hindus-religious, spiritual, cultural and social. It is a center where God can be approached and where divine knowledge can be discovered. Marxists are keen on destroying our temples founded on a platform with a devilish mixture of deception, coercion, and propaganda and government power. It represents one of the most deceptive and dangerous cultural destruction plan in India- a fact which most pseudo secularists and political leaders either do not know or choose to ignore. There is something sick in these destructive plans to loot temple wealth and permanently destroy and exterminate or vanquish our cultural values. These morally aberrant policies have the infinite capacity to inflict harm to Hindu society”.
This philosophy of communists manifests itself into a multitude of anti- Hindu activities at the street level which are being absorbed by the ever tolerant Hindu, albeit in quite disbelief. Hindu anger is building up as tiny rivulets from across the streets, towns and cities of communist ruled India. These tiny rivulets are then further attacked by a combination of anti Hindu forces. The attacks are in the form of a smear campaign. The attackers are emboldened by the passive non-confrontationist approach lifestyle of the average Hindu. Any practicing Christian or Muslim would erupt in anger when the control of their religious places of worship is taken away by the communist or other government's, but the passivity of Hindus seems like a deep spring from which the fountain of patience, kindness, endurance and in-difference flows incessantly. This fountain can have the inherent power to work against its adherents even before the rivulet of anger takes shape into a flood of meaningful thinking.
The eruption of Christian and Muslim anger and its backlash has been demonstrated time and again in India and most Indian politicians, the communist included respect the gene of servility in them and hence stay clear. The "Anger of Indian Christian's" is backed by support of Christian western governments and "Anger of Indian Muslim's" is backed by support of Muslim countries of the Gulf. A classic example of Christian international support is the “advice” by US against the toothless anti conversion bill introduced by some states in India and the example of International Muslim support is the routine IOC resolutions against India on various matters relating to the internal affairs of India. The combination of home-grown protests and the international backing for such protests could be the reason for the absolutely zero interference by Communist governments of India in the religious affairs of Christians and Muslims. While there are a multitude of organizations and groups operating freely in India who have their "valid" reasons to molest Hinduism, for communists of India its communist ideology. This anti-religious fervor of communists seems to waft to and fro from the northern border. The recent attempt to take over the Hindu temple of Nepal by the new born communists of Nepal, is a page from the leaf of what China has been doing to religious Tibet for the past 50 + years. The levels of in-sensivity to the aspirations, sentiment and self-dignity of the common man by communist governments, may make Mr Karl Marx re-think his thoughts on communism.
Primary Objective of Communism in India: Indian Prime Minister Mr.Man Mohan Singh has said that Marxist violence in parts of the country is the biggest threat sweeping the nation. An entire patch from central India to southern India is under the grip of Marxist violent movements known in India as naxalism. There is no government administration in such areas as no government official dares to go there. This is a complex issue where the mis governance of successive governments has given place to deep resentment against the government. This resentment has been hijacked by the communist movement under the guise of socialism. They wage war against the government with real arms and ammunition.Its interesting to note that there is little or no naxalism in states which are governed by Communist parties like West Bengal or Kerala, because the goal has been achieved, that is to gain power. It’s equally interesting that they use their mantra of revolution only in states they are not in power. They indulge in Marxist propaganda with positive sounding slogans such as "inclusion", "human rights", "feminist empowerment", "classless society", "women's rights", “ equality”, “ fight against oppression” to mobilize the poor people. For the poor and oppressed this seems like the divine opening they have been praying all their lives and are moulded into believing that take cudgels against the government of India on behalf of the communist parties will bring in a solution to their problems. They have invited the security forces of India to their door step thus pushing them into being enemies of the democratic state.The poor who have endured the worst of corruption in governance are now forced to bear the baton and bullet of the security forces. There is an extension of their inherited suffering. All this in the name of socialism.
While on one had the communists enjoy power both at states and in the centre by some clever political maneuvering, they at the same time engineer unrest in states they don't rule with the sole aim of coming to power. So is communist ideology in India just a rue to come to power. This unfortunately seems to be the reality as is with any other political party of India. If we assume that what we are writing cannot be true, then quality of life and governance in communist ruled states of India must be on par with developed countries.. right? To challenge us please take a walk through the communist ruled states of India and advice us that we are wrong. We will concede if proven wrong. Rich and powerful Marxist leaders live in luxury houses, drive deluxe limousines, send their children at expensive boarding schools and lead an elite life. The Marxist political leaders are at a huge, incalculable distance from the average citizen deeply ensconced in the twin towers of power and communist ideology.
It is said that winning elections is done in true communist traditions. Elections are under the tight grip of the communist party member’s right down to the street level. People are gently advised to vote for the communist party and offered "pleasant" experiences if they do not. Every movement of the ordinary people is tracked to make sure that votes are cast only for the communist party. Its authoritarian rule under the mask of democracy. That may explain the reason why the communist parties have managed to remain in power for as long as memory can know in West Bengal. The communist parties of India are on the same platform as other political parties of India. They indulge in corruption, work towards gaining personal wealth, demonstrate bad governance, display lack of vision on issues of welfare, infrastructure development and prosperity. They also give selective holidays to their communist ideology and engage in multiple forms of political alignments in order to capture / retain political power.
Nationalism vs. Ideology: Two things come to mind, The Nuclear deal with USA episode and the silent support of Indian communists to China on the 1962 war and subsequent non resolved border dispute between India and china. The vehement opposition of the Indian communist parties to the nuclear deal was based on the cold war ideology of the communist movement to oppose any dealings with the progressive west. So when they opposed it, the primary objective was its adherence to its ideology over what can be a perceived benefit to the Nation. It’s said at least on paper that the nuclear deal with US would open the door to overcome the power shortage that India is currently facing and also address the future power needs of the power hungry India. We don't know if that objective would really be achieved or if that stated objective is the real objective. But the communists of India opposed it. They had a chance to poke a thumb at the west, their eternal enemy. It did not matter to them that opposition would mean depriving the nation of that extra wattage of power. That adherence to ideology even it means working against national interest is a shocking reality that seems to have got immersed unquestioned and un challenged into the torrid waters of great churning lake called “the Kurushetra of modern Indian politics”. The communists of India seem to have given ideology a preference over common sense thinking of neighboring china. If china were to follow the same communist ideology of opposing any dealing with the west, would it have registered a trade surplus? Consider this report from the China daily,According to China customs statistics, China's exports to the United States were US$52.1 billion in 2000 and reached US$162.9 billion in 2005, an increase of 212 per cent. According to US customs statistics, the US exports to China were US$16.2 billion in 2000 and reached US$41.8 billion in 2005, an increase of 157 per cent. Had Indian communists raised issues like nuclear safety, it would amount to showing interest in the safety and welfare of Indians, but they did not do that. This approach of not blending national priorities as part of their Ideology can be a hindering factor in the development of India. Wish the commonsense nationalistic approach of communist china rubs onto to Indian communists.
As for the support of Indian communists to China, It was reported that during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971, China more or less asked the Indian naxalites to support the side of Pakistan. An interesting paper by Mr.D.S.Rajan (He was earlier Director, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, and New Delhi ) in the online portal http://www.saag.org/common/uploaded_files/paper1565.html presents the collusion between communists of India and China. That makes quite an insightful reading. As a starter it would be nice if at least on public platforms Indian communists blend nationalism with communist ideologies. They should step out of their cocoon of ambiguity and come out strongly in support of India on the border dispute with China.
The passive and non-mainstream communists of India scattered across the nation in various "avatars" are effectively complementing the "work" of main stream communists by an gusto that combines ignorance and misinterpreted affinity to ideology. This includes the "The Hindu" God "Shri Ram" who resides on the Mount road of Chennai, south India. Surprisingly there also seems to be a preference for " communist anonymity" and also a tendency to present a "secular" face to the public.
Indian communists haven't been air-dropped onto India.Its the blood of India that runs in them.They are Indians at heart, body and soul..Look at this picture of Ms. Brinda Karat, one of the leaders of one of the communist parties in India.
In spite of being both an atheist and an communist this picture of the Indian communist leader identifies itself with Hindu culture, much to the dismay of the pink chaddi spirit of modern India. The question is why don't Indian communists come out in open and acknowledge their Hinduistic true form which is their inherent foundation. If all or some choose to come out in the open and acknowledge both, their communist avatar and the inherent Hindutvam then we would extend a warm welcome with open hands to The communists of India!.
References:
http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/Genocide/pol_pot.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag
The Communist Chinese Ant Hill Suzanne Labin, Edward Fitzgerald
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM
http://sneakpeaks.blogspot.com/2008/03/worlds-most-beautiful-politicians.html
The Marxist invasion of India : Dr Babu Suseelan
http://theundercurrent.ca/ind_pol_10.htm?id=8522
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Bengal blues for the reds
Bengal Blues, Left Woes
Pratap Bhanu Mehta Posted online: Mar 21, 2009 at 1602 hrs
One of the most fascinating contests in this electoral season will be in West Bengal. For the first time in three decades the Left looks seriously vulnerable. If recent trends in panchayat elections are any indication, a Congress-Trinamool alliance will give the Left a run for their money. Even the BJP has been making marginal inroads into this one impregnable bastion.
The leadership of the Left is acknowledging that this will be the toughest election the party has faced in years. The state government is itself responsible for things coming to this pass. Buddhadeb Babu may be well intentioned in his recognition that the state needs a new development model. But his own party is now seriously responsible for the unconscionable governance failures in West Bengal. The Singur agitation was not so much a sign of anti-capitalism in the state, as it was a sign of the breakdown of elementary governance capacities.
The governance failures of West Bengal, on virtually every indicator that matters -- roads, health, education, nutrition, poverty, infant mortality -- have recently been well documented in searing report by my colleague Bibek Debroy and his co-author Laveesh Bhandari. Even the much touted success in growth in agricultural productivity and decline in rural poverty has been tapering off for years. There is no question that West Bengal is ripe for a paradigm shift in its development model.
There is also no question that the local CPM has become a huge obstacle to the progress of the state. No matter how much Bengali intellectuals, out of a sense of misplaced nationalism, sanitise the issue, the CPM’s implication in violence, intimidation and coercion is extensive. It is now deeply implicated in the political economy of petty corruption in the state. It has virtually destroyed intellectual life in main institutions of the state.
The CPM has freely capitalised on its record on communalism. But the simple fact is that under the surface, there are deep currents of communalism brewing in West Bengal. The Taslima Nasreen case and the arrest of the editor of The Statesman were, in their own minor ways, indications of the warped and bizarre interpretation of secularism the party has operated with. But deeper down, there are rumblings of discontent on the Bangladeshi migration issue. And the CPM, despite having been thirty years in power, has barely been able to change the tenor of debate on these issues amongst the middle classes in Bengal. In fact, a case could be made that if the BJP had got its act together, Bengal would have provided a propitious fishing ground. The calm surface of politics there is deceptive.
It is in this context that Mamata’s achievement should be gauged. No matter what one may think of her policies or her mercurial ways, the simple fact is that she has single handedly kept political opposition alive in West Bengal. Anyone who knows how difficult it is for any non-Left force to operate in the state, the risk of violence it entails, will appreciate the sheer courage and doggedness it has taken on Mamata’s part to keep open a political space. I suspect the BJP did not engage in mass mobilization in Bengal, not because there was no traction for them. In some ways the state is ripe for a critique of pseudo-secularism. It was simply that they were too afraid. Mamata’s armchair detractors in Delhi underestimate this achievement.
She probably overplayed her hand in the Singur agitation. But the fact is that the demands she made on behalf of the poor were not unreasonable. She knew the possibility existed that the Tatas could move. But what no one could have bargained for was the fact that Gujarat would not just offer land to the Tatas, but such a huge implicit subsidy from public funds. It was natural that the Tatas would take the deal. But two things have to be acknowledged. First, the terms of the deal have not received as much public discussion as they should. And it has certainly reduced the Tatas' incentives for a reasonable settlement.
But it is important to draw the right lessons from this episode. It would be a mistake to conclude that the Trinamool is some kind of Luddite anti-capitalist party, while Buddhadeb is the saviour of capitalism. The right lesson is that the state government has diminishing capacity to manage conflict, and an insurgent politician was stepping into the breach to portray herself as a defender of the poor.
The election outcome is still an open question. Will urban Bengal rally around Buddhadeb? What will be the effects of delimitation? Will the CPM party machine kick in? These are all open questions. But we should keep our fingers crossed for West Bengal. When longstanding, somewhat authoritarian, regimes begin to weaken, all kinds of forces begin to emerge. It is hard to predict how it will all turn out. West Bengal is ripe for such a churning.
It is also such an unconscionable shame that the CPM could not use its immense political hold on the state to do better for its citizens. At the national level, there is also a great need for a sensible Left. At the national level it was the only party that for five years performed. At the very least, its cautionary breaks on our unthinking embrace of the United States, was a sign of its better judgment. But the evidence from West Bengal is now decisively in: the party has become an obstacle to creating opportunities for the poor.
There are signs of immense confusion within the Left. It is encouraging the Third Front, because it recognizes its weaknesses in its home bases in West Bengal and Kerala. Its best shot at remaining relevant and to consolidate, is intelligent alliances elsewhere. It is right to insist that there is enough disenchantment with both the BJP and Congress to open up the space for something new. But it is mistaken in supposing that it has a leg to stand on. It risks losing its distinctiveness even more. It obdurately resisted playing the caste card for fifty years, when that card carried some pretence of empowering the marginalized. But just at the point where the caste card has become not a vehicle for empowerment, but of raw assertion of political power, the Left has gone and embraced it wholesale. The ideological confusions in the Left are a sign that it cannot run on its governance record, and is now flailing. Perhaps if it had paid as much attention to Buddhadeb’s weaknesses as it had to Bush’s, it might not have been in such a state.
http://www.indianexpress.com/story_print.php?storyid=437375
Pratap Bhanu Mehta Posted online: Mar 21, 2009 at 1602 hrs
One of the most fascinating contests in this electoral season will be in West Bengal. For the first time in three decades the Left looks seriously vulnerable. If recent trends in panchayat elections are any indication, a Congress-Trinamool alliance will give the Left a run for their money. Even the BJP has been making marginal inroads into this one impregnable bastion.
The leadership of the Left is acknowledging that this will be the toughest election the party has faced in years. The state government is itself responsible for things coming to this pass. Buddhadeb Babu may be well intentioned in his recognition that the state needs a new development model. But his own party is now seriously responsible for the unconscionable governance failures in West Bengal. The Singur agitation was not so much a sign of anti-capitalism in the state, as it was a sign of the breakdown of elementary governance capacities.
The governance failures of West Bengal, on virtually every indicator that matters -- roads, health, education, nutrition, poverty, infant mortality -- have recently been well documented in searing report by my colleague Bibek Debroy and his co-author Laveesh Bhandari. Even the much touted success in growth in agricultural productivity and decline in rural poverty has been tapering off for years. There is no question that West Bengal is ripe for a paradigm shift in its development model.
There is also no question that the local CPM has become a huge obstacle to the progress of the state. No matter how much Bengali intellectuals, out of a sense of misplaced nationalism, sanitise the issue, the CPM’s implication in violence, intimidation and coercion is extensive. It is now deeply implicated in the political economy of petty corruption in the state. It has virtually destroyed intellectual life in main institutions of the state.
The CPM has freely capitalised on its record on communalism. But the simple fact is that under the surface, there are deep currents of communalism brewing in West Bengal. The Taslima Nasreen case and the arrest of the editor of The Statesman were, in their own minor ways, indications of the warped and bizarre interpretation of secularism the party has operated with. But deeper down, there are rumblings of discontent on the Bangladeshi migration issue. And the CPM, despite having been thirty years in power, has barely been able to change the tenor of debate on these issues amongst the middle classes in Bengal. In fact, a case could be made that if the BJP had got its act together, Bengal would have provided a propitious fishing ground. The calm surface of politics there is deceptive.
It is in this context that Mamata’s achievement should be gauged. No matter what one may think of her policies or her mercurial ways, the simple fact is that she has single handedly kept political opposition alive in West Bengal. Anyone who knows how difficult it is for any non-Left force to operate in the state, the risk of violence it entails, will appreciate the sheer courage and doggedness it has taken on Mamata’s part to keep open a political space. I suspect the BJP did not engage in mass mobilization in Bengal, not because there was no traction for them. In some ways the state is ripe for a critique of pseudo-secularism. It was simply that they were too afraid. Mamata’s armchair detractors in Delhi underestimate this achievement.
She probably overplayed her hand in the Singur agitation. But the fact is that the demands she made on behalf of the poor were not unreasonable. She knew the possibility existed that the Tatas could move. But what no one could have bargained for was the fact that Gujarat would not just offer land to the Tatas, but such a huge implicit subsidy from public funds. It was natural that the Tatas would take the deal. But two things have to be acknowledged. First, the terms of the deal have not received as much public discussion as they should. And it has certainly reduced the Tatas' incentives for a reasonable settlement.
But it is important to draw the right lessons from this episode. It would be a mistake to conclude that the Trinamool is some kind of Luddite anti-capitalist party, while Buddhadeb is the saviour of capitalism. The right lesson is that the state government has diminishing capacity to manage conflict, and an insurgent politician was stepping into the breach to portray herself as a defender of the poor.
The election outcome is still an open question. Will urban Bengal rally around Buddhadeb? What will be the effects of delimitation? Will the CPM party machine kick in? These are all open questions. But we should keep our fingers crossed for West Bengal. When longstanding, somewhat authoritarian, regimes begin to weaken, all kinds of forces begin to emerge. It is hard to predict how it will all turn out. West Bengal is ripe for such a churning.
It is also such an unconscionable shame that the CPM could not use its immense political hold on the state to do better for its citizens. At the national level, there is also a great need for a sensible Left. At the national level it was the only party that for five years performed. At the very least, its cautionary breaks on our unthinking embrace of the United States, was a sign of its better judgment. But the evidence from West Bengal is now decisively in: the party has become an obstacle to creating opportunities for the poor.
There are signs of immense confusion within the Left. It is encouraging the Third Front, because it recognizes its weaknesses in its home bases in West Bengal and Kerala. Its best shot at remaining relevant and to consolidate, is intelligent alliances elsewhere. It is right to insist that there is enough disenchantment with both the BJP and Congress to open up the space for something new. But it is mistaken in supposing that it has a leg to stand on. It risks losing its distinctiveness even more. It obdurately resisted playing the caste card for fifty years, when that card carried some pretence of empowering the marginalized. But just at the point where the caste card has become not a vehicle for empowerment, but of raw assertion of political power, the Left has gone and embraced it wholesale. The ideological confusions in the Left are a sign that it cannot run on its governance record, and is now flailing. Perhaps if it had paid as much attention to Buddhadeb’s weaknesses as it had to Bush’s, it might not have been in such a state.
http://www.indianexpress.com/story_print.php?storyid=437375
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