http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Karat_teams_up_with_Maya_to_take_on_govt/articleshow/3229726.cmsFour
years ago, with 60 MPs in Parliament, it seemed as if the Communists had finally arrived on India's national stage. Four years later, Prakash Karat's dream of the 'non-Congress' 'non-BJP' Third Front lies in tatters. The comrades refused to join the government and take on responsibility. They preferred to criticize from the sidelines. Prakash Karat joining hands with a corrupt Mayawati to topple the Manmohan Singh Government, forcing the Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee to resign and usher in a chaos that is against Larger interests of the country is bound to have a negative fallout for the communists in times to come.
Their second mistake was to have failed to come to terms with the new India. Economic globalization, despite consistent communist opposition, is raging through the country like a wildfire. There are lots of things wrong with this New India. It does not have the social conscience so badly needed, it is creating vast inequalities between rich and poor, it is pauperizing traditional trades and providing little hope for those scratching out worms from riverbeds or eating grass to survive. But this New India is also shaping itself into an avalanche of upward mobility. Prakash Karat and his comrades are trying to tame the avalanche. They have stalled pension reform, stalled banking reforms and for long stalled the privatization of airports without realizing that keeping airports as a state monopoly was only preserving it as a sector for the rich. That all over the world air travel is dirt cheap precisely because it is privatized.
No to nuclear deal, no to reforms, no to change, no to newness, no to price rise, no to America; negativism seems the only reflex action with the communists. The comrades’ contempt for change, constant lamentation, moral righteousness are incongruous in a country shouting 'Chak de India!' In 1997, the communists committed the 'historic blunder' of not letting Jyoti Basu become Prime Minister because they were unwilling to share power. Today they have committed suicide because they did not know how to use power.
A.B. Bardhan says, ‘Bhaad mein jaye Sensex’ (to hell with the Sensex) as he pours scorn on millions of middle class Indians who invest and trade. In Kerala the communists are factionalized in a way that makes even the Congress look good. In Bengal they badly misread the outcome of murder by CPI (M) cadre and their arrogance in Nandigram. Despite blatant coercion and violence, large numbers silently voted against the party. People have begun to question the corruption of district / village-level leaders and the Marxist cadre. Large scale acquisition of rural land has affected Muslims sharply for most of them are farmers.
In 2007, the communist protests against joint Indian and American naval exercises got little response from the public. This year their so-called campaign against the petrol price hike was largely ignored by the people.
Opposition to the nuclear deal once again shows their distance from India. Sure, it's a commercial transaction, but why is anything to do with commerce necessarily evil? Even at the height of the Cold War, two million Indians lived in the US. The links between India and America are so massive, that as a leading economist put it, the Indo-US nuclear deal is an offshoot of a long process of civic exchange with America, not the basis of it. Karat and his men hate America and wish India’s foreign policies to conform to their hatred. Their indignant and consistent opposition to the US has forced them to withdraw support to the UPA and resulted in chaos. History will record the sordid communist role in toppling the Manmohan Singh Govt, if that happens, and apportion blame for the current horse trading of MPs to Prakash Karat, AB Bardhan, Sitaram Yechury, D Raja and their cohorts.
years ago, with 60 MPs in Parliament, it seemed as if the Communists had finally arrived on India's national stage. Four years later, Prakash Karat's dream of the 'non-Congress' 'non-BJP' Third Front lies in tatters. The comrades refused to join the government and take on responsibility. They preferred to criticize from the sidelines. Prakash Karat joining hands with a corrupt Mayawati to topple the Manmohan Singh Government, forcing the Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee to resign and usher in a chaos that is against Larger interests of the country is bound to have a negative fallout for the communists in times to come.
Their second mistake was to have failed to come to terms with the new India. Economic globalization, despite consistent communist opposition, is raging through the country like a wildfire. There are lots of things wrong with this New India. It does not have the social conscience so badly needed, it is creating vast inequalities between rich and poor, it is pauperizing traditional trades and providing little hope for those scratching out worms from riverbeds or eating grass to survive. But this New India is also shaping itself into an avalanche of upward mobility. Prakash Karat and his comrades are trying to tame the avalanche. They have stalled pension reform, stalled banking reforms and for long stalled the privatization of airports without realizing that keeping airports as a state monopoly was only preserving it as a sector for the rich. That all over the world air travel is dirt cheap precisely because it is privatized.
No to nuclear deal, no to reforms, no to change, no to newness, no to price rise, no to America; negativism seems the only reflex action with the communists. The comrades’ contempt for change, constant lamentation, moral righteousness are incongruous in a country shouting 'Chak de India!' In 1997, the communists committed the 'historic blunder' of not letting Jyoti Basu become Prime Minister because they were unwilling to share power. Today they have committed suicide because they did not know how to use power.
A.B. Bardhan says, ‘Bhaad mein jaye Sensex’ (to hell with the Sensex) as he pours scorn on millions of middle class Indians who invest and trade. In Kerala the communists are factionalized in a way that makes even the Congress look good. In Bengal they badly misread the outcome of murder by CPI (M) cadre and their arrogance in Nandigram. Despite blatant coercion and violence, large numbers silently voted against the party. People have begun to question the corruption of district / village-level leaders and the Marxist cadre. Large scale acquisition of rural land has affected Muslims sharply for most of them are farmers.
In 2007, the communist protests against joint Indian and American naval exercises got little response from the public. This year their so-called campaign against the petrol price hike was largely ignored by the people.
Opposition to the nuclear deal once again shows their distance from India. Sure, it's a commercial transaction, but why is anything to do with commerce necessarily evil? Even at the height of the Cold War, two million Indians lived in the US. The links between India and America are so massive, that as a leading economist put it, the Indo-US nuclear deal is an offshoot of a long process of civic exchange with America, not the basis of it. Karat and his men hate America and wish India’s foreign policies to conform to their hatred. Their indignant and consistent opposition to the US has forced them to withdraw support to the UPA and resulted in chaos. History will record the sordid communist role in toppling the Manmohan Singh Govt, if that happens, and apportion blame for the current horse trading of MPs to Prakash Karat, AB Bardhan, Sitaram Yechury, D Raja and their cohorts.
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