PrintFriendlyBy Dr. Anirban Ganguly
When India did finally send in her troops into East Pakistan to deliver the final push for the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M), it is said, was “taken aback and stated that outside intervention in the internal affairs of another country could only lead to negative consequences.” In short, the CPI-M was peddling the Pakistan line and painting India as the aggressor, imputing that our armed forces were mercenaries carrying out an illegal political order.
The situation after more than four decades of that eventful episode has not altered. The only change that has taken place is that the Congress party, under Rahul Gandhi, finds itself on most issues, on the same page as the communists. Both communists and Congress have clubbed themselves together and, in the last few years, extended their hands of support and of friendship to an alliance of ultra-leftists and extreme jihadis.
It is this alliance that is at the root of most attempts being made to create instability, to assassinate character, to carry out the agendas of fifth-columnists – to borrow a highly favourite term of the communists – in trying to destabilise India. The focal point of their attack is, of course, Narendra Modi or anyone who works to strengthen his vision of India. What causes worry is that two mainstream parties in India have agreed to play with fire by aligning with these forces of subterfuge and of sabotage. However, such a fire, will someday consume those who dangerously play with it.
It would, of course, be instructive to see the descriptions of Indian leaders that the international bosses of Indian communists have made in the past. But why reiterate this now, when decades have passed and much has already been discussed on these aspects. The answer is simple; such a discussion ought to be a continuing one. Indians across generations ought to be educated about the history of perfidious politics practised by Indian communists. Not only have they heaped calumny on some of our most revered leaders in history, but they have also followed the path of Stalinism and of fascism practising the most violent politics, wherever they have been in power. Independent India has been no exception to this rule. The states of West Bengal, Tripura, and Kerala have been the worst affected by communist violence.
In Kerala now, under the present communist regime, the order of the day seems to be communist violence laced with enough jihadism. We shall come to that in a while, briefly mentioning here, that the ongoing Jan Rakshana Yatra in the state against the practice of communist violence has generated a massive response from the people, thereby pushing the habitually blood-thirsty comrades on the back foot.
Putting that aside, let us examine the intellectual tradition to which the Karats, the Yechuris, the Vijayans, and the Brindas belong. The Soviet weekly, New Times, dated January 1, 1950, in an article on Jayaprakash Narayan called him “An Indian Agent” of the British Labour Party who “slavishly apes the manners and methods of his London bosses.” The same New Times in an article dated July 19, 1950, had attacked Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, “as an Indian pseudo-socialist now endeavouring to smuggle through Washington’s schemes under the flag of Socialism,” understandably the Indian communists, subsisting on international communism’s crumbs, applauded these epithets. It is this same habit that made them, decades later, write and sign letters appealing to the so-called high priest of capitalism, the President of the United States, to deny an audience to Narendra Modi or even better prevent him from entering their realm.
Sometime in 1955, Sita Ram Goel had written with a prescience that, “If we allow the CPI to exist and grow in this country, we may sign any number of Panchsilas and exchange any number of cultural missions with Moscow and Peking, but our defeat and destruction is inevitable.” One can modify this statement to the present context, apply it to the remaining communists, especially to the CPIM which is filled with pseudo-Marxists, and say that as long as communists continue to survive as a political and intellectual force in this country, the threat to India’s democratic polity and to her security and sovereignty shall continue to exist. It is their depleting strength that has forced the communists today into an alignment with ultra-leftists and the extreme jihadis. Such a “tactical alignment” provides them oxygen to try and fight for another day.
In the areas where they still retain sufficient political oxygen, communists continue to resort to violence against their political and ideological opponents. The confines of the Gole Market in Delhi is used to churn out homilies on human rights and to manufacture false stories through proxy portals which function like present-day communist propaganda mouthpieces – The Wire being foremost among them – while the villages, hamlets and by lanes of Kerala are used for hacking at political opponents, cutting them to pieces, burning and bludgeoning them because they have dared to believe in an opposite political philosophy and have resolved to work for it. BJP president, Amit Shah, rightly questioned the silence of the candle-light activists who resort to selective outrage, who speak of intolerance selectively and who are criminally silent when young political and social workers are hacked to death in Kerala, often in front of their children, wives and ailing parents.
It does not matter to which social strata these workers and activists belong, since they have opposed communist politics, they have to be liquidated. This is the philosophy and practise followed by Yechury’s comrades, with tacit support and connivance of their central leadership. Since they cannot win through a competing model of governance, since they cannot win through a better political performance, since they have no credible narrative to offer, Indian communists, especially in the states where they are in power, resort to blood and death.
The ongoing Jan Rakshana Yatra, spearheaded by the Kerala unit of the BJP, is a historic response to this politics of death, it is a stand against this practice of seven decades, it responds by affirming faith in the ways of democracy. It is an assertion of our right to choose our path of political expression and to work in accordance with its spirit and ideal.
Being political opportunists, communists are heaping calumny against such a democratic assertion. They are displaying their nervousness because they have no rudder of spirit and no guide of an ideal and function as mere political mercenaries.
(The author is Director, Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation, New Delhi)