CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat has acknowledged at long last how
irrelevant leftists have become in India in his talk at the conference
on the "Lessons of Empire" at the Cambridge University ( Study Group,
IE,26/10). Their blinkered view of India started at the inception
itself : they opposed the freedom struggle and supported the British
during the 1942 'Quit India' movement ; they started the violent
struggle in Telangana ; they believed that they could ride the
Congress elephant after India's non-alignment tilted towards the
Soviet Union; they refused to condemn China for its invasion in 1962;
they supported emergency imposed by Mrs.Indira Gandhi. They were never
in tune with the nation.
It is not just lack "in theory" about the caste and bourgeoisie but a
total lack of understanding India, its history and its ethos. They
started 'bandh' and 'gherao'. They killed industry in West Bengal and
Kerala. They encouraged infiltration by Bangadeshis. They gave rise to
Naxalites and Maoists with their theory of class struggle. They fought
for 8 percent organized workers and not for 92 percent unorganized
labour. Their irrelevance is their 'karma' – you reap what you sow.
Your remark, ' Indian politics needs the Left parties to re-acquire
their feistiness' looks like the Stockholm Syndrome.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/study-groups/702418/0
October 29,2010.
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