|
The
American president had recently come to this
part of the world. What transpired during his
visit is public knowledge and need not be
elaborated. While he was announcing what was
generally perceived to be an India friendly
offer, there where many people with misgivings
who demonstrated against his visit. The
demonstrators belonged to different communities
and different political parties. Some where
opposed to the whole idea of the American
president’s visit because they were opposed to
his policies; others thought that the deal which
was being signed was too good to be true.
Knowing that America will never give anything
for free they were sure that there were
invisible hidden strings attached to the deal.
They were scared that their country would be
taken for a ride.
It is true that the development of India would
be beneficial for the U.S. too. To begin with
U.S. business houses would like to grab the big
business of building nuclear reactors in India.
Secondly, the population of the rising middle
class of India is more than the population of
the U.S. As this middle class gets richer they
would be purchasing massive amounts of consumer
goods, electrical and electronic items. U.S.
businesses have their eyes on that huge market.
A strategic partnership with India also means
that the sole dominance of China in Asia is
counter-balanced. So it appears to be one of
those rare win-win situations.
The U.S. president was an official guest of the
Government of India, who was visiting us on our
invitation. As per our great tradition "Atithi
devo bhavah" or "Guest is akin to God". As
Indian people, how did we treat our guest? Many
of us were busy burning his effigies, shouting
slogans and demonstrating. It is understandable
if some people get carried away but what about
our age-old political parties? What were the
Communists demonstrating for?
Recently, in a talk show on the TV a Communist
leader was asked why they were demonstrating
against the visit of the U.S. president. Why
were they insulting a guest? He replied that he
was against the policy of the U.S. in Iraq. He
said his heart went out to the people of Iraq.
He could not tolerate their suffering. To this,
the host of the TV show promptly asked why they
had not demonstrated when Mr. Musharraf had come
as an official guest to the country. After all
he was the architect of Kargil where many
Indians had been killed. The Communist leader
had no reply to this question. He gave a toothy
grin and went into a tirade of how U.S. may gain
from this deal. I wondered what he was trying to
hint at. The U.S. President was obviously not
here for charity. The big question is that why
should the U.S. not gain from the deal? Deals
are signed for the benefit of both parties
aren’t they?
The Communists of our country seem lost. They do
not get involved in any government and only
extend support from outside. This means power
without any responsibility. After that, on a
regular basis they harass the government by
whining, moralizing and demonstrating all the
time. If we look back in history we will find
that whenever India took a landmark decision,
the Communists have always opposed it. When the
decision clicks they silently accept it. There
has never been an apology for having opposed a
good move. It has become a habit. When India
went for nuclear tests they opposed, when India
opened the markets they started shouting slogans
"India has been sold" etc.
It goes to suggest that in the absence of good
leadership, the Indian Communist parties have
become directionless. They seem to be only
waiting for the Government to falter so that
they can rush to the people with a "I told you
earlier" attitude. They need visionary leaders.
People, who can think, plan, execute and
shoulder the burden of responsibilities /
consequences. As things stand, they are
constantly making a mockery of themselves.
Perhaps a total rethink is required. Communism
as a philosophy has failed world over. Countries
like Russia and China have also adopting
capitalistic ways of getting rich. It is an age
of visionary thinkers, planners and builders not
of demonstrators, slogan shouters and red flag
bearers.
|
Comments: |
Mr
Rajesh,
I am extremely happy you raised this
concern through your brilliant
article. I completely agree with
you. Isn't it ironic, Communists
were dead against India developing a
nuclear arsenal back in those days
and now the same Communists are
launching protest rallies to
safeguard our nuclear inventory. To
be very honest, the left wing has
become deficient over the years and
their role in Indian politics needs
to be questioned. Like you rightly
pointed out you hardly see them at
the helm of any decision making but
if land-sweeping reforms are made
they are out there opposing any
historic move. I guess that is how
they earn their bread and butter.
Then we have the Naxals in Bihar and
Andhra which enjoy political
patronage through CPI and the CPI-M.
In fact when communism was first
conceived back in the 1920s to
create mass movements against the
propertied classes it was against
both the Congress and the British.
But have we seen any mass movements
in recent years. The workers of
today have their own unions and they
are happy to launch an agitation
through those unions. A good example
would be the recent strike which the
AAI launched through their union
against handing our airports to the
private parties for modernization.
The Left drummed their beats in
support to this agitation. However
they were confined to the back
benches when the AAI union leader
decided to call off the strike on
assurances from the Aviation
Minister Praful Patel. The Left was
left licking its wounds because
their efforts to provoke and prolong
the strike landed on dead ears.
The ideology of a creative communism
that stood for class struggle has
failed in India because over the
years communism has resorted to
mindless violence which has proved
to be their downfall. And to make
matters worse, we have people like
Sitaram Yechuri who calls BJP a
fascist party to justify their
opportunistic alliances with the
Congress - talk about ridiculous
hypocrisy for political wingspan! We
did well to do away with the feudal
system and we will do ourselves a
world of good by rooting out
communism and subsequently this
extremely dangerous Naxalism. -
Siddharth Verma - Mar. 5, 2006
Couldn't have agreed more with Mr.
Chaubey's assessment. Communist
parties in India in all of its
different flavors, are a spent
force. All through their history
they have focused on only one thing
- create trouble for their personal
gains and it's about time they were
shown the door once and for all.
They are nothing but trouble-makers,
a major roadblock in India's
progress. - Anil Kumar - March 5,
2006
The Left is ridiculing itself by
being a party supporting the
government and still opposing what
the government wants to do. If they
cannot convince the government of
their view points, they should not
hesitate to be away from support
plank. No wonder Cho Ramaswamy once
said: if Left is to be a part of the
government (in this case supporting
from outside) there will not be any
future left in government. - V.
N. Ramachandran - Mar. 6, 2006
Now watch our communist parties end
up with egg in their face again. The
AAI fiasco is all set to be
repeated. This time the public
humiliation is courtesy “big
brother” Beijing. On the Indo-US
N-deal China has changed it’s tune
suddenly and our communist parties,
who had faithfully joined voices
with China, now find themselves
sliding away in inertia completely
out of control.
China initially attacked the recent
Indo-US deal on nuclear technology
assistance and transfer citing that
the bilateral deal will inflict a
“hard blow” to global
non-proliferation regime and trigger
a domino effect. It even issued a
warning with leading Chinese
editorials saying that other nuclear
suppliers also have their own
partners of interest as well as good
reasons to copy what the United
States did. Ironically, it was China
who had blatantly flouted all
international nuclear and missile
proliferation and control regimes by
assisting Pakistan’s military
nuclear program and still continues
to supply missile technology to
Pakistan for anti-India specific
purposes.
Our communist parties went on an
overdrive on the agenda. After
making the initial uncomfortable
noises, China on Thursday came out
in support of the civilian nuclear
co-operation agreement. Chinese
Ambassador Sun Yuxi said his country
was ‘very happy’ with the nuclear
pact and that China “fully
understood” India’s energy needs as
a “rising country in the developing
world”. Why this sudden change of
heart is a debate for another day.
Big brother China backs out leaving
the infant brother, our communists,
crying hoarse and punching the air.
It will be interesting to observe
how they back-track on this one.
Perhaps they are just used to
periodic public humiliations and
there is no shame or guilt left. -
Rajesh Chaubey - Mar. 6, 2006 |
|
Discussion on this topic is now
closed. |
Return to previous Page |
