ARE KARAT AND YECHURI LEADING CPI/CPIM INTO AN ABYSS?
Kaleem Kawaja
The direction in which Karat and Yechuri are taking the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPIM by aligning with Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and banking on a possible alliance with Mayawati, one of the most corrupt leaders of a major political party and a campaigner of Gujarat’s Muslim murderer Narendra Modi, is mindboggling. Which direction is CPIM heading? – Ed.
What is still more mindboggling is to reflect on the direction in which CPI/CPIM are heading under the initiatives of Prakash Karat and Yechuri.
Did Karat take such a hardline against UPA in order to make himself the uncontested CPI leader in the face of dissent? (All indications before the vote were that UPA may lose narrowly.)
Is the Karat faction trying to gore the Bengali wing of the CPI/CPIM, in view of their solid 30- year reign in Bengal and the Karat-Yechuri faction having no such achievement to claim? What exactly is their claim to fame?
Now unfortunately CPI M may be again isolated on the national scene for some years. The ordinary people and the core constituency of CPI are watching with amazement that their party’s two big buddies now are Advani’s hard right wing BJP and opportunist Mayawati’s BSP. BJP’s pronounced pro-rich, pro-US, anti-minority, “India shining” (a total pro-rich right wing position) stance is only too well known to the entire nation. Mayawati’s image of extreme corruption/opportunism, 3 times coalition with BJP in the Government in UP, campaigning for Modi in Gujarat election 2002, is too well known.
So in the next election is CPIM going to have seat adjustment with these two buddies?
Karat’s CPIM joining hands with Mayawati does look like a compromise with a very unprincipled politician who has fooled her voters time and again; who fools not only her Muslim voters in denying them fair treatment, she also fools her own Dalits by giving in to UP’s diehard upper caste lobby. The only thing Dalits get are lots of statues of Dalit icons all over UP. Her demonstrated prominent features are lack of principles, reliability, opportunism and propensity to make money for herself.
Do not these new found buddies make Karat’s CPIM look like an unprincipled party that is driven by vindictiveness, revenge and personality cult?
In the long run how many Leftists in the Left parties will continue to feel comfortable with these new in-laws? Will that lead to a dissolution of the 5 year old unity among the Left parties and growing dissension? Will that put CPI/CPIM in isolation on the national scene?
I find CPIM ‘s trying to imply that they were taking this stand in view of the feelings of the Muslim community, a crass exploitation of religion in the political process and distortion of the Muslims’ national sentiments. I expected the intellectual Marxists to behave differently from the illiterate and obscurantist Mullahs who are always ready to raise the slogan “Islam is in danger”.
The expulsion of 79 year old, very senior leader Somnath Chatterji from the party is nothing short of personal desire on the part of Karat-Yechuri to use strong-arm tactics and exploit their power within the party to silence dissent and adopt a Stalinist posture. Chatterji was about to retire from the parliament anyway.
Was it not possible for Karat-Yechuri to avoid such hardline and confrontationist power play and such mindboggling alliances with hard-core right wing forces?
So what kind of an abyss are Karat-Yechuri leading their party into?