Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Nuclear Deal and Unclear ideology

In the last weeks, there were 2 completely different developments, both completely uncalled for. The only common thread in these 2 incidents was the involvement of communists in India. I am ofcourse referring to the botched nuclear deal and the murder of the Calcutta youth who dared to marry a Hindu girl. Enough has already been written on these topics separately. However, the irony of these incidents becomes exposed when one puts these incidents together.

Lets take the nuclear deal first. Leftists opposed this deal tooth and nail. They raised concerns about how this deal would be a sell out of Indian sovereignty to the big bully US. Of course it is ingrained in their genes to oppose anything to do with US. Why? Because US is god damned capitalist - and is always reminding the communists in some way or the other that it defeated their dreamland USSR. And now they know that their closest friends, the Chinese are also going for free markets lock, stock and barrel. Such an ideological defeat for our comrades who devoted almost their entire life for a concept, which eventually turned out to be a disgrace for civilization.

But does it mean that Indian leftists abhor rich and the wealthy? Does that mean that the leftists would side by the poor when there is a fight between the poor and the rich? This is where I have to bring the shameful incident of Rizwanur, the youth killed in Kolkata. It was almost like a Bollywood script - poor young boy marries a girl from a rich family from a different religion. Rich father uses his money and muscle to threaten the man after marriage. The police in West Bengal, as is in the other states more or less, sides by the rich father. The highest police authority condones the actions of the rich father. Police threatens the man repeatedly. The man eventually gets killed under mysterious circumstances. And all this happens in the strongest communist state of India! If there was one party, who I would have expected to come to the man's rescue, I would have expected it from the communists. For they are always seemingly guarding the interests of poor against the rich, guarding the interests of minority against the majority and so on. But no, in a strange way, the best CM (Mr. Bhattacharjee) in India looks on, the flambuyont critic of Narendra Modi (Sitaram Yechury) looks on while these developments were taking place. A law fully wedded couple is separated by Police, the husband gets killed, the Police chief makes a mockery of civil liberties with his statements and the entire leftist government just looks on...

Such is the underlying irony in these 2 incidents that one fails to understand if there are still any idelogically driven people in leftist leadership. Kudos to the people of Calcutta for taking this matter in their hands and thus almost forcing the leftist political class to act. I am still waiting for an article from Ms. Arundhati Roy on this gross mis-handling of Rizwanur incident. Or on second thoughts, probably she writes only if it concerns US or BJP!