How the Left betrayed the Nation!

Chairman of the Congress media committee Mr. Veerappa Moily is a loudmouthed person. Recently he has charged the Left for “joining with communal forces to destabilize the nation against secular forces”. He has also said that “they have not betrayed the UPA or the Congress. They have betrayed the nation” and “they want their personal prestige to have overriding effect on national prestige”. Three times Mr. Moily has used the word ‘nation’ to accuse the Left: destabilizing nation, betraying nation and overriding nation’s prestige. This frequent use of the word ‘nation’ has become a common penchant of the Congress and the Samajwadi Party to justify their politics after the Left has announced to withdraw support to the Manmohan Singh government. Samajwadi leader duo Mulayam and Amar Singh has earlier used the word ‘nation’ to justify their support to the same government.

We have discussed the ‘national prestige’ issue in a previous post. Let us now see how the Left has ‘betrayed the nation’. The main accusation is that the Left has joined hands with the communal forces to destabilize and betray the secular fabric of the nation. This is a ridiculous and obnoxious charge floated by the Congress against the Left, which had supported them for government formation in 2004 on the one and only issue: to prevent the communal forces from power. The basis of the Left’s support to the UPA can be found from the document ‘Report on Political Developments’ adopted by the Central Committee of CPI(M) on July 30-August 01, 2004 just after the Lok Sabha elections:

“The CPI(M) and the Left parties have extended support to the UPA government to ensure that there is a secular government at the Centre. Further, in the present situation, after the ouster of the BJP from the Central Government it is important to continue to work for the isolation of the BJP and its allies so as to prevent a comeback by these forces.”

Let us also quote from an article by Mr. Jyoti Basu from the CPI(M) weekly organ People's Democracy, August 26, 2007:

“After fighting anti-people policies of the Congress party and the Congress governments for 45 years we have, along with other Left parties, extended outside support to the Congress-led UPA government at the centre in order to keep the communal forces out of power. After the popular verdict rejecting the BJP alliance, it was necessary to see that the BJP did not get any chance to make a comeback. Given the class character of the Congress and its commitment to pursue economic policies of liberalisation, the Party was not for joining a government but we decided to support the Congress-led government from outside so that the required numbers for a majority are ensured. The Party’s central task was to isolate and defeat the BJP so that the BJP-led government could be dislodged from the centre.”

Is it not sufficiently clear from the above report of CPI(M) Central Committee and Mr. Jyoti Basu’s article that even though they consider the Congress as a bourgeois-landlord party, Left’s support to a Congress led coalition government was a crafted compromise keeping in mind the horrendous deeds of the former BJP government and its fascist associates like VHP and Bajrang Dal? The Gujarat pogrom was looming large on the mind of the common people. The Left had correctly respected the people’s verdict and supported the Congress led UPA based on a Common Minimum Program (CMP), which was adopted by the UPA and broadly endorsed by the Left parties. The problem began when the Congress led UPA government started to show signs of deliberate departures from the CMP on various issues and especially on foreign policy decisions. The Congress party had included the CMP idea in their election manifesto in advance, as a carrot to woo support, if required, in the post election scenario. If they were sincere and honest about it, the Left would have never withdrawn their support. Who had betrayed whom Mr. Moily? The Congress party took Left’s support to the government for granted. Are we not the only party concerned for the nation and its prestige! Why listen to the Communist blockheads? Deep in their mind, the Congress has always preserved the megalomaniac attitude of thinking that governing India is their natural birthright.

Can we ask the Congress party when did it actively resist communalism? A classic example is Gujarat where by opting to a soft Hindutva stand and occasionally fighting a war of words like the stupid ‘Maut ka Saudagar’ remark by their party president, the Congress thinks that it has done enough to combat communalism. In Gujarat, we saw a virtually non-functional Congress party, never to take a firm stand against the pogrom, and an impotent party organization unable to mobilize any significant grass root protest. Most of its local leaders were barely visible in those days of state sponsored violence ushered by the Sangha Parivar and it was difficult to find one Congress leader who had courageously tried to resist it. Even the brutal killing of former Congress MP Ehsan Jaffry in the Gulberg Society massacre was not enough for them to wake up. Fighting communalism is an abstract concept to the Congress, only a requisite to attract the Muslim vote bank and loudly debate national issues with the opposition in front of TV cameras. With due respect, can we ask Mr. Moily and his newly found dubious allies what has happened to the Srikrishna Commission report? From the last ten years the ruling coalition in Maharashtra consisting Congress and the NCP are trying to project them in a way as if they are firm to implement the report. This farce is going on from 1999 until today. In one of his articles Professor Ram Puniyani had observed that,

“For the Congress variety leadership, justice is a matter of political expediency and calculation. If you can get votes by promising to implement the commission, do it! After that once you come to power see what are the benefits of prosecuting the riot culprits, if the electoral calculations tell you keeping quiet on these issues is better keep quiet about it and sincerely pursue the cases of blasts which have followed the riots, which as a matter of fact are an aftermath of the riots. The honesty of punishing the guilty, upholding the law is gradually a virtue disappearing from the public arena. The state Congress leadership thinks it can fool the victims all the time. But the question is how long can Congress sustain policies which betray the victims, which are against the promises and oath which they take while grabbing the seats of power?”

We can understand the psychology of Mr. Veerappa Moily’s anger against the Left. His party was trying to cash on the committed stand of the Left against communal forces and was assured that to keep BJP at bay the Left would continue supporting the Congress government whatever may comes on the way for its full term. Meanwhile they can silently move forward to promote and implement their own neo-liberal agenda. Congress leaders had also misconstrued the seriousness of the repeated warning of Left leaders like Mr. Prakash Karat because they were assessing him in proportion to the general characteristics of Indian political leaders for whom words and action are always supple to fit their petty opportunistic needs and where carrot wiggling methods mostly succeed.

If the Congress hopes to maintain the secular fabric of the nation through clandestine deals and dubious supports, let them be hopeful. Their Prime Minister and prestige are in a startling hurry. But we are not. We will patiently wait for the consequences to unfold.