Two eyes for an eye...

Exterminate Maobadi terror now!

This picture was taken at the Silda Eastern Frontier Rifles camp in West Midnapore district, West Bengal, after Monday's (February 15) raid by Maobadis, reportedly led by a woman Maobadi with the "eyes of a cobra". The Maobadi raid left 24 security personnel dead.

A marauding horde of Maobadis descended on Phulwaria Karasi village in Bihar’s Jamui district on Wednesday night and slaughtered 12 tribals. Reports say that the Maobadis have abducted several villagers. Their fate is not known.
On Monday, Maobadis killed 24 jawans of Eastern Frontier Rifles at Shilda in West Bengal's West Midnapore district. Many of them were charred alive. Crucial, actionable, real time intelligence input received by the West Bengal Police at least three hours before the attack was not passed on to the EFR camp.
The attack was led by a woman Maobadi, Jagari Baskey, who is said to have the “eyes of a cobra”. Maobadi leader Koteswara Rao, also known as ‘Kishenji’, who is in regular contact with mediapersons, issued a statement after the attack: “”We have attacked the camp and this is our answer to P Chidambaram’s Operation Green Hunt… unless the Centre stops this inhuman military operation we are going to answer this way only.”
Maobadis, coyly described as ‘Left-wing extremists’ by the Government of India but in reality thugs and criminals masquerading as champions of tribals whom they terrorise with guns, loot, rape and murder at will, now have a free run of at least 25 per cent of all districts in the country.
The worst affected States are Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar.
The much-touted and talked about Operation Green Hunt is yet to be launched. The Government’s hand, it would seem, is being held back by the Left-liberal intelligentsia which monopolises television studios and provides an ‘intellectual’ cover for Maobadi terrorism, romancing their criminal misdeeds and justifying murder in the name of Mao.
If the Union Government is hesitant to act against what the Prime Minister has repeatedly described as the “gravest internal security threat” which India faces, then State Governments, barring the Government of Chhattisgarh, have proved to be equally pusillanimous in their approach.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar refuses to crack down on Maobadis. Jharkhand Chief Minister Shibu Soren is equally reluctant. Neither of them attended a recent meeting in Kolkata chaired by Union Home Minister to review the Maobadi situation in Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha and work on a blueprint or inter-State coordinated action against Red terror.
Soren has agreed to free wanted Maobadis from prison to secure the release of an abducted BDO. The Union Government has conveyed its approval! Strangely, a Cabinet Minister, Mamata Banerjee, claims that there are no Maobadis and hence there is no need for police action. The Trinamool Congress is long suspected of being backed by Maobadis in rural West Bengal. A Trinamool MP, Kabir Suman, who sits in the Lok Sabha and has sworn to uphold the Constitution of India, has recently released a music CD extolling a Maobadi, Chhatradhar Mahato, now in police custody.
Just how grim the situation is can be gauged from what Chidambaram said while presenting his Ministry’s report card for January 2010:

“The situation in the States affected by Left Wing Extremism continues to be a cause of grave concern. The number of deaths in 2009 amongst civilians (591), security forces (317) and militants (217) indicated a rising trend. The increase in the number of incidents and casualties is not surprising because, after a review of the policy, State Governments decided to deploy a larger number of security forces and engage the naxalites in the districts dominated by them with a view to re-establish the authority of the civilian government. I expect this trend to continue in 2010.”

[Data regarding Maobadi violence can be accessed here. Assessments of the threat posed by Maobadis in various States can be read here.]
The time to discuss and strategise the state’s response to Maobadi terror is long past. The Government cannot be seen to be abdicating its primary responsibility of protecting citizens from criminal excesses. It must act with the fully fury of the state, and act now.

. Maobadis are thugs and criminals who deserve to be hunted down.
. Maobadis are pursuing the path of armed insurrection to overthrow the state.
. Maobadis do not respect human rights yet their protectors in the Left-liberal intelligentsia wax eloquent on the need to protect the human rights of Maobadis!
After such knowledge, what forgiveness?

The argument about fighting Maobadis with development is fallacious. Maobadis are the biggest impediment to development projects. They have been blowing up schools, hostels, health centres, roads and panchayat buildings, thus destroying crucial infrastructure for taking development to the rural hinterland inhabited by tribals. They are anti-development, yet claim they are fighting for tribal welfare! The photograph reproduced below is of a school building blown up by Maobadis in a remote area of Jharkhand -- it was the only school in the area.

[My comments on Barkha Dutt's NDTV programme Buck Stops Here on February 16 on intellectuals romanticising Maobadi violence can be watched here http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1201939 ]
[My comments on Vikram Chandra's NDTV programme, Big Fight, on February 20 can be watched here http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1203542 ]
[My comments on Barkha Dutt's NDTV programme We the People on February 21 on Maobadi violence can be watched here http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1203629 ]

The Left-liberal intelligentsia’s demand that Government should talk to the Maobadis is absurd. What will the Government negotiate? The takeover of the Indian state by Maobadis? To allow them full control over vast swaths of Indian territory?
The Government’s response must be harsh, relentless and unforgiving: Two eyes for an eye; a jaw for a tooth. Terror must be met with overwhelming force. Jolawallahs should be asked to go take a walk, or join Khobad Gandi in his prison cell.
Unless the Maobadi menace is put down mercilessly now, we will end up with a situation similar to the one that prevailed in Sri Lanka till the LTTE was exterminated. Surely we don’t need a civil war to establish the primacy of the Constitution of India, do we?
What do you think?

News Updates

Two get bail
Jamshedpur, Feb 20 (PTI) Two of the 14 people whose release was demanded by the CPI (Maoist) as a condition for the release of abducted BDO of Dalbhumgarh Prashant Layek were today granted bail by a court in Ghatsila here. Additional District Judge M M Singh granted bail to Jasmi Mardi and her father Bahadur Mardi after hearing the case, which was re-investigated recently following the directives from Home department of Jharkhand. Mardi's lawyer M Haque said the two were released on a bond of Rs 10,000 each and will be released from Ghatsila sub-divisional jail later in the day.
Referring to Mardi's case, Haque claimed they alongwith other accused were falsely implicated in the case by Jasmi's husband Ramrai Hembram, a police constable, following the murder of Hembram's brother Dukhia Hembram last year.
Layek, who was kidnapped by Maoists from his office in Dalbhumgarh on Saturday last, was released yesterday at Hadian village under Ghatsila sub-division.
Picture below shows the kidnapped BDO Prashant Lakak with a Maobadi at Ghatshila:

Rs 25 lakh demanded for safety of BSNL towers
Rourkela (Orissa), Feb 20 (PTI) In a letter, written by the Maoists, the rebels have threatened to blow up BSNL's mobile towers at Maoist affected Biramitrapur in Sundargarh district, if the authorities did not pay Rs 25 lakh. B K Jog, general manager, BSNL Rourkela, today said an open envelop containing the letter was found from the commercial section of the office.
The letter written in Oriya with red ink was not addressed to any officer of the department. After receiving the letter, the GM said he has requested the superintendent of police to investigate. The police said an investigation has been ordered to verify the authenticity of the letter.

Bonfire of Left vanity

Kanchan Gupta /Comment

Early Saturday morning, CPI(M) cadre who had gathered outside the counting centre at Dum Dum parliamentary constituency not too far from the seat of Marxist power in West Bengal, decided that they need not wait for the result to be declared to begin their victory celebrations. After all, the CPI(M) could not lose in Dum Dum. So, they set off crackers and jubilant supporters raised stirring slogans. That was before counting began.

By mid-day, all that remained of the celebrations were tattered red flags being kicked around by triumphant Trinamool Congress activists. Along with other bastions of the Left, Dum Dum too had fallen to the mighty Mamata Banerjee wave.

True, Mr Saugata Roy has won in Dum Dum with a slender margin of 2,550 votes, but the margin of victory in this constituency is inconsequential. What is of import is the defeat of Mr Amitava Nandy of the CPI(M).

If the Trinamool Congress winning Dum Dum has come as a surprise, so has the victory of its candidates in constituencies like Jadavpur, Krishnanagar, Hooghly, Diamond Harbour, Uluberia, Serampore and Birbhum. These constituencies were considered impregnable fortresses of the CPI(M). They have now been breached by a middle-aged bard, a matinee idol fallen on bad times, a fading Tollywood star, a part-time human rights activist and well-past-their-prime politicians who ‘shone’ in the 1970s during Mrs Indira Gandhi’s Emergency.

Anybody who contested on a Trinamool ticket has been declared a winner. Among those who have had to suffer the ignominy of defeat in their presumed strongholds are — or should it be were? — stalwarts of the CPI(M). Mr Roop Chand Pal, we can be sure, will take a long time to reconcile himself with the new reality, as will Mr Hannan Mollah and Mr Santasri Chatterjee.

There is understandable disbelief at the CPI(M)’s headquarters in Alimuddin Street. When I met him days before the first round of polling, the party’s State secretary and Polit Bureau member Biman Bose told me that the contest would be tough, but the Left Front’s tally would not go below a certain level. “People are talking of the Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance winning up to 10 to 12 seats. That will not happen. It’s an impossibility.” Mr Bose was not being insincere in his assessment or misleading me on purpose. He was obviously unable to gauge the extent of popular resentment — you could blame it on him or local party leaders. They either kept the truth a secret or couldn’t care less, firm in their belief that in the end, the people would meekly go and vote for the CPI(M). This is the way it has been for the past 32 years.

In an assessment of the possible election outcome, which factored in the Trinamool Congress’s expectations, I had made bold to suggest that the Left’s tally could come down from the 35 seats it won in 2004 to 22 seats in this election. In the event, even that was way off the mark: It has come down to 15 seats, with the Trinamool Congress increasing its tally from one seat to 19 seats. The Congress has not gained from this election; it has merely held on to its 2004 tally of six seats. But the SUCI has walked off with one seat, creating a record of sorts. The 42nd seat has gone to the BJP, courtesy the GJMM: Mr Jaswant Singh has won, as predicted by this newspaper, with a huge margin.

The Left today stands forlorn in a corner, shamed and shunned by the same people who earlier enthusiastically voted for the CPI(M), regardless of the candidate. For, let there be no mistake about those who have turned on the Left with such ferocity: They are supporters, sympathisers and supplicants who have turned renegade. Without their vote, the Trinamool Congress would not have been able to tip the scale in its favour.

In Kerala the Left may have suffered on account of infighting within the CPI(M). The unedifying sight of supporters of Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan pouring scorn and ridicule on party State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and of street-fighting between the rival camps could not have encouraged people to vote for the Left.

But in West Bengal the story is vastly different. Apparent divisions and differences in the party were set aside, if not papered over, before the election. The party’s senior leaders reached out to those who had distanced themselves from the CPI(M) but could influence voters. Forgiveness was sought for alleged and real sins of omission and commission. A full review was promised of all contentious policies. Cadre were instructed to turn out in full strength. The CPI(M)’s fabled party organisation, which is virtually a parallel administration, was pressed into service.

All this and more did not help. The party has suffered its worst ever defeat since 1977. The Congress’s performance in 1984, when it won 16 seats in the election held after Mrs Indira Gandhi’s assassination, pales into insignificance when compared to the Left’s rout in this election. If the trend which began with the Left losing comprehensively in last year’s panchayat elections continues, then the CPI(M) could well find itself in the Opposition after the 2011 Assembly election. Ms Mamata Banerjee does not subscribe to the virtues of understatement. But she can’t be faulted for declaring that the “Communists are now a political minority in West Bengal”.

It’s difficult to say which comes first after being in power for 32 years: Conceit or deceit. What can be said without fear of contradiction is that the CPI(M) in West Bengal today suffers from both. Nandigram is not merely about a botched attempt to acquire land for industry; it is an idiom of the Left’s political bankruptcy. Singur is not about the Left embracing capitalism but promoting crony capitalism.

The ‘Party’ that once claimed to represent the people’s aspirations is now despised by the same people. Fear of the ‘Party’ has given way to courage to stand up to the ‘Party’. This could well mean unsettling the political stability that has prevailed in West Bengal and disturbing the status quo. The ‘change’ which the Trinamool Congress promises remains undefined and untested. But people are willing to take the risk.

Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee should be a worried man.

GENERAL ELECTION 2009: Who's the winner?

EXIT POLLS PREDICT RESULTS
On Wednesday, May 13, the final and concluding round of voting for the 15th Lok Sabha was held, bringing to an end a mammoth, two-month long exercise to elect a new Government. The results will be declared on Saturday, May 16.
There is, of course, intense speculation as to who will emerge as the front-runner: The Congress of the BJP. Everybody is reconciled to the fact that as in 2004, this year's too shall be a fractured mandate. Neither the Congress-led UPA nor the BJP-led NDA will secure anything proximate to a majority in the Lok Sabha. Which means, by Saturday afternoon the great hunt for 'post-poll' allies will begin in right earnest.
So, what does it look like after the fifth round of polling?
On Wednesday, 24x7 news channels went to town with their exit polls. Here's what they had to say:

.CNN-IBN
Congress + Allies 185-205
BJP + Allies 165-185
Third Front 110-130
RJD+LJP+SP 25-35
Others 20-30

.Headlines Today
Congress + Allies 191
BJP + Allies 180
Left 38
Others (incl BSP) 134

.India TV
Congress + Allies 195
BJP + Allies 189
Left /Third Front 113
RJD+LJP+SP 32
Others 14

.NewsX
Congress + Allies 199 [Congress 155]
BJP + Allies 191 [BJP 153]
Left /Third Front 104
Others 48

.UTVi
Congress + Allies 195
SP+LJP+RJD 32
BJP+Allies 189
Others 14

.Times Now
Congress + Allies 198 [Congress 154]
BJP + Allies 183 [BJP 142]
Left /Third Front 112 [Left 38]
Others 50

.Star News
Congress + Allies 199 [Congress 155]
BJP + Allies 196 [BJP 153]
Left /Third Front 100
Others 48

At the risk of looking silly on Saturday, here are my projections:

Congress + Allies 165-175
BJP + Allies 180-185
Left 30-35
AIADMK 20-25
BSP 20-25
TDP 10-15

I will update my figures on Thursday.

Exit polls in 2004 had projected the BJP-led NDA as the winner. When the results were declared, the prediction came untrue: The Congress and its pre-election allies got 216 seats against a projection ranging from 170 to 205 seats. The BJP-led NDA secured 187 seats against projections of 240 to 250 seats.

Tremors in Bengal

Left's crucial test




Kanchan Gupta / Analysis / May 13, 2009.


On Tuesday, May 12, a day before the third and final round of voting in West Bengal where polling will take place in 11 parliamentary constituencies, as many as 10 of them with sitting Left MPs, in North and South 24 Parganas, three leading newspapers published from Kolkata highlighted three different aspects of an election that could mark a turning point in the State’s politics, overwhelmingly dominated by the CPI(M) for more than three decades.
Bartaman, the Bengali language newspaper which since its inception has struck a stridently anti-Left posture and is seen as the ‘voice’ of the Opposition in West Bengal, ran a banner headline on Tuesday’s front page, informing its readers that the “CPI(M) is all set for extensive rigging”. The story does not provide specifics of how the Marxists plan to rig the polls, but it indicates the possibility of party cadre being unleashed on voters to terrorise them. During this election Bartaman has published stories about electronic voting machines being ‘rigged’ to ensure the victory of Left candidates. In the past, this particular allegation has remained unsubstantiated. But it is a fact that potential anti-Left voters often find their names missing from the electoral rolls.
The first two rounds of polling in the State have been by and large peaceful. By West Bengal’s standards, the level of violence could be described as ‘negligible’. Hence, neither the Trinamool Congress nor its ally, the Congress, can allege that force was used to keep anti-Left voters away from polling booths. While it remains to be seen whether the final round of voting will be any different, and whether Marxist leaders and their cadre take recourse to intimidation to prevent Trinamool Congress supporters from voting, it is a fact that the CPI(M) and its allies are worried about their prospects in these crucial 11 constituencies.
In the 2004 general election, the CPI(M) had virtually wiped out the Trinamool Congress from North and South 24 Parganas, which were till then perceived as Ms Mamata Banerjee’s stronghold. Barring Ms Banerjee, all her nominees lost the election; she won with a reduced margin. The CPI(M) repeated that feat in the 2006 Assembly election.
But between 2006 and 2008, the situation has changed radically to the disadvantage of the CPI(M). The farmland-for-industry policy of the Left Front Government has met with popular resistance, most notably (and with disastrous consequences) in Singur, where Tata Motors had to abandon its small car project, and Nandigram, where land acquisition for a proposed Special Economic Zone that was to have been set up by Indonesia’s Salim Group could not proceed beyond a notice put up at the BDO’s office. Ms Banerjee has been in the forefront of the agitation against this policy. Small and marginal farmers, fearful of losing their land, their only possession, have rallied behind the Trinamool Congress’s flag.
The farmers’ agitation and their success in forcing the Government — and the all-powerful ‘Party’ — to back off has emboldened others who have been nursing a variety of grievances against local CPI(M) leaders. For a long time people, among them sympathisers of the Left, have been resentful about the high-handedness of the Marxist cadre, but felt either helpless or were scared of taking a stand. Now they feel neither helpless nor scared.
The results of last year’s panchayat elections were an indication of the simmering discontent with the Left Front Government prevailing in West Bengal’s villages boiling over, especially in the southern districts of the State. The Trinamool Congress swept the panchayat elections in what were considered as bastions of the Left Front, breaching the Marxists’ rural stronghold.
The import of the panchayat polls is being felt in this summer’s parliamentary election. The Left is facing a reversal in rural areas and, strangely, is on a stronger wicket in urban areas, which till now have voted against the CPI(M). Delimitation has resulted in large swathes of rural areas being made part of urban constituencies like Jadavpur in Kolkata.
Two years ago, this would have meant good news for the Left. Today, it means advantage Trinamool Congress. This is most palpable in North and South 24 Parganas. Hence, the deepening sense of alarm in the Left. The Trinamool Congress could notch up a sizeable tally if it performs well on Wednesday and, together with the Congress, bag upwards of 14 seats in the State.
On the other hand, if the CPI(M) is able to checkmate its political foe, it could minimise its losses. For that, the Marxists are willing to do whatever it takes. Old networks have been revived, favours are being called in and cadre have been asked to mobilise the faithful and ensure they come out and vote, notwithstanding the scorching heat.
Anandabazar Patrika, the leading Bengali language daily published from Kolkata, has played up two stories. The first is about maverick Marxist, Transport Minister and Jyoti Basu loyalist Subhas Chakraborty lashing out at Polit Bureau members who “sit in air-conditioned rooms and frame policies based on theory”, and daring them to contest elections. According to the newspaper, although Mr Chakraborty has not taken any names, his reference is to CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat and Polit Bureau members Sitaram Yechury and Brinda Karat.
The second story, which has been displayed more prominently, is about Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s sharp criticism of the Trinamool Congress and Ms Banerjee’s equally harsh rejoinder — sort of a media generated debate. The charges and counter-charges have been classified under three heads: Ideology, Muslims and Singur.
Mr Bhattacharjee: “The Opposition has no ideological mooring. It is politically bankrupt. It lacks discipline and is anti-development.”
Ms Banerjee: “He should mind his language. The Left is politically bankrupt. That is why they are maligning us.”
Mr Bhattacharjee: “They are playing dangerous politics with Muslims. This is not the culture of this State.”
Ms Banerjee: “Must we learn culture from the man who is dangerous for the people of Bengal?”
Mr Bhattacharjee: “Why should I apologise for Singur? We will set up industry there. A decision will be taken after the election.”
Ms Banerjee: “He will have to go to Singur, seek forgiveness, rub his nose in the dirt and return the land to the farmers.”
Ideology is really not an issue in this election in West Bengal. It ceased to be so long ago. Cynics would suggest that both the Left and the Trinamool Congress are politically bankrupt; the Congress was never burdened by ideology.
What is an issue is the Muslim vote, which has been the Congress’s mainstay in north Bengal and integral to the Left’s core support in south Bengal. This time, Muslims are rooting for Ms Banerjee. Comprising nearly a quarter (unofficially, a third) of the population, Muslims can play a decisive role and their vote can be the ‘game changer’. Ms Banerjee has played on Muslim insecurities, especially about land.
The Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind has added to Muslim angst by using its vast network of ulema to publicise the findings of the Sachar Committee which, ironically, show that Muslims are worse off in CPI(M)-ruled West Bengal than in Mr Narendra Modi’s Gujarat. The Jamiat has fielded a dozen odd candidates, but the real beneficiary of its relentless campaign on the Sachar Committee report is the Trinamool Congress.
Which brings us to the issue of Singur and industrialisation of West Bengal. The Telegraph’s main front page story is headlined: “Maa, mati, manush: Sounds nice but not for son who won’t farm”. The Trinamool Congress’s campaign is built around the slogan of “Maa, mati, manush” (mother, land and people), playing on the sentiments of rural Bengal. The story raises an interesting question: If West Bengal’s farmers are so attached to their land and their livelihood, why would 45.5 per cent of them dislike what they do, compared to 40 per cent nationally?
Elections are a tricky affair. Not till the last vote is counted can results be predicted with any certitude. “The people of West Bengal want to usher change,” Mr Saugata Roy, Trinamool Congress candidate for Dum Dum constituency, told me in Kolkata. “This is going to be an election for change.” He could be right. We will get to know for sure on Saturday, May 16.

[Opeditorial article in The Pioneer, May 13, 2009.]

How CPM lost the game

An enraged Prakash Karat declares war on Congress...

... But he has only himself to blame
Ardhendu Bhushan Bardhan, I am sure, can’t stop telling himself that he had it right a year ago but his comrades, especially those in the CPI(M), would not listen to him. A quick recall of the events that followed the Prime Minister’s threat to call the Left’s bluff — “if they want to withdraw support, so be it” — conveyed to AK Gopalan Bhavan and Ajoy Bhavan through The Telegraph, would show this is no exaggeration, although people tend to scoff at the CPI of which Mr AB Bardhan is the general secretary. Rumours were rife — as they usually are in Lutyens’ Delhi even when there’s nothing much happening and the silly season has set in — that the Prime Minister was in high dudgeon (not for the first time) and had threatened to resign (also not for the first time) if he was not allowed to have his way with the India-US civilian nuclear cooperation agreement. The coordination committee that had been set up to win over the Communists had failed to break the logjam; Mr Prakash Karat was unbending in his opposition to the nuclear deal. And then came the Prime Minister’s interview to The Telegraph, asking the Left to go take a walk — they could either take it or lump it.
The Left got into a huddle, Mr Bardhan told mediapersons that the Congress-Left marriage of convenience had reached a dead end and “divorce is imminent”. The Congress as well as its allies in the UPA went into a tizzy. Many of those who are now vociferously proclaiming their support for the nuclear deal — and in the process talking a whole lot of gibberish while trying to regurgitate the mumbo-jumbo fed to them by babus eager to stack up American IOUs — had on that occasion turned on the Prime Minister, rudely snubbing him and his obsession with the nuclear deal. Finding himself isolated, the Prime Minister had rapidly retreated from his position and meekly declared his intention to learn to “live with disappointments”.
Mr Bardhan was not impressed. He was unrestrained in his assessment that any further discussion on the nuclear deal would be nothing more than a dialogue of the deaf. Given the CPI’s past association with the Congress — it had stood by Mrs Indira Gandhi and was no stranger to the party’s guiles — Mr Bardhan could sense that the parting of ways was inevitable; that it was only a matter of time before the ‘strategic’ alliance collapsed under the weight of inner contradictions. But he was ignored by Mr Karat while Mr Sitaram Yechury, who is trying to fashion his politics after that of Mr Harkishen Singh Surjeet (which, just in case his friends don’t get it, is no compliment) convinced his comrades that he would succeed in brokering a deal over the nuclear deal and everybody would live happily ever after. With Mr Pranab Mukherjee as the interlocutor, he couldn’t go wrong.
Last week’s events prove three points. First, Mr Karat may be a brilliant strategist in the classical Marxist mould but he is a poor tactician. The Congress, which is not burdened by ideology and hence not hostage to linear thinking, has checkmated the Left and finessed Mr Karat. Second, Mr Yechury may have begun to look like a political fixer (in Lutyens’ Delhi this is not a pejorative term), he has a long way to go before he can play the role of Mr Surjeet. He has been shown up for what he is: A callow politician who over-reached his abilities. Sanctimonious and smug, he is tireless in pouring scorn and spitting bile at others, especially the BJP, while disingenuously justifying every deed and each move of his party. Mr Yechury’s self-righteousness now lies in tatters; hopefully he will take a break from his preachy politics of denunciation. Third, the CPI(M) must start listening to its leftists allies, including the RSP, rather than ignoring them. If only Mr Karat had paid heed to Mr Bardhan’s views and taken his assessment seriously, then it would not have found itself dumped so unceremoniously by the Congress 11 months later. Adding insult to injury, the Samajwadi Party, which the CPI(M) thought was a fraternal party, has come forward to bail out the Congress. Bourgeois politics has won the day, but the battle has not yet been lost.
It is not often that one sees the unflappable and usually smiling Mr Karat in a rage. But the day after the Government authorised the circulation of the draft of the India-IAEA safeguards agreement among the members of the nuclear watchdog body’s Board of Governors, he was incandescent with rage. “We will make it politically impossible for the Government to implement the deal,” he thundered. Whether or not the Left is able to achieve this objective remains to be seen, but it can surely make the situation tricky for the Congress if it were to decide, and stick to its decision, not to prop up another Congress-led Government at the Centre in the name of ‘protecting democracy’ and ‘defeating communalism’. No, I am not suggesting that the Left should join hands with the BJP or the NDA; even the slightest hint of such a development, absurd and impossible as it may be, would hurt both of them politically. These are two poles that can never meet, not even in the ‘national interest’. Past efforts to uneasily cohabit have proved to be disastrous, notwithstanding elaborate breakfast meetings at Mr VP Singh’s residence. This is not about ‘political untouchability’ but political incompatibility.
Not many years ago, the CPI(M) believed that “the Congress party has degenerated both politically and organisationally. It is a party in decline, as it has pursued when in power, economic policies which militate against the people; it is a party riddled with corruption... The Congress is no more a party which can govern at the Centre or provide the country with a new agenda”. In the past decade, the Congress has not transformed itself into something which is different from what it was described as in the Left’s Election Manifesto of 1998, drafted and published by the CPI(M). Mr Karat’s recent experience only serves to reaffirm this point.
So, let him — and the CPI(M) as well as its allies — swear that never again shall the Left join hands with the Congress for the sheer pleasure of exercising power without responsibility. Then only can Mr Karat seek to make it politically difficult, if not impossible, for the Congress to cut corners with India’s interest. If there is no such resolve, then we can only assume that once his anger has dissipated, Mr Karat will allow a rerun of events as Mr Bardhan watches from the margins. The deja vu won’t be his alone.

Coffee Break / Sunday Pioneer / July 14, 2008

(c) CMYK Printech Ltd

Communalism in India -I

Half-truths don't help Muslims
Kanchan Gupta

A Kashmiri Hindu grieves over his children slaughtered by Islamic terrorists

Recently Tehelka released what it claimed to be sensational, never-before details of the post-Godhra violence in Gujarat. These were based on sting operations aimed at trapping those accused of participating in the riots. Little purpose is served by the 'startling revelations' because they do not add to the bulk of what has been alleged for long; the individuals are already facing trial. Three points come to mind after watching television's theatrical presentation of Tehelka's latest 'expose' and reading Friday morning's newspapers.
First, the timing of the 'revelation', which has curiously come within days of the Prime Minister describing the violence as Gujarat's "Holocaust", raises an uncomfortable question: Why did Tehelka wait till a month before Assembly election in Gujarat since it has had the 'information' for some months? Second, the wisdom of resuscitating the ghosts of a communal violence people would rather forget and move on with their lives, more so in Gujarat, defies logic. Third, the ease with which our 'secularists' gloss over other more horrendous killings -- I am not referring to the slaughter of Pandits and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of Kashmir Valley -- while insisting that the 2002 violence in Gujarat is the worst India has seen in its 'modern history' is truly astonishing.
Once again we hear the cacophony of 'secularist' clamour insisting that "thousands of Muslims" were killed in Gujarat. Specific details inevitably fall victim to such sweeping statements. So, let me recall for you what Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Sri Prakash Jaiswal, whose credentials as a Congress loyalist are impeccable, told Parliament while replying to a Rajya Sabha MP's question on the 2002 violence in Gujarat. The details provided by Mr Jaiswal in his reply are in total variance to the outrageous claims of the 'secularists' to which we continue to be subjected ever so often, courtesy news channels and newspapers that can no longer distinguish between information and disinformation. Since the Minister's reply provides some interesting facts that deserve to be placed in the public domain, it would be in order to reproduce the salient portions. Lest I be accused of tampering with the Minister's reply, I have decided to quote the excerpts verbatim from a PTI report. You can't get more kosher than that.
The Central Government informed the Rajya Sabha that 254 Hindus and 790 Muslims were killed in the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat.
Minister of State for Home Affairs Sri Prakash Jaiswal said a total of 223 people were reported missing and 2,548 sustained injuries during the riots in 2002.
He said the Government paid Rs 1.5 lakh to the next of kin of each person killed and Rs 5,000, Rs 15,000, Rs 25,000 and Rs 50,000 for the injured. The amount for the injured was based on the extent of injury, the Minister added.
According to this reply in Parliament, the Minister of State for Home Affairs in the Congress-led UPA Government has pegged the death toll of the 2002 riots at 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus. Yet, these figures are not reflected in the propagandist pronouncements of those who claim to champion the cause of India's Muslims. More often than not we come across claims of 'thousands of Muslims butchered by Hindu fanatics in Narendra Modi's Gujarat.' This is a lie that has been repeated ad nauseam since that terrible day when Hindus travelling by Sabarmati Express were roasted alive after their coach was set ablaze by Muslim fanatics.
It has been repeated the most by India's Marxists who subscribe to the Goebbelsian tactic of repeating a lie till in the popular perception it comes to be identified as the truth. And, it is on the strength of such contrived truth that the Marxists make preposterous claims. For instance, the claim that the communal violence in Gujarat was 'the worst in modern Indian history.' In one grand sweep, our 'secularists' brush aside the far more horrendous riots that have resulted in far more gruesome blood-letting. We do not have to go too far back in 'modern Indian history' to locate some of these riots.
The massacre in Malliana has been conveniently forgotten; brutal memories of the riots in Meerut have been obliterated. The nightlong massacre of Muslims at Nellie in Assam, which witnessed suckling infants being snatched from their mothers' arms and being speared to death, has been erased from the secularists' record of 'modern Indian history.' Stomach-churning details of the Bhagalpur riots -- Muslims were killed, buried in fields and cauliflower and other winter vegetables planted over the rotting cadavers -- no longer feature in the secularists' collective conscience. The anti-Sikh pogrom that followed Mrs Indira Gandhi's assassination is not even talked about any more: More than 4,000 Sikhs were murdered, many of them by placing burning tyres around their necks. Each of these massacres of innocent men, women and children took place when the Congress was in power and did nothing more than twiddle its thumbs as marauders went about their pillaging secure in the belief that they would not be punished.
Yet, the Congress and its 'secular' allies, more so the Marxists, have the gumption to claim that the riots in Gujarat were 'the worst in modern Indian history.' Perhaps they are referring to history after it has been purged of uncomfortable facts by the detox army led by Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh. Crass minorityism comes easily to the Congress and its cheer leaders. That is the reason why propaganda disguised as campaign to promote 'secularism' is deployed with such ease, regardless of the truth. And appeasement of the worst variety is projected as 'secular' policy.
Whose interest is served by such Goebbelsian propaganda? Clearly, neither that of India 's Muslims nor that of our nation. It serves the purpose of vote-bank politics, which has become the bane of our democracy. Worse, it perpetuates hate, polarises communities and divides society. There is more: It provides fodder to those who gain the most from gaping, festering wounds -- bigots, zealots and extremists for whom religion is a convenient cover and imagined grievances justification enough to wreak vengeance by killing innocent men, women and children.
It's a pity and a shame that media has now become an instrument of political manipulation. Instead of empowering people, it has elected to disempower them by peddling half-truths and outright lies.