NEIGHBOUR FRANKLY SPEAKING

the Marxists go for closer understanding with the Sangh Pranab Mookherjee had made a perceptive comment in the
Parivar-stretching even to seat adjustments in the near future mid-seventies: ‘ Marxists always understand things late; it
and we can rest assured the faithful will be showered with took them twenty eight years to realize that Netaji Subhash
ideological justification for all the opportunistic volte face Chandra was a patriot’. The allusion was the CPI (M)’s
the red brigade will effect. dubbing of Netaji as ‘Quisling’ after he had launched the
But the latest Marxist perfidy is not an event in isolation. Indian National Army (INA) against all historical proof.
Since its very inception the history of Indian communism Before the Lok Sabha polls of 1971 Jyoti Basu realized
has been a long litany of betrayal of national interests and the value and importance of Netaji as a symbol of Bengali
collaboration with the enemies of the nation. During pre- patriotism and acknowledged that his party had erred in
independence days when the evaluating Netaji’s historical
Congress trade union front role.
had called for a boycott of Such admissions of
British-manufactured goods failure and ‘historical
in 1931-1933, the undivided blunders’ were to be
CPI opposed it to protect more frequent. For all

Opportunism, the interests of the ‘fraternal

British working class’. What
happened during 1941-45
its protestations to the
contrary, the Marxists
always collaborated with

thy name is CPI (M)

Politics at any level has a
bizarre way of making strange
bed-fellows as part of changing
alignments and configurations.
Who would have thought before
the Lok sabha polls in 2004
that the left front would extend
support from outside to the UPA
government at the centre?
But this did happen and till
July 8 this year the Marxists
supported the UPA through thick
and thin and opted out only out
Tapas Dey
of doctrinaire considerations of
their ideologue, Prakash Karat. It is common knowledge
that at the dawn of independence the undivided communist
party of India had described our hard-won freedom from
colonial rule as ‘Jhuta Azadi’ and launched a so-called
“armed struggle” to kill the state at birth. In the following
decades Marxists of all hues tried to carve out political
space for themselves by running down the Congress at
every opportunity. With murder, mayhem and Goebbelsian
propaganda as their forte, Marxists managed to gain ground,
as is well known, in Tripura, West Bengal and Kerala. But
trouble had been brewing for the practitioners of Marxism
and self-appointed guardians of people as the Hindu
fundamentalist outfits represented by the BJP and the Sang
at the height of the Second the communal forces of
World War is by now too well all hues throughout their
known to bear recapitulation. history. In 1957 late EMS
The CPI had been opposed to Namboodiripad had adopted
Tapas Dey the British war effort but as the communal Muslim
soon as Germany invaded the League in the front that he ran
Soviet Union, the communist in Kerala for a brief period.
fatherland and paradise, In the aftermath of the 1967
Parivar emerged as a major threat since the early eighties. the CPI turned against the Lok Sabha polls the CPI and
Having scarred the nation with bloodshed, riot and communal Congress and went to the CPI (M) collaborated with
polarization the BJP under the garb of the NDA ruled the extent of betraying the ‘Quit the Jana Sangha, an earlier
country for six years but realization soon dawned on the India movement’ of 1942. incarnation of BJP, in the
Marxists that the BJP or NDA’s continuance in power would Authentic records preserved Samyukta Vidhayak Dal
spell doom for them and, driven by their proverbial instinct in the national archives in (SVD) governments in Bihar
Strange bed fellows
for survival, the left front changed colours and lent support Delhi clearly prove how the and Uttar Pradesh. In the mid
to the Congress-led UPA, making virtue of a dire necessity. CPI leaders including P. C. Joshi had worked as British spies. eighties the bonhomie between the CPI (M) and BJP grew
But the traditional Marxist politics of blackmail continued What happened in the immediate aftermath of independence deeper as West Bengal chief minister, Jyoti Basu, jointly
to dictate their relations with the UPA from which all the has been stated beforehand but one can refer to the bloodbath addressed a rally in Calcutta’s Brigade Parade Ground, in
constituents of the left front extracted the maximum possible in Telengana in Andhra Pradesh, Kakdweep and Tebhaga in July 1988 and the highlight of the rally was a picture which
material price at every step. However, they overreached West Bengal and hilly areas of tiny Tripura caused by the so- showed Jyoti Basu holding the hand of Atal Behari Vajpayee
themselves on the issue of Indo-US nuclear deal, misreading called armed struggle of the communists. In fact, this chain high on the dais. It was the CPI (M) and the BJP that propped
the determination of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of armed offensives had sown the seed of violent separatist up the mercifully short-lived V.P.Singh government in 1989-
and AICC president, Sonia Gandhi. The entire nation was insurgencies, at least in Tripura. 1990 when the entire country plunged into chaos. All through
witness to the bizarre spectacle of the opportunistic Marxists The next and worse chapter of Marxist perfidy and the nineties the CPI (M) and its cronies tried to occupy the
lashing out at the UPA-the government they had supported betrayal opened in the tragic October of 1962 when the high moral ground, hurling all kinds of invectives at the
for more than four years-in tandem with BJP. For all their Chinese marauders had overrun large tracts of Indian BJP and simultaneously, at the Congress. Having cosied
sanctimonious posturing the Marxist’s duplicity and rank territories, taking advantage of the unprepared state of Indian up to Congress and UPA, the left front positioned itself just
opportunism came to the fore during the trust vote debate in army. Even though the entire nation stood up like solid like the British East India Company which on the strength
so-called ‘floor co-ordination’. One can notice with wonder rocks behind the central government of Pandit Jawaharlal of ‘Diwani’ granted by Mughal emperor, Shah Alam, had
how the tongue lashing CPI (M) leaders and their cronies Nehru the undivided CPI refused to voice any criticism of gained all the power without responsibility. The Marxists
have suddenly fallen silent over the activities of the BJP, the Chinese aggressors or acknowledge the fact that China did the same in 2004 and when the going, in terms of their
Sangh Parivar and their lumpen outfits like the Bajrangis is still in continued occupation of 25 thousand square kms obsolete and harmful ideology, got tough they parted ways
even though Mangalore in Karnataka and Kandhmal in of Indian territory. They maintain this stand even now and to look for greener pastures. However, by now it is clear that
Orissa continue to burn in an orgy of violence and terror feign ignorance of Chinese occupation of Indian Territory. the pasture the Marxists have been looking for is not green
unleashed by the Sanghis. It is only a matter of time before Veteran Congress leader and external affairs minister but saffron.

32 October 08 October 08 33