Karat’s blind eye towards BJP, another of CPIM’s historic blunders

The people of India suddenly saw a glimmer of hope when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), faced a virtual rout, a month before in his home state of Gujarat, a citadel of the BJP for more than two decades.

It became evident from the results that had the Opposition presented a united and organised force on the ground and worked with greater conviction to defeat the BJP, there was no way Modi could have overturned the people’s verdict even with a pliable Chief Election Commissioner, manipulated Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and a kept media.

But less than a month later, that hope is fast fading and turning into despair and gloom for the oppressed classes at the distinct possibility of Modi returning triumphantly to rule us for another term and usher in formally a rule of the fascist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) which, with a distorted Constitution already predicted by the likes of his minister Ananth Kumar Hegde, would continue to rule upon the people for an indefinite period a la Pakistan post General Mohammad Zia-ul Haq.

In 1977, when the mullahs with tacit support of the then Army chief of Pakistan, Zia-ul Haq, were conspiring to overthrow the “liberal and secular” regime of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) within the limitations of an Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Khan Abdul Wali Khan, the son of the great stalwart of secular democracy, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, nee Bachcha Khan, chose to align with the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA), surreptitiously backed by the Army seeking Nizam-e Mustafa. In effect, Wali Khan betrayed the cause of democracy and secularism by describing the PPP and Bhutto as bigger enemies of the people than the obscurantist Army-sponsored mullahs and by joining the PNA and happily participating in sabotaging and subverting the people’s voice in Pakistan.

Wali Khan’s son Asfandyar Khan, leading the Awami National Party in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (earlier the NWFP), who aligned with the PPP in the 2008-13 term and came to power in his state, had to reap the fruits of Wali Khan’s treachery with the Jihadi mullahs strutting around with impunity the entire length and breadth of Pakistan, more so in Pakhtunkhawa and Baluchistan, with or without the support of the ruling military establishment. Asfandyar nearly lost his life to these fascists when they made an almost successful bid on his life while his party was ruling the state.

This is worth mentioning to the likes of former CPIM general secretary Prakash Karat who refuse to characterise the BJP and Modi as fascists and have forced the leading Left party of the country to virtually consider the Congress a bigger enemy than the Modi/BJP/RSS combine. Can some thing be farther from truth than Prakash Karat’s formulation that the BJP is not fascist? It smacks of a certain Brahmanical mindset even though probably Karat is a Nair from Kerala and not a Brahmin. But Kerala CPIM has been following blindly the line extended by former Chief Minister and former CPIM general secretary  EMS Namboodiripad, a Brahmin. How else would you describe a perfectly intelligent, widely read and articulate leader like Karat, who sees the sword of fascism hanging loose over the heads of the people of India but chooses to turn away and look the other side at the Congress party?

Speaking from hindsight, the CPIM has made historical blunders umpteen number of times and each time it had willy-nilly aided the rise of Jana Sangh/BJP bringing it to the present state when it looks near impossible to get rid of these fascists in a democratic electoral battle.

Already, there is enough case for despair because whatever hope of defeating Modi in 2019 was glimmering, seems to receding, throwing us back into the abyss of unfathomable darkness. The Opposition parties were expected to draw inspiration from the Gujarat results and see the rainbow on the horizon, sit together to work out a strategy and plans to unitedly fight the BJP on the street and in the elections. The street movements by Jignesh Mevani, Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakore, Kanhaiya Kumar, Shehla Rashid, Chandra Shekhar Azad and Umar Khalid gave the people a lot of hope, considering the overwhelming response of the people. The Opposition parties were expected not just to help these young activists but build upon it to ensure that their efforts do not go waste.

However, the Opposition has gone into a lull once more, perhaps to wake up with a start only when the bugle to the general elections will be blown by Modi’s fascist establishment at its convenience.