Last Opportunity for Indian Communists

by Daya Varma, Vinod Mubayi

The 2014 parliamentary elections are more critical for the future of India than any other in the past. A victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Narendra Modi, would not only end the Congress domination of Indian politics, it would set in motion a new culture and reverse the secular foundations of India.

There are many factors for the decline of the influence of the Congress but none has played as big a role as its denunciation by the block of Communist Parties, mainly the Communist Party of India. At the present critical juncture this denunciation by the CPI has not only crossed the limits of decency but also of callousness towards the future of India.

The CPI declared that “Modi and Manmohan are two sides of the same coin” as it released its Election Manifesto. This is the lowest the CPI could reach in its political analysis.

P.C Joshi, the first General Secretary of the CPI, argued for a strategic alliance with the Congress. The CPI came to the defence of the Congress when the Syndicate and US imperialists were out to oust Indira Gandhi. The Congress introduced the terms secular and socialist in the Indian Constitution and was an ally of the Soviet Union. None of this has been changed by Manmohan Singh except a shift from state control of the economy to liberalisation, which in a small way was also attempted by the last Left Front Government in West Bengal.

By itself, a dominance by big corporations does not automatically increase poverty as can be seen in the Scandinavian countries.

In any case, economic policies can be changed but the cultural hegemony of Hinduism, which is already quite pervasive, cannot be.

We think that the CPI and CPI-M should reassess their position. While maintaining their independence, they should support the Congress to keep Modi’s hordes from coming to power. There is a big dividend to such a policy.                   

(Courtesy: Insaf Bulletin)

A prominent Indian medical doctor, now retired from active service in Canada, Dr Daya Varma had the privilege of working under and being guided by P.C. Joshi in the early fifties of the last century while he was in this country. Vinod Mubayi is a nuclear engineer in the US and has been politically active within the South Asian diaspora there for a considerable length of time writing and actively taking up issues of political debate within South Asia. He co-edits the Insaf Bulletin with Dr Daya Varma.