God as vote-bank - The Times of India

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Liberal theology was the politically correct name given in Latin America to the progressive and people-friendly causes championed by the local Catholic Church and some activist "men of God". It seems the other way round in India, where the Marxist Communists are showing the "millennial trend" in making their ideology market-friendly and giving up the old idea that inspiration from religion is against the spirit of Communism. Elections to the Lok Sabha are impending and pragmatic Marxists realise, like th
ir rivals the Congress, the BJP and regional parties, that there's nothing like divinity to rake in the floating votes. Marx termed religion as the opiate of the masses, and Stalin, when urged to reconcile with the Vatian in 1935, demanded to know, "How many divisions does the Pope have?" But the times, they are a-changing and God is now "the in-thing", whether in Kerala or West Bengal. Coming events have cast a shadow on the 16th state party congress of Kerala's ruling Marxists, at Palakkad. The veteran
arxist and Kerala chief minister, Mr E K Nayanar, who gifted a copy of The Bhagwadgita to the Pope on a visit to Rome, maintains that the Hindu epics "are not monopoly of the BJP-RSS parivar" and that the Gita provides an epitome of ancient Indian culture and philosophy. Another CPM ideologue says, "Jesus Christ was the world's first Communist, since he worked and bled for the poor". "In essence, the central message in both the holy Bible and Das Kapital is quite similar," he argues. The recent Durga Puj
festivities in Calcutta showed how eager some Marxist ministers were to be associated with the "auspicious inaugurations", which some regarded as divine dispensation to promote themselves and the ideology. Unlike Indonesia's Dr Soekamo, no Indian Marxist has, as yet, claimed to he a "Vedantist Marxist". And yet, at the Palakkad venue, like Lord Krishna of yore, and Lal Krishna Advani of our times, veteran CPM leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet is shown, reportedly, "riding a rath". Marxist leaders have been
depicted with a faint, soft-focus halo around their heads, and the revolutionary hammer-and-sickle motif replaced with a sketch of St George killing the communal dragon. Kerala Pradesh Congress secretary Malik Mohammad Hasan is happy that the Communists "are turning to divine sources for inspiration and salvation," but hopes they will be faithful. The rival BJP leader, Mr Raman Pillai, says he will be happy if the Communists "turn a new leaf". The 21st century need not have its own collective catharsis l
ke The God That Failed. In the 1950s, when Kerala's first Communist ministry was sworn in, half of ministers swore in the name of God. But in the mid-1980s, it was the law of diminishing return, when only one minister, among 19, took the oath in the name of God. The wheels of God, grind slowly but fine, and have come full circle.

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