Author: Rakesh Sinha
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: June 18, 2002
The opposition of the Left parties
to the presidential candidature of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam is not simply a protest
against the choice of the NDA. Their logic, that a scientist should not
be the President of India, since he is "unaware" of the constitutional
provisions and bereft of political understanding, betrays their Stalinist
mindset.
First, let us examine this Marxist
logic is. The Indian Constitution established parliamentary democracy with
the President as a ceremonial head. The basic qualification envisaged for
a presidential nominee is his Indian citizenship. But the communists want
a "specialist" president. Tomorrow, one may plea to debar scientists and
artists from their voting rights using the same logic: That they do not
understand politics!
The reason for the Left's unhappiness
is not Dr Kalam's candidature, but his popular, admirable status in our
national life. Dr Kalam's selection threatens the Stalinist game plan to
use the institution of the President to discredit the popular coalition
Government in the Centre. The German communists applied the same principle
in the 1930s to discredit parliament, which led to the eventual emergence
of the Nazi Party. However, Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav
- albeit owing to different political reasons - created a hole in the Left's
anti-democratic design. The communists have always detested Lohia and his
camp of JP- Madhu Limaye. Now they should know that Mr Yadav too has Lohia's
philosophy in his political veins.
The history of Indian communists
is replete with their role as counter-nationalists and destabilisers. If
tension between India and Pakistan is misunderstood by the West, the latter,
being unaware of regional dynamics, can be forgiven. But what about Indian
communists? The CPI's organ New Age (June 2-8, 2002) has accused both (Indian
and Pakistani) governments of "failing to tackle their internal situations"
and "taking the recourse to rousing jingoistic fervour and building war
hysteria."
Similarly, People's Democracy (May
20-26, 2002), the mouthpiece of the CPI(M), has slandered Prime Minister
Vajpayee for his "war rhetoric". The Congress should not feel exalted with
the propagandist role of the Red brigade. In the past, they too have faced
similar situations. During Indo-Pak war in 1965, all parties, including
the CPI, stood firmly with the Government of India. But the CPI(M) not
only slandered the then Government as "jingoistic" but also did not spare
its mother party, the CPI. People's Democracy (July 13, 1980) castigated
the CPI: "In 1965 India-Pakistan war, they became jingoistic and called
for the Indian Army to march to Lahore."
The birth of the CPI(M) was muddled
with its extreme unpatriotic hysteria in the early 1960s. During the Sino-
Indian border conflict, the CPI passed a resolution against the Chinese
aggression, which was unlikely to be accepted by the CPI(M), then a part
of the CPI and better known as the "pro-China" faction within the party.
Its leader EMS Namboodiripad accused the CPI, in a draft circulated in
the CPI(M), as "a tail of the Government of India, a tail of even such
reactionary forces as the Jana Sangh and Swatantrata Party..."
EMS also justified Chinese aggression:
"Dogmatic assessment of the class character of the Nehru Government as
well as the role socialist country should play in relation to a non-aligned
country made the Chinese Communist Party resort to force rather than peaceful
negotiation as the means of settling the border problem." Fortunately,
the communists had only 6 per cent of popular votes. Had it been in the
region of even 25 per cent, they would have been successful in their dream
of turning India into Chinese colony.
The nuclear tests in 1998 were described
by them as "nuclear jingoism". The CPI(M)'s 16th Congress blamed the Vajpayee
Government for "surreptitiously and illegitimately" reversing the long-standing
nuclear policy. They legitimised Western protests against the action of
the Indian Government.
The communists have been historically
counter-nationalists. During World War II, Bose was scurrilously illustrated
by the CPI mouthpiece, People's War (July 19, 1942), as riding on the back
of Tojo, a militarist from Japan and an ally of Hitler. After independence
KM Cariappa, a symbol of national pride, was dubbed as "jingoistic". So
their disapproval of Dr Kalam as the presidential nominee is hardly surprising.
Limaye wrote in his brilliant tract, "CPI: Facts and fictions" (1951):
"Since their early days the Indian communists have lived in a world of
their own - completely cut off from the mainstream of India's national
life." He asked: "How is it that such a party has managed to survive?"
Why, indeed, do the Leftists enjoy
such exalted positions in the Indian media despite their microscopic and
shrinking support-base? The space in the print media and time slot in the
electronic media allotted to them makes one wonder whether they are worth
it.
(The writer teaches Political Science
at Delhi university and is a political analyst)
