Author: Correspondent
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: December 7, 2007
Prakash Karat has branded intellectuals opposed
to the CPM "enemy of the society and the country", seeking to demolish
critics at an event convened to decry the destruction of Babri Masjid.
"Some people, including a section of
intellectuals, said that what is happening in Bengal is similar to what happened
in Gujarat. They have compared Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to Narendra Modi and
described both as fascists,'' Karat said this evening in Calcutta.
He was addressing a meeting on the 15th anniversary
of the Babri Masjid demolition. Chief minister Bhattacharjee was the other
speaker at the "discussion".
"These people do not know the meaning
of fascism and have no elementary idea of the real face of fascism. Bengal
is a bastion of communal harmony while Muslims were massacred in Gujarat.
Even Christians are not safe in the BJP-ruled states. Those who are engaged
in this conspiracy to equate between the Left and communal forces are the
enemy of the society and the country,'' Karat said.
Bhattacharjee, who has been trying to calm
tempers by toning down his earlier remarks on the recapture of Nandigram,
held fire but expressed concern over divisions in the "cultural world".
"If our cultural world gets bogged down in the quicksand of disunity
and mutual, but unnecessary, distrust, it will bring disaster,'' he said.
Karat's comments reflected the party's discomfiture
at being alienated from what the Left considered its loyal constituency. Subhas
Chakraborty, the sports minister and the brain behind the meeting, made his
displeasure known by not inviting the intellectuals "who are still abusing
us".
