Tweaking a bit its earlier stand of maintaining equidistance from Congress and BJP, the CPI(M) today indicated that communalism posed a greater threat to the nation and asked the Centre and States to make no concessions to such forces.
“The forces of majority communalism work on the basis of the Hindutva ideology and outlook which is injurious to the country and people’s unity,” party General Secretary Prakash Karat said at the inaugural session of the three-day extended Central Committee meeting here.
He said the BJP-run State governments in Gujarat, Karnataka or Madhya Pradesh “are targeting the minorities, both Muslims and Christians, and seek to deprive them of their rights as citizens”.
The recent exposures of “how the police and State machinery in Gujarat have been used to cover-up the pogroms and stage encounter killings are a chilling reminder of what is in store for the country if such forces come to power”, Mr. Karat said.
“Terrorist violence emanating from whichever source should be put down firmly,” he said, adding that this required both the central and State governments not to make any concession to the communal forces.
He also attacked the Congress for pursuing ‘neo-liberal’ policies, which was “an outlook and philosophy which worships the market and promotes greed and rapacity.
“Every institution of the State and every pore of our society is getting polluted and corrupted. The nexus between big business and politics is now out in the open,” Mr. Karat said asking party members to fight against these tendencies.
The Coimbatore Congress of the CPI(M) had laid down a path to maintain equidistance from Congress and BJP, terming them as ‘twin danger’.
But the inaugural speech by Mr. Karat indicates that communalism was a greater danger.
The top CPI(M) leader called for strengthening Left unity and widening the support for a “Left and democratic alternative” but stopped short of suggesting a Third Front.
He said this was the charter for political and social change in India which the CPI(M) and the Left would advocate.
Maintaining that ‘neo-liberal’ policies were not only affecting the economic sphere but governance also, Mr. Karat said.
“public policy making is (being) suborned to serve the interests of a rich and powerful strata”.
The mining “mafia” of the Bellary brothers “dictates politics in BJP-ruled Karnataka and also commands influence in the politics of Andhra Pradesh.
“Whether it is the IPL or the telecom scam, there is no line demarcating public policy and personal enrichment.
Corruption, through the syphoning off of the public funds, preys on the common people who find their rations and other entitlements vanishing into the pockets of a corrupt and greedy nexus of bureaucrats-politicians-contractors,” he said.
The corporate media has become “the cheer-leader for neo-liberal policies”, he said.
Such an atmosphere has begun to “corrode the parliamentary democratic system” and the people’s rights to assemble, organise and protest are being severely restricted by administrative and judicial actions.
“Trade unions are not allowed to function in Special Economic Zones and many other enterprises. Peasants face police repression if they protest against the lands being taken away and student unions and organizations are banned in many educational institutions,” the CPI(M) leader said.
Attacking the Manmohan Singh government for aligning with the United States and Israel, Mr. Karat said, “There are no second thoughts on compromising national sovereignty and even the lives and safety of the people in order to fructify this alliance.”
As part of the commitment made in the Indo-US nuclear deal, the government has brought a legislation in Parliament. “which embodies this subservience”, Mr. Karat said referring to the Civil Nuclear Liabilities Bill.
