Commies in the Red!

Its in India's national interest to see the BJP, Congress and the Communists remaining strong and healthy. But alas, all of them are in mortal peril at the moment. Congress is what it has been for decades now - moronic. The fundamental problem with the BJP is that, it has not been able to pass the baton to the next generation. That has had ripple effects on its ideology and electoral performance. But today I'm going to talk about the sudden bankruptcy of the Communists or rather the CPM in particular.

Well, if you have been reading communist mouthpieces like The Hindu or NDTV, you might think Communists are infact at their peak! Left parties have more numbers in parliament than ever before. They retain power in three citadels - Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. And Manmohan Singh will gladly walk naked if they want him to. But the devil is in the details. And interestingly, the communist fall coincided with the 'very successful' change in generational leadership that the BJP has been accused of failing to emulate.

In Prakash Karat, Pinarayi Vijayan and to some extent Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the CPM has assembled one of the worst collection of leaders in its entire existence. Prakash Karat with his incompetence has reduced the CPM to being the Congress B team. Pinarayi Vijayan has gotten CPM in Kerala, the kind of publicity even Bihari politicians will be wary of. And Budhha despite having a good heart, has grossly mismanaged the 'land grab SEZ' policy that even the Mamata nightmare looks saner now.

Hardly a month passes without farmers and the poor being killed by the Police for trying to save their only means of livelihood. I would have expected the CPM of yesteryears to be at the forefront to save those peasants. But these days it is the CPM cadre which is hurling country bombs at them in Nandigram. And if you had read Prakash Karat's nonchalant reaction to state murder in Khammam on Saturday, you might be mistaken that he is talking about the weather!

Can you believe its the CPM which allowed most of the 250 odd SEZs to be set up across the country? Or that the Wal-Mart is now piggy riding Bharti? Or that India's natural resources are being blindly given away to Indian and foreign multinationals? The CPM won't oppose all this but will block any badly needed PSU disinvestment and reforms like pension or airport privatization! Its no longer policy but just vested interest that the union leaders/bureaucrats are also CPM office bearers. As simple as that!

CPM has been wiped out in all the recent elections outside the 3 red states. A minister in Bengal is now very visibly involved in murder. Corruption in the Kerala unit has reached such dizzying heights that the CPM party paper itself admits involvement in money laundering! The Kerala CM and Vijayan have had to be suspended from the central politburo for infighting.

But the Nero playing to the TV cameras ala Karat is busy coming up with inanities like 'the president needs to be a politician but not necessarily the chairman of the Rajya Sabha'. What a waste!