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Opinion

Self-defeating arguments

The CPI(M) and its politbureau-centric leaders some of whom are nearly out of job within the party itself like comrade Prakash Karat have recently wished that the Indian army 'suffer irreparable damage' in its operation against terrorists in the Valley and against those whose work is to facilitate, aid, abet and shelter terrorists in that area. That comrade Karat is reduced to writing inane editorials in the CPI(M) mouthpiece is another matter altogether, it is reflective of the high state of marginalisation that he faces within the party and of his own growing irrelevance in its scheme of things with rise of the Congress infatuated Yechury clique.

However, coming back to our point of discussion, of such utterances, one need not be surprised. The CPI(M) has essentially and always been a party which has never had India's national security and national interest in mind.

Its leaders have never stood in solidarity with the Indian forces and soldiers and have always made it a point to either denigrate or castigate our soldiers and have unfairly and unjustifiably heaped calumny and blame on them. In fact, comrade Karat's petty editorial in the party's puny mouthpiece reflects all that continues to ail Indian communists, they blame our institutions, denigrate them, publicly hurl opprobrium at them, and in the name of trying to mediate or initiate dialogue push forward and peddle the enemy's perspective.

Be it supporting separatists, be it justifying aggression on Indian territory, be it advocating the cause of stone-pelters in the Valley who are deeply intertwined and plugged into the network of terror and of terror financing, the CPI(M) and communists in general have displayed an anti-Indian streak, cleverly camouflaging a deep held fascistic worldview with a thin veneer of a so-called liberalism. Whenever the CPI(M)'s ideologues and captive academics speak, they almost always mouth and propagate terrorist propaganda either manufactured from across the border or generated in the grist mills of some academic corners of the West and of India.

Karat's other co-ideologues, holding an extreme leftist and nihilistic view and ideology, such as Professor Partha Chatterjee, now in an advanced state of mental fragmentation, compared General Rawat, Chief of sovereign India's armed forces to the 'Butcher of Amritsar' in order to gain some traction for a career that is now in its twilight and also for satisfying a certain constituency in the West which has put up with his fragmented narrative all these years and generously supported him in his endeavour of crystallising this fragmented narrative of a fragmented India.

The view that the likes of Chatterjee and some others propagate is thus of an India in a perpetual state of fragmentation and this, as I have often pointed out, is manna to certain quarters in the West who are munificent in their support for such narratives and to some political sections within India – especially the communists and Naxals and now the Congress – who have thrived on and have tried to gain huge political mileage by broadcasting such propaganda. In such a fragmented narrative, the ring-leader of stone-pelters becomes an innocent shawl artisan and a Major who, on the one hand protects and saves lives of officials on election duty and on the other of those who were preventing them from carrying out their assigned electoral duties by adopting an ingeniously thought out emergency measure to tackle a potentially explosive situation, becomes the blood-sucking villain of an 'occupational' army.

The Congress, unfortunately, despite being led by a scripture-reading vice president has pushed leaders to visit the Valley and goaded them to openly declare that India is holding Kashmir by force. The recent utterances of another terrorist infatuated Congress leader, Mani Shankar Aiyar, clearly articulated that stand in support of terrorists, of separatists and of Pakistan. In another document that the AICC recently released the entire Kashmir was shown as belonging to Pakistan, the fragmented mentality has now so overwhelmed Congress, that in trying to remain relevant and visible, it is desperately siding with fragmenters of India and mouthing their propaganda.

The reality, however, especially in Kashmir, is different except for a few corners, the entire state is peaceful, people across the board are yearning to carry on with their daily lives, are aspiring for better opportunities and having seen through the false and spurious 'azaadi' narrative wish to be part of the transforming India journey. Hoteliers and traders in the Valley are fed up with the repeated calls for bandh and have refused to adhere to diktats that harm their livelihood, slow their growth and dry up opportunities. Academics and intellectuals in the Valley want a way forward. Trade and education – areas which are most intrinsically linked to the ordinary citizens – are hit and people realise that this is because of false slogans and coercive propaganda by terrorists and they no longer want to be part of that fragmented narrative. They are astounded to see elected representatives who have taken oath on the Constitution support terrorists.

While they pine to be liberated from the narrative of fragmentation, the likes of Karat, Chatterjee, Aiyar, Abdullahs wish to further bind them and enslave them to a way of life which is not theirs and into which a section of them in the Valley were duped.

Comrade Karat thus lives in a utopia and writes under the influence of a reality-denying intellectual opiate, his arguments are self-defeating.
(Dr. Anirban Ganguly is Director, Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation, New Delhi. The views expressed are strictly personal.)

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