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Journalism of Courage
The latest issue of People’s Democracy has given most of its space to the attack by ‘RSS-BJP goons’ on CPM cadres at the party’s headquarters in Delhi.
Giving a detailed account of the attack, the articles say it was ‘pre-planned’. Satisfaction is expressed over the fact that the attack was condemned strongly by various political parties. Beginning with Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, People’s Democracy says that she spoke to party general secretary Prakash Karat immediately after learning of the attack. It cites Congress leaders who visited the party office, and those belonging to UNPA like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Chandrababu Naidu who expressed concern.
The inside pages have pictures of dead bodies and funeral processions of comrades killed in various attacks allegedly carried out by RSS-BJP workers. It also lists comrades killed in Kannur, Kerala, ever since the Left government came to power. The article says that the “murderous politics of the RSS in Kerala is not of recent origin. The RSS began its murder campaign originally as the tool of capitalists and owners who wanted to smash the unions and the working class movement in Kannur”.
The article argues that the CPM does not have to demean itself by resorting to violence against what it sees as an ineffective political force. “It is the RSS and its political front which plays the dangerous game of physical annihilation of the CPM as it stands in the way of its rabid communal ideology and politics,” the article concludes.
Back to Kannur
According to an editorial, “the ostensible excuse offered by the RSS for mounting venomous anti-Communist attacks are the developments currently taking place in Kannur district in Kerala”. The RSS, says the article, is frustrated over the “fast declining attendance” in RSS shakhas. “Their congenital anti-Communism, fed further by the frustration of political marginalisation, explains the unleashing of senseless murderous violence,” it says.
The PD has also prominently displayed the notes of condemnation issued by the Communist Party of Greece and the National Workers Party of Pakistan on the attack in Delhi.
Go on, agitate
CITU president M.K. Pandhe has issued a statement extending support to the AAI employees’ agitation against the closure of the Hyderabad and Bangalore airports. The closure of these airports would deal a ‘mortal blow’ to the future of AAI by making it a loss-making enterprise. CITU regrets that the government is treating the unanimous recommendations of the Parliament Standing Committee as a “scrap of waste paper.”
India and Israel
Arguing that India’s strategic ties with Israel are not an issue for the Left alone, an article says that it is a concern for a larger section of political opinion in the country. The “underbelly” of India-Israel relations also came out along with the revelations in the Barak case, it says.
According to the article, there are only two options before the government. “We can either return to our path of independent foreign policy and support the Palestinian cause or march with the Israelis in their continued occupation of Palestine providing them material help,” it says.
The article concludes with the hope that the Indian people will not accept what it calls the tacit Indian support to the Israeli occupation by subsidising it with arms purchases. “The time has come to heed the voice of the Indian people and break our dangerous military and security ties with Israel.”
