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Journalism of Courage
Trawl through the 24 pages of the Common Minimum Programme, and a fascinating game begins. It is called Trace the Thumbprint of the Left. It is there in the section on labour. It is there in the reference to 8220;traditional ties with West Asia8221;. It is evident, also, in its warning to those 8220;who try to deliberately engineer market panic8221;. Let8217;s face it. In the UPA8217;s agenda for governance, there is an invisible hand. And it poses a big challenge to India8217;s new order. Adam Smith8217;s hidden forelimb, the market, has over the decades been kept in some semblance of check, all sorts of regulatory mechanisms are in place to temper its distortions and its volatility. Who will, alas, hold the Left8217;s invisible hand in documents and decisions of the Manmohan Singh government?
The Left parties say they broadly endorse the CMP. Not being in government, however, they have refrained from affixing their signatures to the document. Moreover, they reserve the right to differ with economic policies pursued by the UPA coalition. Talk about a dialectical mess! When it comes to the art of running coalitions, the Left parties are given to raptures of self-laudation. They point happily to decades of uninterrupted rule in West Bengal, they talk of a periodic return to proletariat rule in Kerala. They have a point. Why, then, do they toss aside decades of accumulated wisdom whenever they come within shouting range of Raisina Hill?
