Samurai socialism

Colourful, over-the-top language is no stranger to Indian public life. Even by its standards, though, the past two days have been extraordinary. It began on Monday evening, when a Haryana politician — probably still suffering the hangover of the silly controversy over the prime minister’s Oxford speech — compared the Gurgaon lathi charge to Jallianwala Bagh. The theme was soon adopted by the Left. One communist leader after another began comparing the Raj’s most diabolical massacre Raj to what was, really, a relatively minor case of labour unrest related to one factory. On Wednesday, Comrade A.B. Bardhan took matters further. He made menacing sounds about Honda dealerships across the country being targeted, all because a Honda unit had sacked four workers for alleged indiscipline. So where will this end? In a boycott of sushi bars? Perhaps to take matters to their logical absurdity, the CPI must now demand that small shopkeepers — whom, in any case, it is protecting from the bad wolf of big retail — stop using Honda generators to escape power cuts, which, in turn, can end only with electricity reforms the Left refuses to allow!

The satisfaction of soundbites notwithstanding, there is a serious issue here. When faced with crisis, mature politicians — particularly those backing the government — usually make sobering noises. The CPI and CPI(M) follow an entirely contrarian policy. Ever since the UPA government was formed in May 2004, they have gone TV studio-hopping with one incendiary statement after another. Within days of the Manmohan Singh ministry taking office, they talked down — rather, shouted down — the market. Now, excited at the idea of forming trade unions in the automobile industry — the manufacturing success story of post-liberalisation India — they are spraying FDI repellants again.

Having scored initial points and put the Congress on the backfoot, the Left should now calm down. If its penchant for dramatic press briefings leads, for instance, to even one major incident of vandalism, the damage to India — and to the UPA arrangement that gives the comrades their current clout — will be incalculable. The Honda factory has resumed production, bolstered by temporary workers who only want to make an honest living. The CPI-CPI(M) combo, too, should get on with life.