View from the Left

Questions of directionA year-end front page editorial gives the Left credit for much that is going right with the UPA. “Crucially depen...

Questions of direction

A year-end front page editorial gives the Left credit for much that is going right with the UPA. “Crucially dependent upon the Left for its survival, the UPA government had agreed to many proposals that no bourgeois-landlord government would agree under normal circumstances,” the editorial says. Included in this are the enactment of the rural employment guarantee scheme and reversal of the cabinet decision to disinvest BHEL. Politically, in the opinion of the party, while the Sangh Parivar is in disarray, the UPA government has survived and consolidated its position. Some differences remain with the government, like “the proclivity of the UPA government to succumb to US pressures”. In fact the pro-US slide in foreign policy is the danger that lurks ahead and popular pressure must be mounted to prevent that from happening, it suggests.

Karat on the BJP

Party General Secretary Prakash Karat in a signed front page article in People’s Democracy writes on the BJP’s “cynical attitude” in the cash-for-questions scandal, pointing out that the BJP’s walkout on the issue in the Lok Sabha was not about losing six MPs but evidence that six years in power had made the party susceptible to corruption. According to Karat, it was due to the apprehension that a firm stand against corruption would further affect the party that the BJP leadership “put the brakes on the gathering momentum to take strict action to cleanse the system”. As for the sting operation on the MPLADS scheme, the CPI(M) general secretary points out that it only indicated the party had been correct in its opposition to the scheme — it wanted the funds to go to zilla parishads and elected bodies.

An eye on America

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A report adopted by the CPI(M) central committee is actually about the party’s view on the US and the world. It says that in its war on terror, the CIA has in various countries been “snatching people” suspected of having links with terrorist groups and flying them in CIA planes to prisons in eight countries where they could be tortured. NATO’s expansion into eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union is a mixed success for the US, with Georgia and Ukraine falling within the ambit of NATO’s influence. However, the American push into the region has preempted the European Union’s bid to form an independent community. As for Russia, the party report says, its deal on the sale of gas with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan would bind both countries to it. The report points to “growing opposition to US hegemony” in Latin America and the opposition to George Bush on the formation of the Free Trade Areas of Americas.

CPI(M)’s on the move

Politburo member Sitaram Yechury was in Pakistan recently for the Sajjad Zaheer birth centenary. The CITU president was in Havana for the 15th World Trade Union Congress, which he addressed.

Compiled by Ananda Mazumdar