Marketing ideas

To practise the opposite of what one preaches invites charges of hypocrisy,but it pays sometimes to do just that. If the repositioning of the CPMs Bengal unit on capitalism and industrial development by means of private capital,thanks to the erstwhile drive of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee,drove a wedge through the heart of the partys ideology and predilections,that divide or ambivalence has been succinctly caught in the Coal India IPO conundrum: is it fair or sensible,on the one hand,to exhort your cadres on grounds of your Marxist ideology to shun the shares offered to employees by a PSU thats just made an IPO? And,on the other,to allow your party mouthpiece to carry a half-page advertisement of the same IPO,giving in to the temptation of revenue and cold capitalist instincts?

Or perhaps,Ganashakti,the CPMs Bangla mouthpiece,which advertises itself as being on the side of the toiling masses and reputedly never publishes anything incompatible with the partys worldview,has just discovered for itself a new freedom of speech and press? Maybe,at least,the freedom to objectively demarcate revenue sources and ideological anathemas? In any case,the party or its mouthpiece or both deserve a pat on the back for demonstrating that in this great post-ideological age of aspiration and action,what matters is what can be counted. Henceforth,many more of us will pay much less attention to the CPMs protestations against disinvestment and PSUs offering IPOs.

The CPMs Left Front partners in West Bengal who never came on board for Bhattacharjees forceful arguments on behalf of private capital building industry,despite the late Jyoti Basus support for the CM are not pleased. Nevertheless,they arent likely to go beyond warning Big Brother about wrong signals,while dismissing it as the CPMs internal matter. But by privileging Ganashaktis financial interests,somebody has shown where value lies. Welcome,Comrades,to the marketplace of ideas.