Corrupt logic
In an article in CPM journal Peoples Democracy,Prakash Karat links corruption with the UPA governments neo-liberal policies. He says the wages of neo-liberalism are corruption and the loot of public resources,and claims the government has been acting as facilitator of this process.
Karat says the representatives of all the three sections of this nexus are lodged in Tihar jail: company executives,a former minister and former bureaucrats.
Karat targets the BJP as well. We saw the eruption of high-level corruption earlier under the NDA government with the same economic regime, he says. He adds that Karnataka Chief Minister B. S. Yeddyurappa thought of a novel way to tackle corruption charges against him. He does not believe in the Lokayukta or the courts to decide the matter. Yedyurappa wanted to visit the temple in Dharmasthala and let Lord Manjunatha deliver the verdict! If the Congress has become a byword for corruption,the Hindutva style of fighting corruption has become farcical, he says.
Cracks in the land
After the Supreme Court judgment on land acquisition in Greater Noida,an article in the CPIs New Age says the real problem was the continuance of the Land Acquisition Act,1894,calling it a legacy of colonial rule.
It says a new law needs tp be enacted limiting land acquisition by the government to public infrastructure projects. It also calls for a separate law for the rehabilitation of displaced farmers: Apart from adequate compensation and job guarantees for the displaced in the industrial units to be established… there should be provision for disbursement of a certain percentage of profits of the new
industrial and other establishments among the displaced families annually.
The article argues that while most political parties welcomed the observations of the Supreme Court,they avoided the central question: abolishing the act. Even the scion of the ruling family… is silent on this core issue and just indulging in dramatics for limited gains in the UP Assembly elections. The article refers to the agitations against land acquisition in West Bengal,Maharashtra and Orissa,and questions why the mainstream media is silent about these new Nandigrams and Singurs.
Class warfare
An editorial in Peoples Democracy focuses on the attacks on its cadre after the Trinamool Congress won the West Bengal Assembly election,describing them as the launch of a new class offensive to undo the gains made by the working class in rural Bengal under the Left Front government. It says 24 CPM leaders have been killed after the Trinamool came to power. The propaganda of our class enemies,assisted by the corporate media,spread the disinformation that the initial attacks on the CPM and the Left cadre was the result of the release of pent-up anger against the misrule of the Left Front government. That such attacks continue even nearly two months after the election results have been declared nails this lie, it says.
The article links the attacks with the rights of the working class. It says there are reports that in some places working hours for agricultural labourers are being forcibly increased from eight to 10 hours a day,and their lunch breaks are being discontinued.
It adds; There are reports that former landlords,who were illegally in possession of surplus land above the legally prescribed ceiling that was acquired by the Left Front government and distributed to the landless through the land reforms programme,are now seeking to regain the possession of these lands. This is a class offensive.
