Opinion Respect Parliament
It also criticises the government for its decision to postpone the monsoon session of Parliament,saying that panicky,knee-jerk reactions have become a familiar characteristic of UPA 2.
Respect Parliament
An editorial in CPM journal Peoples Democracy slams sections of civil society for their absolutely outrageous remarks questioning the right of MLAs and MPs to represent millions of Indians. It also criticises the government for its decision to postpone the monsoon session of Parliament,saying that panicky,knee-jerk reactions have become a familiar characteristic of UPA 2. This postponement,it says,is an attempt to buy time while it works out a better response to the oppositions pressure over corruption,including the latest scam in the gas sector. This decision of the government only compounds the demeaning of the system of parliamentary democracy by sections of civil society, it says. It argues that the contempt these civil society leaders have for the people,the voters and the electoral system must be rejected.
Convenient untruth
The CPI,on the other hand,raises a different point. While acknowledging that corruption and black money have gripped the popular imagination,it accuses the media of playing up these issues,and claims the same vested interests behind corruption and black money are now using this phenomenon to sideline other serious issues. First an attempt was made to project the self-appointed representatives of the so-called civil society as the sole voice of the people. Political parties and other representatives of the society were ignored. An impression was sought to be created that whatever the ten wise men of the joint drafting committee including five appointed by an individual will produce as Lokpal bill,will be imposed on the country as fait accompli, says the editorial in CPI weekly New Age.
It argues that while everyone knew that no law can be legislated ignoring Parliament,the media kept harping on the point that civil society will have the final say. It accuses the media of ignoring issues like the resistance to forceful acquisition of land for Posco in Orissa,rising prices of essential commodities,education and public healthcare and the threat of Hindutva terrorism.
Exaggerating death
An article in Peoples Democracy says a highly successful vilification campaign was launched against Mao Zedong with the claimthat 27-30 million people died in China between 1958 and 1961,the Great Leap Forward period.
The basis of this assertion,the article claims,was the population deficit in China during that period and the work of two North American demographers A.J. Coale and Judith Banister and argues while the capitalist press repeated the allegation,no one bothered to look at the highly dubious method through which these demographers had arrived at their apocalyptic figures.
The article goes on to dissect the famine death theory. It says looking at Chinas population data from its 1953 and 1964 censuses,if the rate of population increase up to 1958 had been maintained,the population should have been 27 million higher over the period over 1959-1961 than it actually was. This population deficit was widely equated with famine deaths. But 18 million of the people alleged to have died in a famine were not born in the first place. The decline in the birth rate from 29 in 1958 to 18 in 1961 is being counted as famine deaths. The Chinese are a highly talented people,but they have not learnt the art of dying without being born, it points out.
It,however,admits that since foodgrain output declined from 1959,there was a rise in the officially measured death rate. It says that 1960 was an abnormal year with about 8 million deaths in excess of the 1958 level.
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