Opinion View from the LEFT

The lead editorial in CPI mouthpiece New Age says the open fight between Shashi Tharoor and suspended IPL commissioner Lalit Modi broke out because of the latter’s attempts to bribe and blackmail winners of the Kochi franchise on behalf of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. In fact the Tharoor camp had also propagated a similar version. So,in the CPI’s words,the argument that only Tharoor was involved in the scam was not true: the Congress and the BJP are equally involved and so does some of the constituents of the UPA.

The CPI’s real target was,however,the prime minister. It says though the latest exposures showed the ugly face of crony capitalism which the PM often denounces,he has not taken the IPL mess seriously. “We have already suffered a lot due to organised gambling at the stock markets,particularly due to FIIs. Manmohan Singh as finance minister in early 90s was responsbile for promoting this organised gambling. Now in his second term as PM,he will be remembered for promoting crony capitalism that he normally denounces just for the sake of it,” the editorial concludes.

CPM’s Salwa Judum

Interestingly,the CPM has accepted that the Communist version of Salwa Judum style anti-Maoist resistance groups propped up in Jangal Mahal area of West Bengal has managed to push the insurgents on to the backfoot. An article in the CPM’s weekly organ People’s Democracy titled “Maoists on the defensive in the Jangal Mahal” admits that there have been repeated confrontations between the “village resistance groups” and heavily armed Maoists of late and the insurgents are on the run.

The article lists out the results of the resistance. “The kangaroo courts are no longer in session; no killings trough these grisly affairs for the past three weeks. The indiscriminate general killing for purposes of spreading of terror is gone,at least for the moment. The targeted killing of CPM activists are becoming less frequent,but does continue. A bulk of the majority of the ‘Maoists’ leadership have fled the border ‘terrain’. There are no longer comfy TV appearances,nor the ‘thus spake Kishanji/Vikash’-kind of SMS messages to favoured journos. The village-level résistance grows every day,every night,every week,every month.”

Gender and unions

A recent study by the International Labour Organistaion pointed out while there was a surge in the increase in women membership in trade unions,this was not adequately reflected in the leadership of either industry-level union or central trade union organisations. The CPI,it seems,has taken this finding very seriously. An article in New Age says it would be good if the trade union leaders at the central and state level become aware of this “problem” just as they had to realise the importance of attending to the problems of contract workers. “There need to be once in a year special sessions of,say,the national council of central trade unions which focus only on gender issues and its growing complexity. Possibly solutions will follow… Building women worker activists is a precondition for unions working on gender-sensitive issues as integral part of their thinking and action,” the article says.