I simply love it. Really love it.

I have been following Indian social, industrial, technology, political development for last 4-5 years. I found that there are few people who just think about their benefits only and that's we call Politicians. I feel they care nothing, its just benefit.

Example of that is LEFT parties. Kolkata was a glorious place - capital of India, hub of industry, city of joy, collection of great intellectual people. But in last 30 years it has been rotten. I don't need to go far for giving example - see example of Nano.

Right opposite to that on western side of India, Gujarat was growing slowly but steadily and conquering new heights. On the sad day in 2002, they faced some violence. It was really sad that so many human lives were lost. But on the basis of that most of the politicians started targeting Gujarat.

I have lived in Gujarat for 2 years and I know how safe it is. So I don't want anyone's certificate or opinion. But just for the reader's sake I like to quote a Bengali gentleman speaking in talk show on NDTV - I allow my wife and daughter to go to home in midnight in Ahmedabad but not in Kolkata.

But sadly many people started bashing Gujarat and far ahead of others were LEFTIES. I really surprised that how can LEFTIES bash Gujarat as a state and talk about its peace ? look at some of the facts

1.      Industry almost dying in one of the best state in India i.e. WB

2.      Bangladeshi , living in India illegally has gone 4-5-6 times in just last few years.

3.      Strikes in IT companies located in Kolkata

4.      We all know what has happened in Nandigram and how brutal it was

On the top of that LEFTIES said Gujarat is unsafe. Gujarat safer than Bangalore, as liquor is banned so no rash driving there.

What could be the answer to their propaganda ?

God has done justice - The dream TATA Project of LEFTIES has moved out from WB. I really feel bad about those Bengali brothers and sisters.

On the top of that it went to Gujarat...

What else could have happened to LEFTIES.

I believed here truth has prevailed.

I am waiting for such another judgment from GOD for other politicians as well.

Disclaimer - I am in Banglaore, moved from Hyderabad. Not at all linked with Nano in Gujarat project. I am an Indian. This write up is based on reading and news channel reports. Reader should apply their own discretion and intelligence. No unwritten words should be read and interpret hidden meaning.

i never seen something like this in my life before... what is happening to the communist people in this country ?

Communist chief minister of West Bengal is literarily begging Ratan Tata to remain invested in his state. Tata's NaNo plant is allegedly been shifted to another state owing to the violence surrounding the farmers riot about land grabbing by the government for the Tata;s project.

I dont understand these communist people...if they think they can bring about what china has done in India, they are mistaken...they should remember that there is no democracy in China while in India, situation is different...India is the biggest democratic country in the world, and no party can do whatever they want by keeping its people in the corner.

Partly, the problem lies in the fact that some of the communist leaders are fast changing from communist ideology that they used to uphold earlier to the capitalist mentality. Well, there is nothing wrong in capitalism as many of the world's greatest economies believe and live around that principle. The problem with the new breed of Indian capitalist communist leaders is the venom that they have injected in the community in the past. That venom will and is coming back to haunt these new breed of capitalist communist guys..  Hope they will invent some new slogans to counter this trent.

	இந்திய வங்கிகளில் வேலை நிறுத்தம்

இந்தியாவில் அரசாங்கத்தால் நடத்தப்படும் வங்கிகளைச் சேர்ந்த ஒன்பது லட்சம் ஊழியர்கள் மேற்கொண்டுள்ள இருநாள் வேலை நிறுத்தத்தின் முதல் நாளான இன்று பல பகுதிகளில் வங்கிப் பணிகள் பாதிக்கப்பட்டன.

பொதுத் துறையில் உள்ள வங்கிகளை தனியார்மயப் படுத்துவதை எதிர்த்தும், பொதுத் துறை வங்கிகளை ஒன்றோடு ஒன்று இணைப்பதை எதிர்த்தும் வங்கி ஊழியர்களின் கூட்டமைப்புகள் பல இணைந்து இந்த வேலை நிறுத்தத்துக்கு அழைப்பு விடுத்திருந்தன.

இந்தியாவில் நடக்கும் வங்கிப் பரிவர்தனைகளில் 90சதவீத அளவு பொதுத் துறை வங்கிகளாலேயே கையாளப்படுகிறது என்று ஆய்வாளர்கள் கூறுகின்றனர்.

I am unable to understand the great fuss that the left is making about this deal? What is their main problem? That it is costly? I think that can be managed if we think in terms of private public partnership and I assume that is how it is going to be. If the cost is their only concern, then that can be solved I am pretty sure. For this they have made such great statements like Prime Minister should resign etc. It is all bullshit and exposes the fact that all they know to do is shout slogans and protest. I have found that Left faction in our country is a destructive force. They offer no solutions to the problems that they decry. There are just sweeping generalizations from their side about what needs to be done. Never is there a concrete plan of action. Lifting the masses, reducing poverty, protecting the poor. It is all good. But how do you propose to do it? Give me an answer to that. Simply by cutting down the solution that others provide? I think that they need to realize that offering a solution is their job too. It is not like everybody is answerable to them. They are equally answerable.

CPI(M) has been ruling the state of West Bengal for nearly 30 years now and still West Bengal has the maximum number of slum dwellers, maximum poverty and joblessness, falling economy and falling standards of living. 30 years is not a small time. It is like they have almost shown that we can not expect them to help us move forward, not at a great pace at any rate. If only they were constructive, then with their concern for the poor, we could have bridged the gaps of inequality much sooner than we expect too.

By Kuver Sinha, Sanhati.

There is an ongoing siege in Singur, West Bengal, the site of the Tata Nano project. The Trinamul Congress, led by Mamata Banerjee, has demanded that of all the land acquired by the State Government using the colonial Land Acquisition Act of 1894, 400 acres be returned to farmers who had been unwilling to sell. The Krishi Jomi Jibon Raksha Committee or KJJRC (Save Farmland Committee) is the broad umbrella organization carrying out the struggle. Various civil society groups have rallied behind this call, as have landed farmers, landless labourers, and sharecroppers of the area.

The impasse continues. There have been threats issued from all sides – the Tatas have threatened to pull out from Bengal and ply their trade in other willing states, the Chief Minister has declared that the Nano car will roll out in October regardless, and the Trinamul Congress has continued its siege.

The story is not new. Social democratic parties like the CPIM are adjusting within the neo-liberal paradigm the world over, their populist opponents are spearheading peoples’ movements with anti-neoliberal rhetoric, while various horizontal civil society and landless peoples’ groups try to accomodate themselves in the tiny wedge between two juggernauts.

The constant insistence on the part of the CPIM that the compensation package in Singur is superior to that in the rest of the country, the insistence that the movement in Nandigram was in fact not about land acquisition but a turf war, that it is trying to “soften” the effects of neo-liberal onslaught, are typical of adjusting social democratic parties. The extreme violence meted out to people in Nandigram and Singur by the party’s functionaries demonstrably show that the method is not one of “softening” but one of brutalisation. The failure of the Party to ensure over the decades even a minimum standard in public health and education, its crumbling public distribution system, its rampant corruption and nepotism, have left it with no option but to forge violently ahead into a copy-paste implementation of neo-liberal dictates. Taking to heart the mantra that “the market” will cure what it could not, World Bank loans and multi-donor “health sector reforms” are now the preferred tools for improvement in health, the retail sector is being opened up to giants like Reliance, while big corporations, national and multinational, are invited to participate in the oft-repeated neo-liberal process of “development”.

The Trinamul Congress, on the other hand, has issued populist slogans against neo-liberalisation, while essentially being prepared to go the same way in terms of actual policy. Thus its central demand in the current Singur siege has been that the Tata corporation is free to take land elsewhere, as long as it gives back the 400 acres. The process of development in itself is not attacked – Mamata Banerjee has repeatedly said that she does not want the Tatas to leave - what is attacked is the immediate issue of coercive acquisition. In the wake of its Panchayat success, the Trinamul Congress declared that it wouldn’t oppose the current paradigm of development, as long as just compensation was handed out. Given its complicity in previous acquisition projects over the last decade (the much less well-known example of Rajarhaat comes to mind, where the Trinamul Congress worked hand in hand with the CPIM in a frenzy of loot), the current protests over coercion sound particularly opportunistic.

In the absence of a genuine Left alternative, protesting farmers and civil society groups have often shared space with such populist elements. The option of conducting mass struggle outside the ambit of such elements was lost very early on. It is the Trinamul Congress which held sway over the areas adjoining Singur – once land acquisition came, the movement was almost immediately co-opted. Various anti-CPIM communist groups have shared the platform with the Trinamul in participating in the peoples movement – those that didn’t lost voice in the umbrella KJJRC. With its continuous bombast, its leaders fasting for days in magnificent Satyagrahas, and in the face of the CPIM’s continuing terror which put utmost importance to the preservation of a vibrant and united KJJRC and middle class movement, the Trinamul’s basic character of populism has been put on hold. Leftists who have no illusion about its character have been caught helpless, others have blurred class analysis by pointing out the Trinamul’s ties to small and middle capital, contrasting it to the CPIM’s ties to big capital. The middle class has gone from event to event, protesting on the streets against the CPIM’s terror in unprecedented numbers. And yet, it is only the Trinamul which has had the mobilizing power to bring life around Kolkata to a grinding halt.

The “civil society” movement and the big media

While a critique of the populist nature of the current siege is necessary from the Left, equally necessary is an understanding of what, in the books of the corporate media, constitutes populism, as opposed to its ubiquitously contrasted cousin, pragmatism. Expectedly, Bengal’s corporate media has always supported the CPIM’s neo-liberal policies, and the consensus is that Tata’s departure would spell doom for the state. This is typical of the free market stance on populism – anything that talks about the interests of the majority of the people is viewed with suspicion and derision. Thus, subsidizing food grains or household energy, or returning land to people who do not want to give it, is considered “populist”, while giving a subsidy of Rs. 140 crore to the Tatas in Singur is considered “investment friendly” and critical for economic development. The labeling of the current siege as populist by the corporate media is thus at once convenient and insidious.

On the other hand, the role of the non-CPIM Left, organized and spontaneous, has been one of abject failure. Singur lost the headlines to Nandigram, and with it went the citizens’ fora and small Leftist organizations. As landless labourers first went hungry and refused to work on the construction site and then capitulated as conditions got worse, no organizing was done, no spotlight was cast. Singur was a god-forsaken place where sometimes a few groups went to provide apolitical relief, sometimes inquisitive middle classes went to take photographs and interviews. These people are once again “back in the movement”, but only in the whirlwind of Mamata Banerjee. Mamata’s voice was, in the hiatus, practically the only one against the land acquisition in Singur, and it is she who has kept it in the public eye. The Trinamul’s Panchayat success in the region has provided her with a much-needed fillip. In this circumstance, considering the ideological lacuna and class basis of Trinamul, a populist form of politics is inevitable.

Latin America and the pink tide

In a world of neo-liberal hegemony, the interplay between social democratic adjustment and right and left populism is being played out again and again. What is most striking in this interplay is neo-liberalism’s amazing resilience in shaping itself to accommodate all players without losing its central theses.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Latin America. As social democratic elites were publicly announcing that the market could not be challenged, issuing a renewed call for invigorating the politics of adjustment at the Buenos Aires Consensus of 1998, a “pink tide” swept over the continent. Electoral victories ensued for parties which opposed neo-liberalism on paper and at least initially. This “pink tide” clearly demonstrates the limits of parliamentary change in the era of globalization.

Riding the wave were Lula and the PT in Brazil (2002), Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (1998), Gutierrez and then Correa in Ecuador (2002, 2006), Lagos and then Bachelet of the Socialist Party in Chile (2002, 2005), Morales in Bolivia (2005), Kirchner in Argentina (2003), Vazquez in Uruguay (2004), and Ortega and the Sandanistas in Nicaragua (2006). There were near-wins for others too – the FMLN in El Salvador (2004), Obrador in Mexico (2006), Solis in Costa Rica (2006), and Humala in Peru (2006).

A study of the negotiations between populism and social democracy ) in these various countries is instructive. Clearly, the exceptions are Chavez in Venezuela, Morales’ Bolivia, and Correa’s Ecuador, where redistributive politics has been far more radical and oriented towards a goal of transforming state structure

Lula and the PT in Brazil won in 2002 after moving sharply from the Left to the center, forging a base with centrist and rightist forces who were reacting against the debacle of neo-liberal fallout. Chained to global capital, his social democratic government slashed budgets for health and education to maintain a fiscal surplus. The number of wealthy grew in Brazil by 11.3% in 2005 as inequality worsened. Apparently pro-poor relief schemes like the Zero Frame and Bolsa Familia (usual packages that have become part and parcel of the neoliberal agenda) provided relief to millions of families earning well below the legal minimum wage, which in itself is inhumanly low, thus signifying that the State recognizes no minimum income as such. The program is cheap and has won for Lula a type of “new populism”.

Kirchner came to power in Argentina after the debacle of 2002 on the wave of anti-neoliberal promises, but his program so far has been limited to minor policy modifications. The economic recovery of Argentina appears to be taking a renewed “populist” or even Keynsian turn, with a number of departures from the IMF’s monetarist orthodoxy (managing exchange rate through central bank intervention, fiscal and monetary policies aimed at controlling inflation, etc.). However, the central tenets of neo-liberal orthodoxy remain untouched – privatization of public utilities, deregulation of pension and mutual funds, etc. At most, the new economic order is an attempt at keeping neo-liberal financialization within manageable limits

In Ecuador, Gutierrez mobilized the country’s indigenous movements with a promise to reverse neo-liberal policies, but capitulated after winning elections. Many leading Sandanistas in Nicaragua are heavily invested in tourism, agro-industry, finances, etc. and their class interests will not allow them to challenge capital.

The illusion lies in the fact that the legitimacy of these social democratic or populist governments consists in sustaining revolutionary discourse and a few distributive reforms. The politics of relief and adjustment within the ambit of neo-liberalism extends from Latin America to Turkey to India.

Horizontalism and emancipation

One of the characteristics of the Singur, Nandigram, and other anti-acquisition movements in India has been the participation of masses of the dispossessed in broad, horizontally organized networks. In the ongoing Chengara struggle of Kerala, 20,000 landless people have organized to squat in the Laha Estate, spearheaded by a collective called the Sadhu Jana Vimochana Samyuktha Vedi (SJVSV). In October 2007, over 25,000 tribals marched to Delhi led by a collective called Ekta Parishad, on the demand of land settlement courts and implementation of the Forest Act. In Orissa, thousands of peasants have protested against the POSCO project, under the Pratirodh Sangram Samiti led by the CPI’s Abhay Sahu. The Narmada Bachao Andolan has worked for over 20 years in opposing big dams and displacement of people, mobilizing thousands of farmers and members of the middle class.

The Jameen Adhikar Andolan of Maharashtra, the Jan Sangharsh Samiti of Rajasthan, the peoples’ movements in Kashipur, Kalinganagar, etc. - the political landscape of India in the last 20 years is dotted with “a million mutinies”. In every state small and large peoples’ movements have emerged against the encroachment of predatory capitalism.

Noticably, in most of these anti-displacement movements there is an understanding that social relations can be transformed from civil rather than political society. In their absence of a bid for state power, they resemble a sort of inverse of vanguardist models. The inability of ordinary citizens and the dispossessed to directly influence the government’s policies, vis-à-vis groups of capital, demonstrates the strength of the neo-liberal process of democratization, where a liberal democracy like India is able to mostly control social mobilization (with notable exceptions like Nandigram), discipline and integrate new social players, and pre-empt revolutionary changes. Neo-liberal policy adjustments in the face of fierce local resistance facilitate material benefits for targeted groups, building channels of local clientelist exchange.

It is in this specific place that the Trinamul’s call for a return of 400 acres should be placed. Formations like the KJJRC of Singur, formed across the country by local resistance to displacement, no matter how radical their composition and demands, are always open to two kinds of subversions in the absence of vertical networks of battle and a dispute over state power: (1) populist takeover, bringing the movement within the ambit of clientelist exchange, patronization (which may be successful – the Singur siege’s denouement will tell), and electoral adjustment or (2) relief adjustment from the State and big capital, which may throw in a few thousand rupees more as compensation or move a few miles down the road where resistance may be less fierce.

Movements in Latin America, from indigenous rights movements to the Zapatistas and the piqueteros of Argentina are instructive in this regard. Zapatismo, for which horizontalism is almost a dogma, has experienced a declining influence in Mexican society, with global capital making major incursions within Chiapas itself. In Argentina, thousands of neighbourhood assemblies and workers solidarities flourished in the wake of the uprising of 2001, mobilizing horizontally through the piqueteros, factory occupations, and other grassroots struggle. Much of this resistance space has been co-opted and fragmented through the clientelist tentacles of Kirchner’s Peronist faction, while the factories haven’t been able to offer the remotest alternative to the country’s integration in global capital. On the opposite spectrum, Ecuador’s Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (CONAIE) was able to bring Correa to power, while guarding its own autonomous mobilization. Bolivia followed the same path, through Evo Morales.

At some point popular movements in India must also figure out where the vertical and the horizontal intersect. The questions they have to negotiate are much the same questions facing the Left the world over, from Venezuela to Mexico. In post-vanguardist formations, how can political collectives dispute state power, foster internal democracy, and strengthen the autonomous mobilization of social movements, all at the same time? Can horizontalism be a project of emancipation?

I wish the CM would think of reopening the many factories rotting away in weed and rust in Dum Dum instead of taking away farmlands. I wish he would focus on what we already have in abundance and turn it into a resource. I really wish people would see that industrialization is not the only inevitable path to salvation for West Bengal, especially when it is achieved at the expense of extensive streaches of extremely fertile farmland. I see only a kind of sorry desperation in jumping at the Tata's offer by providing them with land wherever they (presumably) wanted. The Nano, in my opinion, would only add to the ever increasing congestion in the already overcrowded Kolkata roads. More than once and on various occasions car pools have suggested as a way out. It escapes me why in such a situation the Nano should shine as such a brilliant ray of hope for us. Driving ethics are a thing of the past, and no one realizes it more than us, who drive two wheelers. Anyone can buy a car on hire purchase these days, and there is simply no class left among those that wheeze along in those shiny boxes leaving us at the mercy of fate and their own moods. But I am digressing.

Question is whether Mamata is doing something selfless and at the request of the 'victims'. Question, indeed, is whether there are victims that actually conform to Mamata's definition of the term. I received something from a confidential source which I believe is reliable. It is reliable insofar as a Party Manifesto is reliable. However, the author of this piece belongs to the old guard, to the era when Communist Party members were educated and with morals and scruples. Unbelievable as it may seem, there still are a few of them still hanging on. I have double checked the facts and have found them authentic enough to publish in my own blog. I couldn't care less if people call me names. It is after all fashionable to be anti CP(I)M these days. And never mind if Mamata has created a inexplicable figure of 400 acres. Has she actually provided anyone with an alternative rehabilitaion plan apart from her demand about the land return?

The relevant statistics against the 400 acre demands are:

the Government has acquired 997.11 acres of land in Singur. There are 10, 852 raiyats (cultivators) on the land parcel taken over. Of them, 8, 890 covering land area of 691. 64 acres have accepted the compensation package. 2251 have refused to accept compensation for a total area of 305.47 acres of land. Mamata has conveniently rounded that off to 400 acres.

The following are a) a letter from the CM to Mamata, which, as far as I know, she did not release to the Press ( I could be wrong: I am at present trying to deal with both local small time chameleon CPIM covert operators as well as a sub-inspector who ought to be stripped both of his skin and uniform) and b) a report on the curent situation at Singur with respect to Didi's dharna.

a) Letter of the CM to Mamata:

DO No.  - 97/CM

25 August 2008

Respected,

Earlier we have discussed the problems arising out of the small car manufacturing factory at Singur with representatives sent by you, following my appeal.  We decided then at that meeting that there would be continued discussions towards a just and proper resolve of the impasse.

You are already aware that in view of Shri Ratan Tata’s statement on the issue, different state governments have called for the project to be shifted to their respective states.  You will surely realise from all this how important it is for the state to complete the project early.  Surely as a responsible leader of the opposition of the state, you would desire that the project should be completed in this state.

In view of this, keeping the project completely unaffected, acting within the legal framework of the land, and safeguarding the interests of the landless families affected adversely by the land acquisition, I would like to have a direct discussion with you to find out a formula that will be acceptable to all.

I hope that in the interest of the quick implementation and completion of the project and to ensure that the reflection of our state’s image remains untarnished, you would withdraw your present movement and agree to sit for a discussion again.

With best wishes,

(Signed)

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee

b) current report on Singur situation:

AN ISOLATED TRINAMUL CONGRESS PONDERS THE NEXT MOVE

The sit-in demonstration suddenly started to draw less men and women-- discontented kisans or otherwise.  That happened on and from 2 September.  The reasons were clear for everyone to see.  Certainly, we had little trouble doing this.

An increasing number of the local populace, including the Trinamulis’ vaunted ‘disgruntled kisans,’ and all of them angry, hateful, and aggressively abusive of the Trinamuli chieftain and her Maoists-SUCI-Indira Congress cohorts – had started to organise a huge periphery, and densely peopled, as part of  what we can call a ‘counter-blockade’ around the Trinamuli blockade of the highway.

‘We shall not anyone of the gang that is out to bring an economic disaster to our state run away from Singur, and it is we who had voted for them.’  This was the common refrain of the young and the old, men and women, of the villages surrounding the motor vehicles project.

UNHEARD OF ANTI-MAMATA SLOGAN

An unheard of slogan rent the drippy, cold, and cloudy skyline of Singur from that day onwards: ‘Mamata Banerjee, Singur thekey dur hato, abhi hato, jaldi hato!’ The slogan-shouting brigade, none of them -- we spoke to them and found to our great amazement -- has ever voted for the Left.  Mamata does have cause to worry.

‘We have no quarrel with the truckers or indeed with any vehicular traffic – once we see a single Trinamul-flag wielding SUVs (ironically all Tata Sumo models of various vintage), we shall block its passage, and make it park on the grassy curb.

‘We shall feed them, allow them to take rest in our hutments in the villages -- but they shall and must remain confined away from their beloved didi – whom we had loved too, once before, during the rural polls, but-- never again.’

The speakers ranged from the 80 plus Ahsan Ali Mollah to the 20 something Raghu Majhi, from the elderly and purdaansheen, burqah-naqab-clad Nazma Biwi to the kurti-salwar-dupatta-wearing Rina Murmu – all, all of them former supporters of the Mamata brigade, but no longer.

DISTRESS LEADS TO SUICIDE

What was going through the mind of the 85-year-old Sushen Santra when he went to the small manohari dokaan (a tiny ‘variety store’ -- very typical of rural Bengal, a shop that remains inevitably closed in the noon hours [and until sundown] when the owner-salesperson takes a dutiful nap), at Pakhirapara, knocked on the jhaanp or thatched hinged-on-top front shade of the shop, and hesitantly asked for a bottle of cheap, locally-produced pesticide.

The owner, mildly disturbed even disoriented at having his routine afternoon bhāt-ghoom (or restful slumber after a rice-and-curry meal) being unsettled, sleepily handed over the small recycled bottle of the deadly chemical, yawned, accepted the currency notes, gave back the change in small coins, yawned again, and went to slumberland.  Dada, he was later to tell me, regret pouring out from his reedy voice, had I been a little more alert I would realised that Sushenkaka was upto something, something bad.  Sushenkaka had been in a very, very depressing mood for the past week or so.

TRAGEDY UNFOLDING

After all, please understand, dada, continued the dokaan-malik, kaka’s entire family cholto or ran on the wages, his three married sons brought home from the motor vehicles factory where they had found jobs in the ancillary sector, and they had given away their land, never paying heed to the local Trinamul toughs against doing it, and had not joined the oi jey ki sab krishi-rakkha samity korechhey Mamata didi.

The whole family, we were quick enough to learn, went on convincing others how the LF government’s rehabilitation-compensation package plus the high wages they would draw from the industrial set up and its peripheral units, would be nearly seven times the income they would squeeze out of their tiny plots of shariki-bibadi jomi (agri-land under internecine dispute within the family).

Then Sushen babu heard the bad news.  Mamata Banerjee has set up a road blockade.  The factory hands were being beaten up and their families harassed.  This was followed by the terrible news in the form of the distorted versions ran in the local dailies -- about the entrepreneur of the factory leaving Singur and Bengal – for ever.

A BLACK MARK ON TRINAMULI ACTION

‘One man less would mean one mouth, less to feed, and at any rate I am getting decrepit, old, and constantly having to take pricey medicines – I am becoming an expensive luxury that my family should be rid of.’  Then he took the terrible decision, and took his own life.  His death remains a widening black mark on the Trinamul Congress’s anti-people foray of the worst kind.

Mamata must realise that if the impasse continues, and the factory entrepreneur does stick to his resolve to have the small car roll out from Panthnagar instead of Singur, if the future of the factory itself is made to confront a menacingly large question mark, then Sushen Santra’s death may well be followed by the death of others in the areas like Joymollah, Ratanpur, Singherbheri.

In the meanwhile a solicitous and sympathetique governor, after having quit his earlier programme of two hours of saving electricity -- as the summer becomes muggy and stickily warm – has declared himself agreeable to Mamatadidi’s proposal of acting as the ‘facilitator and not the negotiator,’ as he was careful to explain to the media glare now pouring on him, to ‘solve the Singur problem.’

INTERNECINE SQUABBLING

The solution is, the governor must have realised by now, three sessions and four days later, far to seek, as different voices are heard from the Trinamulis, the Naxalites, the SUCI, and the various fractions of the ‘save farmland committee’s disparate and squabbling leadership.  The state government is as always quite open to suggestions from the opposition, provided such proposals materialise at all beyond the puerile clinging to the cry for ‘return the land -- and let the entrepreneur go away, what we care if he does.’

Elsewhere, throughout the state, a vast people’s movement led by the Bengal unit of the CPI (M) and the Left Front has started to unwind like a coiled spring with mammoth participation by every cross section of the people including technologists, scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers, IT professionals (three of the latter when they had gone to seek a brief interview with the didi, had the experience of being verbally abused in unprintable words, called Communist spies, and shoved away), students-youth-women, in cities and towns, in villages and hamlets—every day -- every morning, afternoon, and evening.

A different form of campaign, too, is going on via the internet and the cell phone network.  Dozens of websites with the theme ‘we want industrialisation,’ have been launched and they are drawing thousands of ‘hits’ every day.

PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT STATEWIDE

The irate people whose ranks cut cross political affiliations, leanings, sympathies, obsessions, have but a single slogan: ‘we want industrialisation in Bengal and we want the Singur factory to be made viable again.’  The entire state has witnessed large whiteboards come up at street crossings where people are putting on their signatures calling for industrialisation, and prevailing upon Mamata Banerjee and her underlings to end the anti-people sit-in.  Marches are taken out with lighted candles.  Artistes and performers have put on shows in solidarity with the people’s movement.

The people’s movement in Bengal for industrialisation based on an augmented agrarian foundation shall go on -- and the people shall put in the final word, let no one doubt this—to their peril.

[Via Anivar Aravaind]

অজয় দাশগুপ্ত

I can only repeat what Jawaharlal Nehru once said about the Communist Party of India (before it split into the pro-Russia and pro-China parties) and the strikes and violence resorted to by it to paralyze the country- "[The Indian Communist Party is] the most stupid party among the Communist parties of the world."

Malayalam newspapers are screaming with headlines today about Chief Minister V. S. Achuthanandan’s challenge to the official leadership of the CPI (M) in the State. It is indeed a challenge; but it would be naïve to believe that the Chief Minister would fight the official leadership now.

The challenge is just a means for the ensnared Chief Minister to show that he is kicking. He has neither the strength nor the will to fight the party. Even if he gathers the will, support in the party is lacking.

But to continue in his post, the Chief Minister has to show that he has some grit. For that, he has to fall back on to narration of his electoral victory and Munnar Mission.

After failure to carry on with almost all his missions professed as Opposition Leader, he has little justification before the people to continue in his post. He lacks administrative experience and ability to lead his Council of Ministers. However, what his opponents lack is the moral force to oust him. So, Kerala will neither have an all out moral fight against the mafias or the amoral pursuit of development at any cost.

CPIM as a party is in jiffy, both in central and state. In an important time, when all world is looking towards India to lead the way, CPIM - the party of poor and agrarians - is confused to the core. It cant ignore the new developments in the world and at the same time cant ignore the mass' who votes for them in the every election.

A fraction of CPIM is very much in support of liberalisation and in bringing foreign investment into the state, while the other fraction is still adamant with their strict communist ideology

People in the state are confused as well. CPIM always say mouthfull against United States of America, liberalisation, imperalism, rich and poor divergence........and suddently, after a state committee they say all that are needed in the new world.

Recently, CPIM threw out Somnath Chatterjee who went againt polit bureau's decision to step down as lok sabha speaker. The kerala chief minister, who still enjoys major support of the mass' can also be treated harshly just like punishment thrown out to Somnath Chatterjee. Unlike Somnath, VS Achuthanandan is a very powerful leader and people of kerala love him more than any in the CPIM party or Congress party in the state for that matter.

so the question is will communism as we know today survive another decade ?

Basu said that the Bengal CPI(M) had been witness for some time now and with alarm to the manner in which the GJM leadership was depriving the people of the Darjeeling hill areas of one after another democratic right.  An ambience of terror has been created that had left the hill people gasping in fear.

The GJM has issued 'orders' that unless the people participated in its 'programmes,' they would be the target of attacks, harassments, and even social boycott.  The Darjeeling CPI(M) office was once again attacked on August 4, ransacked, and but for the brave resistance offered by the Party members who were inside, would have been occupied by force.  

A brief attempt was even made to fly a GJM flag from the top of the CPI(M) office - the challenge was foiled.  The Bengal CPI(M) has strongly condemned this attack and the ill-gotten attempt to forcibly occupy the office of the CPI(M) in Darjeeling town - and elsewhere in the hills.

“The GJM is also found engaged in the dangerous game of indulging itself in acts of provocation to try to create segregation and then a rift between the hill people and the plains people. This is an extremely condemnable, heinous act, and all such attempts at disruption of the people's unity should be opposed by every democratic-minded people. This sort of destructive activity will serve to complicate matters at the time when there was a process started for a tripartite meeting between the central government, the state government and the GJM up in Delhi”, the statement noted.

The Bengal CPI(M) has called for peace, amity, and people-to-people friendship in both the hill and the plains areas and has called upon the people at large to strengthen democracy and democratic norms everywhere in the district. (People's democracy)

In fact, if the term terrorist was used as a term to refer those who disrupts the development of the state or a country then Mr. VS Achuthanandan is a born extremist/terrorist and did lot of extremist/terrorist activities through out his life. But, then how can CPIM call him a extremist/terrorist ? If any party is disrupting the development of kerala, it is CPIM. They did that many times in the past and I am sure they will do that many more times in the future.  There were many comical examples of that. The fact that CPIM was against the use of computers was a pathetic truth. Even Boban-&-Molly satire will not be good enough to exploit that. In the recent past, CPIM opposed to the use of tractors ! wow, what a party to lead the state in the 21st Century.

So CPIM did nothing good for the state ?  Yes, they did. If i have to say good things about CPIM, i wont be finishing it today or atleast I will have to take some rest after some time. Anyway, one thing is sure - Communism is not good tool to govern a democratic country. They are good at conducting rallies and very good at conducting Hartals and protests and very very good at stalling the development of a section of people just for the betterment and livelihood of their comrades and their ideas.

PB: Is there any difference between the terms terrorist and extremist ?  I think they are both the same thing. Any different views ?

In the first part of his political life, Harkishan Singh Surjeet was influenced by many converging strands of radical politics. First, the initial radicalism of the Akali Party, of which his father was a Jalandhar district organiser and leader, interacting with the Congress and Khilafat movements. Secondly, the uncompromising revolutionary spirit of Bhagat Singh, the shining hero of his youth. Thirdly, the excitement and twists and turns of the freedom struggle, as it marc hed towards independence, combined with the working people's cause.

In his early teens, Harkishan was initiated into anti-colonial activity by his father, Harnam Singh Basi, and his more radical political associates. He joined Bhagat Singh's Naujawan Bharat Sabha, participated in the Congress movement, and enrolled in the Congress Socialist Party in 1935. In 1934, he made a lifelong commitment by becoming a member of the illegal Communist Party. He subsequently made a name for himself as a kisan sabha organiser and leader. During Partition, he worked strenuously for communal harmony.

As Mr. Surjeet recalled to an interviewer in 1997, his grandfather was a well-to-do peasant who had worked in Australia for several years and returned with his savings. The boy's father, who served in the army, embraced the freedom movement at the end of the First World War; for this, he was sent away from home and virtually disinherited but was eventually given two acres by his father. He immersed himself in politics and became the head of the Akali Party's Jalandhar district organisation. Harkishan's illiterate mother, who came from a non-Sikh family, was an embodiment of fortitude and a source of immense strength to the family. In 1929, her husband left for the United States to make his fortune but his plans failed and he was unable to send any remittance home for five years. (He worked for a while as a bus-driver in Panama.) As a consequence of all this, the family suffered great economic hardships during Harkishan's early years.

In 1930, the 14-year-old was approached at home by leaders of the illegal Workers and Peasants Party in Punjab and asked to organise a meeting in the village, which he did effectively. The next day, the police were waiting for him at school. Although the headmaster, who knew the family, was sympathetic and wanted to protect him by getting him to apologise, he could not avoid expelling the rebellious schoolboy - who, saying he had "not committed any sin," refused to apologise. There was no other school in the vicinity and, after a great deal of effort, well-wishers had Harkishan admitted to the Khalsa School in Jalandhar town. His mother had to work extremely hard to make the ten rupees a month (Rs. 4 each for fee and food, and Rs. 2 for milk) available for his residential schooling.

Daredevil act

In 1932, 16-year-old Harkishan came into political prominence on a larger stage through a daredevil act. He had just completed the written part of his matriculation examination and was awaiting his science practicals. The district Congress committee had announced that it would hoist the Tricolour and bring down the Union Jack atop the Hoshiarpur district court building. But after the district authorities threatened to clamp down on such seditious action and deployed the army, the plan was called off. Harkishan, who went to Hoshiarpur to participate in the event, remonstrated with the Congress office secretary to the effect that giving up on the plan was "an insult to the nation," whereupon he was challenged to do it himself.

Braving army personnel who had orders to shoot, the schoolboy climbed up the stairs of the Hoshiarpur district court building, brought down the British flag, and hoisted the national tricolour. Narrowly escaping death and immediately jailed and tried, he mocked British rule by giving his name to the magistrate as "London Tore Singh" ("one who breaks London"). Sentenced to one year's rigorous imprisonment, he asked the court, "Only one year?' and had his jail sentence enhanced to four years. "Only four years?" he enquired of the magistrate who responded that, under this particular section of the law, he could not give him a longer jail term.

In Lahore's Borstal Jail, Mr. Surjeet was treated roughly. His legs were chained when he was taken from one place to another. Many decades later, he recalled to an interviewer that a letter from his father asking him not to backtrack from the path he had chosen, and his illiterate Hindu mother's encouragement, fortified him in his political resolve and shaped his future course. At the same time, he added, "the immense economic difficulties that we had to face had their impact and helped me to identify with the working class ideology and social revolution. I feel proud of what I did on that day."

Text Courtesy: The Hindu, August 2, 2008

The seven and a half decades-long political life of Harkishan Singh Surjeet began with his staunch fight against British colonial rule. He played a pioneering role in developing the peasant movement and the Communist Party in Punjab before emerging as a national leader of the Communist Party of India and the All India Kisan Sabha. It culminated with his leading role in the CPI(M) for an eventful four decades.

Surjeet began his revolutionary career influenced by the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh. He hoisted the tricolour in March 1932 at the district court in Hoshiarpur at the age of 16. He was arrested and sent to a reformatory school for juvenile offenders. He came in touch with the early Communist pioneers in Punjab after his release. He joined the Communist Party in 1934 and became a member of the Congress Socialist Party in 1935. He was elected as the secretary of the Punjab State Kisan Sabha in 1938. The same year, he was externed from Punjab and went to Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh where he started a monthly paper, `Chingari¢. He went underground after the outbreak of the second world war and was arrested in 1940. He was imprisoned in the notorious Lahore Red Fort where he was kept for three months in solitary confinement in terrible conditions. Later he was shifted to Deoli detention camp where he remained till 1944. During the partition, he tirelessly worked for communal harmony in violence-torn Punjab.

In common with the pioneering Communist leaders, Surjeet displayed amply the capacity to sacrifice and undergo difficulties. He spent ten years in jail, of which eight were in the pre-independence period; he also spent eight years underground.

Surjeet was elected to the Central Committee and Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India at the Third Congress of the Party in January 1954. He continued in the leadership of the CPI till the split in 1964. Surjeet was one of the leaders who fought against revisionism and constituted the core of the leadership who went on to form the CPI(M). His deep experience in developing the peasant movement and building the Party led him to shun Left sectarian positions whenever such deviations arose in the Communist movement.

He had a life-long association with the peasant movement. He led the anti-betterment levy struggle of the farmers in Punjab in 1959. He served as the President and General Secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha for a long period.

Surjeet was elected to the Central Committee and Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) at the Seventh Congress in 1964 and he continued in these positions till the recently-held Nineteenth Congress of the Party. In these four decades, Harkishan Singh Surjeet made a key contribution to the Party¢s programmatic and tactical policies. He was a master tactician who could translate the Party¢s political line into practice, implementing it with great skill and innovation.

His was a life-long fight against communalism. He was one of the first leaders who recognized the threat posed by the rise of the communal forces to the secular principle of the Indian State . He played a crucial role in 1989, 1996 and 2004 in creating the political formations and the setting up of governments which excluded the communal forces.

Surjeet played a remarkable role in the defence of national unity and in formulating policies to counter the threat from the divisive forces. His firm stance and leadership in fighting against Khalistani terrorism in Punjab and the sacrifice made by over 200 Communists in fighting extremism constitutes a glorious chapter. From the late fifties, Surjeet was involved in tackling the problems of Jammu & Kashmir. He played a role in the evolution of the Assam Accord in the eighties. Imbued with deep anti-imperialism and the values of the nationalist movement, Surjeet looked at all issues of national unity from a democratic and secular standpoint.

In the CPI(M), Surjeet headed the international department for three decades. He developed relations with all the communist and progressive parties around the world. Under his leadership, the CPI(M) expressed firm solidarity with anti-imperialist struggles and national liberation movements. He made a notable contribution to the solidarity activities during the Vietnam liberation struggle, the Palestinian movement and the Cuba solidarity campaign.

Surjeet played an important role in making the CPI(M) the largest contingent of the Left movement in the country. Surjeet absorbed Marxism-Leninism by sheer dent of self-study and learning from experience. He always stressed the fundamental importance of critically examining the Party¢s ideological and political positions on the basis of Marxism. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the nineteen nineties, he guided the Party in arriving at correct positions learning from the experience of the past.

He authored the books Land Reforms in India , Happenings in Punjab and the Outline History of the Communist Party. He wrote innumerable pamphlets on current political issues.

As General Secretary of the CPI(M), he became the most authoritative spokesman for the Left and democratic forces in the country. He worked tirelessly for the defence of democratic and secular values and to see that India maintained its non-aligned and independent foreign policy. His views were sought and his advice heard with respect in political circles.

In his death, the Party has lost an outstanding leader and the country an authoritative representative of the Left and secular tradition.

The entire Party will cherish and uphold the ideology and principles for which Harkishan Singh Surjeet dedicated his life. The Polit Bureau pays respectful homage to this outstanding Communist and beloved leader. It conveys its heartfelt condolences to his wife Pritam Kaur, sons, daughter, grandchildren and other family members.

Much has been said for & against the Indo-USA peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement. Without weighing in on the pros & cons here, one point may safely be made here for careful reflection. Opponents have sighted Hyde Act provisions to highlight the dangers for India. Proponents have maintained that ‘123 agreement’ is a standalone understanding & India has nothing to do with US legislation. So here we find contentious positions on interpreting the agreement & its context. Today Pakistan feels like an aggrieved party. Tomorrow, 123 agreement comes into force & an occasion arises for India to explode a nuclear device. Something India is entitled to do, the proponents hold, as a possessor of advance nuclear technology (ANT).According to proponents the reference to ANT is a tacit admission by USA, and may be by implication the whole world, that India is a Nuclear Weapons State (NSW) – a term unequivocally referring to 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council. A tacit agreement is a grey area, anyone would readily admit. If upon such nuclear test the US administration were to hold India in breach of 123 agreement, IAEA safeguards agreement & the understanding with nuclear suppliers group (NSG), whose interpretation is likely to carry the day? India’s or USA’s? Who else will or can come to India’s aid in such a situation? If past is any guide to future behaviour, then the successive US administrations that have been addicted to war do not inspire any confidence. Nor do the capitulation of rest of the world including that of India.

While on the Pakistan’s letter to IAEA, Indian express does not leave a single opportunity to malign the opponents of the deal using cleverly poisoned news headlines as a weapon of first resort. Sample this : ‘At IAEA, Karat, Advani have an unusual ally: Islamabad...’ It is a stealth missile that has multiple targets. Karat, Advani are made out to have colluded with Pakistan, almost accusing them of treason. Mentioning them together also causes discomfiture to their respective mass constituencies & also portrays them as rank opportunists who have come together forgetting their deep ideological differences only to oppose Congress.

I end with a very educative graphic from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute on merchants of death.

While 5 leading merchants account for 79% of world large conventional weapons export, USA & Russia account for more than 55%. Some curious facts emerge worth mentioning concerning imports of large weapons by tiny countries sometimes with no apparent danger of imminent conflict.
1. Greece imports 8%, 14% & 12% of US, German & French exports constituting almost 4% of global exports of large weapons.
2. Greece has been in conflict only with Turkey over Cyprus of late. Yet they both are Germany’s largest customers.
3. Similarly UAE & Israel at 5% & 3% imports of total world exports buy significant quantities. Israel gets & creates regular opportunities to test weapons & deplete its stocks in conflicts with Palestine & Lebanon. UAE, who has not had a known conflict, probably was made to buy so large quantities for use of US troops in Iraq, and now possibly Iran.
4. Russia, who is perceived as great friend of India, does doubly brisk business with China, a country seen as a formidable competitor & an intractable foe.

Merchants always make profits, preying even on death & destruction, though in the name of freedom & liberty.

A few weeks back, the GJM issued fatwa on the vehicle owners that their vehicles would have to change the number plate. Instead of West Bengal number they had to write Gorkhaland (GL). On Sunday (July 27), at the commemoration meeting of Pramila Sharma, GJM, under the leadership of Bimal Gurung announced that henceforth, the hills would be administered under Home Rule. The rules will be in tradition to the Home Rule League that was formed during British rule in India. As the first step towards total autonomy, the GJM has taken over the charge of Gorkha Ranga Mancha in Darjeeling and bestowed the responsibility of the same to Biddwajjan Committee formed by the intellectuals of the hills.

Home Rule League was basically a political party that campaigned for self-government for Ireland in 1873. In India, two nationalists Bal Gangadhar Tilak in Pune and Annie Besant in Madras (now Chennai) introduced the same movement during First World War. The All India Home Rule League (AIHRL) was a national political organisation founded in 1916, to lead the national demand for self-government and to obtain the status of a dominion within the British Empire as enjoyed by Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Newfoundland at the time. The movement was for political liberation from the British regime. GJM, however, stepped further ahead.

They have decided to go against the Constitution of the country and announced that their first step would be to take over the public offices, which are lying vacant and create a pressure on the state and the Centre to grab the status of Gorkhaland. Gurung announced a total non-cooperation with the state government. A fresh fatwa has been imposed that all the shops in Darjeeling will have to wipe out the words ‘West Bengal’ from their signboards and change the same to ’Gorkhaland’. Taxes are also being collected from the businessmen from the plains who have settled in hills.

Two days back they had set fire to some of the houses of Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) leaders, after one of their comrade Pramila Sharma died of bullet injury. They alleged that one GNLF leader had fired upon them when they were demonstrating on the road. The aftermath was more serious. They had created a situation that has led the GNLF leader Subhas Ghising to leave the hills with all family members and take shelter in Siliguri. The GNLF MLA Shanta Rai had to follow the same path to save herself and her family.
 
Gurung said that they have the right to self-defence and for that they have no alternative, but to adopt Home Rule policy.

The wonder is that the state government is yet to announce any step against this political autocracy in Darjeeling even after the Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPI - M) leaders in the hills alleged that they are under sever threat from GJM. GNLF leaders have also alleged that the recent violence in the hills happened in front of the police, who were mute spectators.

The only man who is still maintaining his cool is Subhas Ghising who can say, “Darjeeling was mine, it is still mine and it will remain mine. I also initiated a movement for Gorkhaland. I want to see, what GJM can do finally.”

(Excerpts from the speech delivered by CPI(M) deputy leader in Lok Sabha Mohd Salim while participating in the discussion on confidence motion on July 21, 2008)

THE question is whether the prime minister has come to this house to ask this august house to express trust on him or to get the support for the betrayal that he did to the parties who have extended him support for the last four years and two months.

The question is not of trust but betrayal of trust. And further it is a question of the trust worthiness. I thank the prime minister and the UPA chairperson Mrs Sonia Gandhi for thanking the Left for supporting the UPA government for the last four and a half years and for the role Surjeet and Jyoti Basu played in its creation. The prime minister while going to Japan said Leftists are patriots. We did not support them for this certificate after four and a half years. We supported them on the basis of the Common Minimum Programme. From the last four years our leadership both inside and outside parliament has been advising the UPA not to derail from the path of the Common Minimum Programme. This programme was drafted by the Congress and the other supporting parties of the UPA and we endorsed it. I have talked of betrayal because nuclear deal, IAEA safeguard agreement, strategic relations with the US, defence agreement and toeing the US line in our foreign policy has not been mentioned in any of the clauses of the Common Minimum Programme. We had given you a debit card and you as a banker do know that you cannot overdraw on it. We continuously warned you that you are overdrawing but president Bush gave you permission to overdraw. The Common Minimum Programme was not negotiated with president Bush. The government came into existence in May 2004 and the CMP was drawn up with the Left. We thank the members of the UPA for this. Bu the Common Minimum Programme was not for partnership with US.

Those who are co-passengers in a boat do ask the boatman whether he will abandon them midstream. The communal elements of the BJP-RSS coalition managed a government for six years in the country but in the 2004 election that government was defeated. But this was not a mandate for the Congress. Otherwise they would have given you a two-third majority.

While people of India did not want NDA, they also did not want a replacement following the same policies. The Congress along with all the parties of the UPA  DMK, RJD, LJP and others  does not have a majority on its own. We decided to support from the outside on the basis of the Common Minimum Programme. Knowing fully well that we have serious disagreement with Congress on several economic polices which increases disparity among the rich and poor, this agreement on the CMP with Congress was made because Congress has history from Gandhi to Nehru to Rajiv Gandhi, who talked of disarmament and independent foreign policy.

I know there is a section in the Congress which does not like its own history. A lot of people thought that the disagreement between the Left and UPA will come on economic policy  whether on disinvestment, or price rise. We had hoped that it will not come on issues of foreign policy because it is our common heritage. Since the year 1857, the 150th anniversary we have just celebrated, our countrymen have fought for freedom in which workers, peasants all have played a role rising above the religious and caste divisions. The Congress played a role in creating an independent nation which will play a role in the comity of nations. On the issue of non-alignment, I will quote the speeches of Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi. In Harare in 1986, Ragiv Gandhi as prime minister had said that the history of our national movement enjoins upon us that we do not join any camp. Today we are formulating our foreign policy on the basis of enlightened national interest. We do not understand what this enlightenment is. Why are we being forced to see our self interest in the light of being thrown from Washington?

The prime minister has said that he is committed to the welfare of 112 crore people of our country. The Common Minimum Programme which was drafted for the welfare of our people with the involvement of Sharad Pawar, Karunanidhi and Lalu Yadav and whose architects were Jyoti Basu and Harkishan Singh Surjeet had laid down six basic principles of governance.

It says, To preserve, protect and promote social harmony and to enforce the law without fear or favour to deal with all obscurantist and fundamentalist elements who seek to distrust social amity and peace.This was to combat religions and caste divisions like the ones that are sought to be created around Amarnath pilgrimage or Gujarat carnage.

To ensure that the economy grows at least seven to eight per cent per year in a sustained manner over a decade¦..and more and more and in a manner that generates employment¦..so that each family is assured of safe and viable livelihood. This gives a lie to the charge that we do not want growth

To ensure the welfare and well-being of farmers, farm labour sand workers..particularly those in the unorganised sector and assure a secure future for their families in every respect.

To fully empower women politically, educationally, economically and legally.

To provide for full equality of opportunity particularly in education and employment for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, OBCs and religious minorities.

To unleash the creative energies of our entrepreneurs, businessmen, scientists, engineers and all other professions and productive forces of society.In all we have no objection and have put no obstruction.

We have supported this government for the last four years on the basis of these six principles. The crisis because of which inflation is touching 12 per cent now is not being tackled because the government is busy with the 123 agreement.

So, the government was installed, supported on the basis of a common programme. The prime minister is dragging you to an uncommon programme. The government was there for four years plus on the basis of a minimum programme. The prime minister is taking you to a maximum programme. I am not bound by that; the CPI(M) is not bound by that; the Left is not bound by that; the House is not bound by that and the nation is not bound by that.

We are being accused of being unfaithful, we want to know how faithful are you for the commitment to common minimum programme. We are being advised to give up the common minimum programme and talk of the nuclear deal. Since July 2005, the majority in both houses of parliament has not been in favour of the deal.

We were then assured that all the apprehensions in relation to the deal will be sorted out. We said that a consensus should be created, the foreign policy with its origins in the national movement should not be abandoned.

As far as price rise is concerned, we had suggested that forward trading should be stopped. They kept saying they have constituted a committee and will act on its recommendations; they constituted an interministerial committee but did nothing.

The prime minister said while in flight for Japan We will go soon to IAEA. While on November 16, Pranab Mukherjee had said The government will proceed with the talks and the outcome will be presented to the committee for its consideration before it finalises its findings. Till now, the outcome of the talks, that is, the safeguard agreement negotiated with the IAEA secretariat had not been made available to the committee.

When we were waiting for the government response, when different ministers were speaking in different voices, Pranab Mukherjee wrote to us The next meeting of the UPA-Left Committee on Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation will be held on 10 July, 2008 at 1600 hours at 13, Talkatora Road.

The government was acting in a totally haphazard manner. When we asked for the documents before finalising the recommendations of the committee we were told this is classified, technical and top secret. We wanted to know what are the implications of the Hyde Act, what is the safeguard agreement, what about the energy security, what will be cost of nuclear power?

It is not a matter of mere electoral promises, we have to know the cost of per unit of energy, what about fuel supply; what are the terms of discontinuation. It is like jumping from a plane with a parachute which has a hole.

First it was said than the nuclear deal is a matter of international prestige because the prime minister is committed to president Bush so it should be accepted. Later it was said that the deal is in the interest of the country. Now the deal is being finalised on the basis of political situation in different states, disbursement of office, ministerial positions and appointment of CBI director. And all this is being done in the name of enlightened self interest. Sorry, the Left has refused to buy this theory. The whole country is witnessing in whose interest the deal is being done.

Why is the whole thing shrouded in secrecy? Although it was being examined in American Senate, there was a gag order for Indian parliament. When it was being discussed it was said, The administration unwillingness to make their answers more widely available suggests they have something to hide from either US or Indian legislators said Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association. We are the legislators. Even though the answers are not classified, because officials fear that public disclosure would torpedo the deal, that is why it is kept as secret.

Several questions were being raised there but Indian parliament is being kept in dark. Over there the situation was follows. We have handled answers to sensitive questions in an appropriate way that responded to congressional concerns. Lynne Weil, a spokeswoman for the Committee said the State Department provided a lot of information, but the Committee has agreed not to disclose the answers because some data might be concerned diplomatically sensitive.

They have not told us till now and want us to put signatures on it. BJP does want to have strategic relations with the US that is being talked about. We have differences with them. The baby you are going to deliver was actually conceived by them (BJP). Utilising the atmosphere generated by the so-called war on terror the BJP had said that there is an opportunity to get into a long term alliance with the US. All those who were with the BJP during the NDA regime and have now left them seem to have brought their policies to the UPA. It you want to implement the NDA policies, then what is the need for our support.

We do not want communalism in the country. And we think that by succumbing to imperialist pressures, we cannot fight communalism. This applies to both of them. Therefore a third way has to be found which will combat communalism as well as imperialist conspiracies and the wrong policies. The UPA thought that it was our compulsion to keep supporting them to thwart BJP irrespective of the mounting problems of the people and huge inflation. You have not undertaken any serious measures to fight communalism. In the wake of the demolition of Babri Masjid, the Liberhan Commission was constituted which has been given extension 46 times. The Home minister Shivraj Patil had in response to my question in this house had said last time that that was the last extension, but yet another extension has been granted. The public opinion in the country wanted you to take action against the Modi government, but you did not take a single step. You are using the CBI for political gains. Different commissions, the victims of the riots and even the Supreme Court wanted you take some steps against the Modi government but you have not moved. In these circumstances you cannot combat communalism in Punjab, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal. The Sri Krishna Commission report which enquired into the Bombay riots of 1992-93 has not been acted upon despite there being a NCP-Congress government. You cannot combat communalism by soft communalism. You have to combat communalism ideologically. But when we talk of ideology, a bogey of Leftists being outdated is raised. The role of ideology is totally negated and politics of bargaining is being practiced. With bargaining, communalism cannot be fought. In several states, MLAs are bought and unstable governments are formed which do not have much utility.

I want to assert that the claim that the nuclear deal is to obtain electricity is false. Several scientists of the country including the former director of Bhabha Atomic Research Institute and former chairman of Atomic Energy Commission who had made a great contribution in making us self reliant in the matter of nuclear energy are urging this government and the prime minister not to proceed with this deal.  

When the country is being bound for forty years, the deal can be discussed at least for forty hours. The country should know what is in the deal. Nuclear scientists including P K Iyengar, A Gopalakrishnan, and A N Prasad