Left’s standing

For the Left, a party with a modicum of presence in India and also one which shows little promise of growth in the near future, the claim that it, the Left — read CPI(M) — is the principal enemy of the BJP in the country is far-fetched (‘The Wednesday interview: Pinarayi Vijayan’ — “For the BJP, the Left is its principal enemy”, May 30). Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has painted a rosy picture of several policies and programmes of the LDF government, with some of them showing positive signs. But the Achilles heel of the CPI(M) in Kerala is its ‘party-first’ over ‘people-first’ approach.

Ayyasseri Raveendranath,

Aranmula, Kerala

What Mr. Vijayan says is at best applicable to Kerala alone. The BJP is the only party to stand up to the violence unleashed the Left against its political opponents. A couple of years ago, when responding to a question posed by a popular periodical — on “what the party’s biggest contribution has been” — Left leader Prakash Karat, the party’s most suave, sober and sophisticated face, said: “Applying Marxism creatively to Indian conditions, the party’s biggest contribution has been strengthening the movement for democracy, secularism and socialism.” Good textbook rhetoric this is. But how does Marxism manifest itself on the ground, as seen in stark reality in Kerala? Marxism which once swore by humanism, has of late become downright animistic. The Marxists are slowly but surely returning to the dark ages. The “red” district of Kannur sees a political bloodbath every other day. The BJP is the only party which projects some semblance of resistance to the Marxists. The Congress, the Muslim League and others look the other way whenever a “Marxist killing” happens. The CPI(M) unabashedly supported the corrupt Manmohan Singh Government in order to keep the communal BJP out. But the communal forces were nowhere in the CPI(M)’s scanner when it unabashedly backed the corrupt UPA government. The CPI(M)’s secularism, like that of the Congress’s, is just limited to minority protection and appeasement, at least in Kerala. The Marxists have never believed in democracy and constitutional set-ups. Why doesn’t Mr. Vijayan join the “Mahagatbandhan under construction” so that he too can effectively counter the common enemy, the BJP?

C.V. Venugopalan,

Palakkad