The modern thinking Indian

How quickly the mighty can fall ! Lest that sound like gloating, it is not, it is something that some of the more clear-thinking of the Communist crowd in India must be thinking. Just a couple of years back, they were top of the Government of India. If they said 'nay' to a proposal by the Government, the Government would hem and haw and finally withdraw the proposal, and this was something that the Congress Government accepted as a price to pay for keeping their Government alive. However, it was the nuclear deal that provoked the Government to take a firm stand, and this time, they out-bluffed the Communists, and using all their money and negotiation powers, they managed to win the vote of confidence.
And then came elections 2009, with the Congress coming back to power with much higher numbers, and the Communists getting knocked off their top perch, with their number of seats down to 24. The Communist parties are strong contenders only in 2 states, West Bengal and Kerala, and in both of them, they suffered severe reverses.
The situation in West Bengal is right now pretty severe and potentially life-threatening for the Communist parties. West Bengal is a state that the Communists have been holding onto for decades now, and past predicted anti-Communist waves or Mamta waves have not managed to shake the Left citadel. And then the steps by the Communist leadership in West Bengal to shake their anti-development image (something that was affecting the population since industry is the one that provides employment, directly and indirectly); however, the Communist behaved in their own-ham handed manner and screwed up the entire SEZ debate all over the country.
The attitude of the Communist parties when they believe that they are in the right has always been much more arrogant than that of the other parties, and so it was in this entire 'land for industry' political mine-field. Net result ? They did not get the land or the industries, and scared off large chunks of the voting population (not helped by Mamta's fire-brand scare-mongering tactics). Combine that with the Sachar report that showed that the Communist love for minorities has only resulted in West Bengal being one of the least desirable states for minorities in terms of development.
Now, the Left parties are paying for it. Earlier they were losing municipal elections in the affected districts, then in the Lok Sabha elections, they lost a huge chunk of their seats, and now in the latest municipal elections, they lost badly to Mamta. In addition, Mamta's party are returning the usual fire-power of the CPM with their own force tactics, surprising the Left cadre. The Left is also facing the opposition of the Maoists, something that seems very surprising. And, at a time when the Left needs to be united to be facing such threats, the smaller parties such as the CPI, FB, and RSP, are using the current situation to highlight their grievances, and demand a greater say in the decision making of the Left Government.
In Kerala, on the other hand, the problems are more internal. Internal strife and dissidence is more of a problem of the BJP or the Congress, not so of parties such as the CPM. However, the continuing strife between the Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan and the state CPM strongman and state leader, Pinarayi Vijayan, continues and has been badly hurting the party. Vijayan is the ultimate politician, who has total control over the state unit of the CPM, except for the fact that V.S. Achuthanandan is the most popular leader in the party in Kerala, and the party cannot afford to drop him, or continue to subject him to ridicule from the same party (and even from his own ministers).
The problem got far worse when the Governor Kerala, R.S. Gavai, granted permission to the CBI to investigate the charges of corruption against Vijayan. The State Cabinet had decided (over the wishes of Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan) to advice the Governor not to recommend the sanction, and the Governor refused, landing the CPM in a hot case. The CPM cannot afford to have its strongman be accused of multi-crore corruption, and yet cannot also afford to have the spectacle of its own Chief Minister seemingly not being bound by the decision of the state body of the CPM.
In all this, the overall head, Prakash Karat, has lost support. He broke ranks with the Congress over the nuclear deal, something that a number of his own partymen are admitting was a mistake. What does the party do now ? If the current trends continue, the party risks losing its main base of West Bengal.

Labels: Communist, Corruption, CPM, Development, Dissidence, Election, Governance, Lok Sabha, Parliament, Politics

There are several sections of India that are semi-controlled by the Red Army, by the Naxalites. When I mean semi-controlled, it essentially means that they are regions where Naxalites and Maoists can move around without much fear of being encountered by security forces, and where they can in turn strike at state presence such as Government officers and police stations. Lalgarh is one such region, located in Bengal that seems to be in the control of ultra-left forces (need to make the distinction, since West Bengal is actually ruled by a Left / Communist party which is the enemy of the ultra-left forces).
Many states have declared the Maoists as an illegal force, with West Bengal being a notable exception (maybe because it would be hard for a Communist party to justify calling another Communist leaning organization as illegal). However, it really cannot continue to have a condition where a region of the state is a no-go zone for arms of the State. If they let such a situation continue, the CPM sets itself up to be a target of media all over the country, they let a situation fester where the Maoists have time to consolidate and again target other CPM regions, they are under pressure from the Center to take some action, and so on. So, finally, the combined forces of the state police, specialized force called COBRA, and the para-military forces seem to be having success in their operation to the extent that the Maoists leaders are willing to talk peace now (link to article):

Maoist leader Koteswar Rao said on Saturday the West Bengal Government should stop the police operation in Lalgarh and hold talks with the people to find a solution to their problems. "If the Left Front government wants to have discussion with the people of Lalgarh, the operation by the police and security forces against them should end by this afternoon," Rao, a politburo member of the CPI(Maoist), told a TV channel.
Referring to the ongoing joint operation by the state police and the para-military forces, he advised the Left Front government "not to dance to the tune of the Prime Minister or the Union Home Minister".

No matter what the timing of making this security operation a success really is, the fact remains that in their hearts, the governments of most states infested by ultra-left violence know what the basic problems are - not enough welfare, abject poverty and exploitation (especially of tribals), wide-spread corruption among the government apparatus, no real security and law and order, and numerous other reasons that give a lot of support base to the ultra-left forces (most of whom are people with a similar background to these oppressed folks). Governments however do very little to address these concerns and actually provide development support (and in fact accept that there is a huge amount of siphoning of development money through the government apparatus).
As long as Governments are not able to make the necessary development steps and show their success in doing so, they will be unable to stop these Naxalite forces. That would be a real show since these ultra-left forces do not really have a credible plan to increase development, and instead believe in a class struggle that only turns the poorer classes into canon fodder (remember the other struggler, Prabhakaran who killed so many of his fellow Tamils but did nothing concrete to better the lot of his people).

Labels: Communist, Development, Governance, Maoists, Police, Reform, Security, Violence, Welfare