Under Surjeet's leadership, the Marxists worked with the BJP in propping up the VP Singh Government. In 1996, Surjeet was ready to cobble together another coalition to be led by Jyoti Basu. But he was frustrated by Karat and company

The honour that was bestowed upon Marxist leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet on his death could denote a high watermark in the history of the Communist movement in this country. That the death of the former Marxist party chief has come at a critical time in the CPI(M)'s national politics after it suffered a huge setback in bringing down the UPA Government may be purely coincidental. Nevertheless, the lesson for the Marxists and others at this juncture is no mere coincidence but critical.

The most appropriate comment with regard to the Marxists in the post-Surjeet era has come from Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav. "My only expectation from the Left (leadership) today is that they will take inspiration and learn from the pragmatic politics of comrade Surjeet. All political parties, including the Left, should take inspiration from Surjeet about how to unite on the issues of national interests despite differences among them," Yadav said. The context is the role that Surjeet played in pushing his party, and the Left in general, in opposing the Congress tainted by the Bofors scandal in 1988-89. He then cobbled together coalitions to create workable governments out of the fractured electoral verdicts. Under Surjeet's leadership the Marxists worked with the BJP in propping up the VP Singh Government, a fact his successor Mr Prakash Karat may not like to recall.

In 1996, in the context of yet another fractured electoral verdict, Surjeet was ready to cobble up another coalition led by Jyoti Basu but was frustrated by Karat and company. The net result of that effort was that Surjeet had to accept a stranger named Deve Gowda, with no pretensions to the national leadership, to be the Prime Minister of a non-BJP coalition. The Congress that helped that coalition to remain in power did not take more than 12 months to destabilise it. Yet another nominee took over thereafter with again the Congress playing spoilsport.

The 1998, the BJP-led coalition, however, was destabilised not so much by the Marxists under the leadership of Surjeet but by the mercurial politics of the AIADMK boss Jayalalitha. This cloud on the coalition only proved to be a blessing in disguise for the NDA. In 1999 it came to power with a stronger support base, both in Parliament and outside. As Surjeet advanced in age and younger leaders like Karat and Sitaram Yechuri climbed up the party ladder, the Marxist leadership positioned itself as the BJP's number one enemy. This came to a head in the past four years of the UPA regime. As the party leadership steadily slipped into the hands of Mr Karat, the exclusion of the BJP became the sole purpose of its politics.

How unrealistic was such an approach was proved when the Left began to blackmail Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on several issues including the nuclear deal with the US. Mr Singh himself has described in Parliament the last four years of his tenure as slavery to the Marxist party. It is a matter of speculation now that how Surjeet would have reacted to this reduction of coalition politics to a one-point agenda.

It is possible that the BJP's meteoric rise from the 1984 humiliation, when it had only two members in Lok Sabha to 1998 when it could form a coalition Government at the Centre, might have scared the non-BJP parties into adopting this 'isolate BJP' agenda. However, this argument had one major flaw in it. Several other non-BJP parties in 1999, like the DMK, the TDP, the BDA and the JD(U), did not fall for this agenda. The Congress had virtually been marginalised in UP and Bihar in the 1990s. Therefore, as a consequence, the Left parties, the SP and the Congress rushed to embrace a pro-Islamic stance in order to increase their depleted vote banks.

For the Left this was expected to help push its influence beyond the traditional strongholds of West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala. This was something the Marxists were unable to do for decades despite all their political somersaults; in 1971 in alliance with the Congress, in 1989 and much of the 1990s with the Janata Dal. Mr Karat and Mr Yechuri dreamt of extending Communist influence into other States riding the wave of rising Islamic orthodoxy. They still continue to pursue this strategy.

Though Mulayam Singh Yadav calls on the Communists to keep national interests in mind while formulating their politics, he himself is identified with the worst sort of Islamic orthodoxy and demands for foreign policy of the country to be aligned to perceived Muslim interests. The series of terror strikes over the last fortnight have underlined the danger of Indian political parties aligning themselves with such perceived Muslim interests. The bombings must be seen in the context of the UPA Government's inability to nab even a single kingpin of the terror incidents of the last four years, as well as its hesitation to carry out the execution of the man who participated in the attack on Parliament.

On the other hand we have a Home Minister who will not even utter the world jihadi while referring to the serial bombings. His policemen are under instructions not to tread on the toes of jihadis even if the suspects invariably are all from that group only. Right from the Islamic militant attack on the Indian Institute of Science two years back to the recent bombings, the material evidence trail has invariably led investigators to places like Muslim dominated areas of Nalgonda in Andhra Pradesh. Why did not Mr Karat ask the UPA Government this question all these years when he was in power?

In effect, the competition among the non-BJP parties for endorsing Islamic militancy and extremism provides the most fertile breeding ground for the jihadis to run riot and even challenge the administration by planting dud bombs as a warning. The Communists do not even whisper against the serial bombings, neither does the SP, while the Congress replays the routine blame-the-ISI line. This refusal to name the local support base for the ISI's plans only emboldens the jihadis.

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, August 08, 2008