[Reader-list] Farewell to our Humid Weimar
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
shuddha at sarai.net
Fri Jul 11 16:37:34 IST 2008
Dear All,
I find it sad that all those who live in India are being sent
headlong into a period of turbulence following the unilateral
decision by the so-called Left parties in response to the Indo-US
Nuclear Deal. In all likelihood, if the government of the day fails
to pass the test of numbers on the floor of parliament, India will
head straight for early elections. The likely beneficiary of this
process will be the BJP, and if, going by the extensive coverage that
the Hindu, usually the mainstream media mouthpiece of the so called
Communist Party of India (Marxist) has given to L.K. Advani (the
billowing PM in waiting of the BJP), then, it needs to be read as a
sign of things to come. A covert entente cordiale between the so
called Left and the Right in Indian politics. Or, in other words,
Prakash Karat handing L.K. Advani the prime-ministership on a
platter. A decade or so ago, while Harkrishen Singh Surjeet was
'managing' the Congress on behalf of the CPI(M), a similar covert
entente cordiale between the so called Left and the Congress (which
matured into a full fledged partnership) was as unthinkable, as what
augurs, when the 'Patriots' of the Left and the Right begin dancing
their secret tango.
In this entire episode, everyone has come out in glorious colours,
the Congress with its pathetic kow-towing to US interests under the
stewardship of George Bush, the Left with its myopic Nuclear
patriotism and its abdication of any responsibility towards
developing a programme that is critical of the Indian state's Nuclear
military ambitions, the BJP with its sabre rattling, the Socialists
with their usual cynical opportunism.
And so ends the brief humid Weimar of the Indian Republic. Let us
celebrate its demise by recalling how pallid and banal it has already
become.
I guess we should all now get accustomed to the idea of Narendra
Modi as a possible Union Minister of the Interior in the forthcoming
years.
best
Shuddha
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
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