[Reader-list] Farewell to our Humid Weimar

[Shivam Vij शिवम् विज्]

Dear Shuddha,

When in a post on the Hyde Act and the 123 agreement a few days ago
you had predicted that the Left and the BJP would come closer, I had
felt, to be honest, that that is coming from someone's imagination who
hates the Indian Left and the Right in equal measure. Apart from the
Advani interview on the Hindu, the report below, by Navika Kumar on
Times Now yesterday, leaves no doubt about an entente cordiale. So
much for the endless, banal explanations about how
we're-supporting-the-Congress-to-keep-BJP-out.

best
shivam


 Left-BJP in talks to corner govt

7/10/2008 4:46:24 PM
http://timesnow.tv/Newsdtls.aspx?NewsID=11306

After the Left parties withdrew support on Tuesday (July 8) from the
Centre following the UPA government's stand on the Indo-US Nuclear
deal issue after PM Manmohan Singh went ahead to the IAEA with the
safeguards agreement, it is learnt that the Left has now touched base
with the BJP through interlocutors to discuss floor coordination
strategy in a bid to oppose the Indo-US nuke deal.

Sources have told TIMES NOW that the Left has established contact with
the BJP, through interlocutors, who are neither part of the National
Democratic Alliance (NDA) or the Left.

The focus of the discussion is likely to be on the floor coordination
strategy that the Left and the NDA could adopt, once the government
moves for a trust vote.

Alternately, in case the government does not seek the confidence vote,
the focus will be on the party that would move the 'no confidence
motion', the BJP, Left or a third non-alligned party.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister in a press conference announced
that the government will go ahead with the nuclear deal only after
Parliament approval. However, the draft for the India-specific
safeguards agreement was sent to the IAEA last night (Wednesday, July
9).

Yesterday (July 9), the leaders of the four Left parties submitted a
list of 60 MPs and a joint letter signed by leaders of -- CPM, CPI,
RSP and Forward Block to the President Pratibha Patil -- to seek a
vote confidence in the Lok Sabha immediately.

On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 4:37 PM, Shuddhabrata Sengupta
<shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:
> 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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