PRAGOTI

Vidya, with due respect to you for being a pro-Left voter, I would like to answer your questions:

)To answer your last question first about the meeting between Com Prakash Karat and Mukesh Ambani, let me quote from 'The Telegraph' dated 10/2/2009:

"Ambani had expressed his desire to meet the CPM leader sometime back but sources said Karat wasn’t able to find a
convenient time for the Reliance Industries boss. Ambani discussed the present financial crisis and his ideas for the
development of the country,” the CPM general secretary told The Telegraph today while outlining the likely political
alignments after the Lok Sabha elections this summer. Bengal didn’t figure in Mukesh Ambani’s “general discussion”
yesterday with Prakash Karat where the main theme was the economic slowdown."

Obviously, Prakash Karat met Mukesh Ambani at the latter's request, not because Karat wanted to meet Ambani. When an industrialist likes to meet a leader of Karat's stature, what is wrong with Karat accepting to meet him? . Exchanging views on issues that affect the nation is part of the pluralism we have adopted in a democratic set-up. Your question is valid, only if the CPI(M) changes its policies to favour the industrialists at the expense of its accepted policy formulations.

2) As for the CPI(M) stitching up alliances with regional parties like the TDP in AP ,AIADMK in TN , it has to be viewed on the basis of CPI(M)’s All-India Political-tactical line of evolving a 3rd Alternative through joint struggle both in and outside the Parliament by rallying all democratic forces against the BJP and the Congress wherever possible. Fighting the Lok sabha poll is part of this political line of the CPI(M).

The CPI(M) does not suffer from any illusions about the class character of the parties like the AIADMK in TamilNadu and the TDP in Andhra Pradesh. They are not Left parties in the sense that they stand for pro-worker or pro-peasant policies all the time. When they come to power, they would certainly be not completely pro-people or pro-working class. For example, The CPI(M) did not support AIADMK's anti-workers stance .It was Com T K Rangarajan, CPI(M)'s Central Committee member who went to the Supreme Court to challenge the en masse dismissal of the government employees, when they went on strike during the Jayalalitha rule. The CPI(M) along with other parties rallied the forces against the anti-people policies of her govt. Similarly, in AP, the Left including the CPI(M) waged a grim battle against the pro-MNC policies of Chandrababu Naidu. The result was that these parties were rejected by the people in the subsequent elections. It is also a fact that these parties have severed their ties with the BJP whose class character is far worse than the parties like the AIADMK/TDP. They must have learnt some lessons, if not fully. The CPI(M) is well aware of the vacillation and contradictions of these parties like the AIADMK, TDP ,Jaanata Dal(S) and their class limitations . But the party can not wage a lone battle against the main bourgeoise parties except in states of WB, Kerala and Tripura. It has to seek allies wherever possible to isolate the Communal forces of which the BJP is the main kingpin and defeat the Congress-led UPA. In short, since the political struggle by the CPI(M) is broad-based, it has to be pragmatic and realistic ,taking into consideration of the complex political,economic and social conditions that obtain in India at present, not a sectarian one as you suggestively question.

R Maran