PRAGOTI

An article by P Sainath.

The Left Front in West Bengal should have been far more responsive to the various criticisms being levelled by the rest of the secular, democratic and progressive sections of society against the various acts of commission and omission on the part of the Left Front Government over the years. Instead of responding to the complaints positively and engaging the critics in a healthy debate, the response most often appear to have been to dismiss the criticisms as unwarranted and motivated. The Left Front, in fact, began to question the very credentials of the critics instead of examining the veracity of the criticisms. Many of the critics on their part chose to gloss over the positive contributions made by the Left Front Government and instead began to overplay the negative aspects of its rule out of proportion. Extreme sectarian attitude on both sides has precipitated the present outcome. Nevertheless, the urgency of building and strengthening the unity of the secular, democratic and progressive sections in this country cannot be over-emphasised.

N.D.Jayaprakash writes. 

In this article,published at MacroScan, Prof.Jayati Ghosh argues that  the struggles over the core issue’ of ‘ land, livelihood, conditions of living and social equality’ need to be strengthened by the left forces to turn the electoral reversal into a stimulus for positive transformation and future growth of the left movement in India

 The following article by Dr Ashok Mitra who requires no introduction makes an indepth analysis of the Lok Sabha  elections. He draws some of the lessons which accordingly should be drawn by the Left parties and particularly the  CPIM.  It was originally published in The Telegraph. Pragoti produces this for its readers.