When The Telegraph invites CPI(M) to be moderate, it is time to beware
The Telegraph has an editorial in its edition of 15 May. It points to the coalition government between the Tory Party and the Liberal-Democrats in Britain, and contrasts this with the attitude of the left in India. The left is evidently too unbending, too stuck in its old ideas, and does not recognize the need to give up pigheadedness in the greater national interest. The point is made with reference to the first UPA. As a revolutionary Marxist, my criticism is normally in the opposite direction. The Left, i.e., the parliamentary cretinist left, yielded far too much. It argued that there was a need to fight fascism, i.e., the BJP. From this it concluded that there was a need to support a Congress-led government at the centre, even though that government was following an aggressively neo-liberal policy. (For details, any interested reader can look up the article written at that time by Soma Marik and myself). It allowed the government to push forward with its neo-liberal agenda, with...