I’m sorry if I’ve become a bit of a bore on the subject of the Left. And apologies for the second successive column on the same subject. But at a time when the very survival of the government of India seems at stake because of the attitude of the Communist parties, it is hard to write about anything else.
This week, I have no cohesive thesis to offer — just a few random thoughts.
It is difficult to think of a single time when the media have been so united in their condemnation of a political party as we are today. The last time that nearly every major columnist or editorial writer agreed on something was during the Gujarat riots when we all condemned Narendra Modi.
If you look at the HT’s roster of columnists, there is a rare unanimity in their disapproval of the behaviour of the Left. No matter who it is — AG Noorani, Rajdeep Sardesai, Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Barkha Dutt, Prem Shankar Jha or Sagarika Ghose — their views are roughly the same. The only HT columnist of consequence who hasn’t attacked the Left yet is Sitaram Yechury and he’s hardly likely to call Prakash Karat names in print.
And yet, none of this seems to have made the slightest difference to the Left’s stance. Nor have the many opinion polls that demonstrate widespread support for the Prime Minister influenced the CPM’s position.
During the Gujarat riots — when we were all agreed on Narendra Modi’s responsibility for the massacres — the BJP was visibly shaken by the condemnation. Modi himself tried hard to give us his side of the story.
But the Left doesn’t care. Karat and his colleagues must be the most self-assured men and women in Indian politics, so sure that they are right and we are all wrong that their guiding principle remains pure stubbornness.'If we had signed a similar deal with some other country, my guess is that the Left would have found it easier to accept.'
Whenever the middle class attacks a politician, the usual defensive response from the target is: “But these are not my voters. The masses don’t really agree with the criticisms.”
And to a large extent — no matter how frustrating we might find this position — the politicians are right. We’ve spent so many years attacking Lalu Prasad Yadav but it has made little difference to his hardcore vote bank. Mulayam Singh Yadav would always say that English newspapers did not matter to his voters. And regardless of what we write about Mayawati or Jayalalithaa, their supporters will turn out to vote for them.
The interesting thing about the Left’s response is that it does not follow the predictable “I have mass electoral support” pattern. The men who ignore the middle class criticism are themselves middle class people who are of no electoral consequence.