Brinda Karat defends Communists with aplomb, points at rich-poor gap as big worry

Senior CPI(M) politburo member Brinda Karat zeroed in on the "growing gap" between the rich and the poor "at the base of the pyramid as the single major issue of concern." She also saw the "nexus" involving a section of politicians, bureaucracy and the big business and their "powerful ways of subverting the system destabilizing India" as a big worry.

Senior CPI(M) politburo member Brinda Karat zeroed in on the "growing gap" between the rich and the poor "at the base of the pyramid as the single major issue of concern." She also saw the "nexus" involving a section of politicians, bureaucracy and the big business and their "powerful ways of subverting the system destabilizing India" as a big worry.

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Speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, Karat responded spiritedly to the charge that the Communists had not actively fought for India’s independence and kept mum during the Chinese aggression of 1962 and played a spoiler for the Indo-US civilian nuke deal. She was responding to a questioner at the HT Summit, who asked why the Left put spoke in the nation’s wheels of progress.

"There are various interpretations (to events) that are not based on facts..I reject the charge that the Communists were not patriotic.. If there is any patriotic party in the country, it is the Communist party. If anyone fought hard and went to jails for India’s independence, it was the Communists. As for the 1962 war, we were clear that you have a power (meaning America) that wanted to promote enemity between neighbours and thwarted hindi-chini bhai bhai."

Karat said, "we are glad that, we along with the BJP, prevented by legislation a deal that was sought to be imposed on this nation to help the moribund nuclear industry in the US and prevented a repeat of the Bhopal gas disaster (when a MNC got way paying a paltry compensation for huge loss of lives."

Karat also predicted the return of the CPI(M) to power again in West Bengal in the 2011 polls though she admitted "problems in transferring its mass base into votes."