Unusual CPM lobbying

It is unprecedented in the country’s democratic history that a political party interferes with the foreign policy and foreign direct investment issues. The Congress, the BJP or smaller regional formations have never pressurised their governments to support a particular country or a firm as blatantly as the CPM is doing today. And with every passing day this pressure is becoming increasingly audacious.


Take for instance the CPM stand on Chinese investments in 13 Indian ports. The other day party general secretary Prakash Karat asked the government to spell out the security considerations for blacklisting the Chinese companies wanting to invest in Indian ports. The Cabinet Committee on Security had earlier vetoed Chinese investments and management of Indian ports. The Chinese had plans to invest Rs 61,000 crore in 13 Indian ports. Security agencies rejected the Chinese initiative, pointing out that the Chinese Harbour Engineering Company was building a strategic port, Gwadar Deep Sea Port in Pakistan and it could pose a serious threat to India’s maritime security. The Intelligence Bureau, RAW and the defence ministry are unanimous that Chinese entry in the Indian Ocean is a serious national security threat.


The CPM’s latest intervention came as a sequel to the Chinese envoy in India Sun Yuxi’s allegation of unequal treatment for Chinese businessmen. The CPM leader echoing the Chinese envoy says, “What are these security considerations? We would like to know why this old mind-set. George Fernandes had called China enemy number one. I am sure the Congress does not think on these lines. Then why are Chinese companies being blacklisted?”


Since when has your party become a lobbying firm for foreign firms on FDI, comrade? Are you getting a cut for facilitating such clearances? In the hey-day of the Indo-Soviet friendship, it used to be the practice that for all transactions with that country the Indian communists got a dividend. Normally, responsible political parties keep a safe distance from such deals.


The Communist Party in India split on the question of a section’s support to China during the 1962 war with India and the CPM is made up of that faction. But the party all these years kept its Chinese patriotism behind a clever façade. But the power without responsibility status, the party has come to enjoy, has made it very brazen.


In a characteristic disdain for national sentiment, in another instance, the CPM central leadership asked the President of India to pardon terrorist Mohammad Afzal. They want the President to stop the death sentence from being carried out. The party’s J&K unit had earlier made a similar demand. A few months ago the party had demanded the release of the Coimbatore blast accused Madani after entering into a pact with the fanatic Muslim outfit PDP.


Similarly, the party wanted the centre to bend before Pervez Musharraf at Havana, and was hassling the Prime Minister for this. The CPM’s admiration for the Venezuelan leader is such that it wants India to canvass for that country’s Security Council seat. What does all this add up to? Has the CPM lost all sense of propriety? Or is it determined to cross all limits to project itself as the umbrella party of terrorists, ruffians, commission agents and India-bashers?


When it comes to China, CPM does not mind brokering deals. When it comes to conceding the country’s geographic boundaries, the CPM has no problems, if the beneficiaries are China, Pakistan or Bangladesh. Even a Supreme Court verdict can be set aside, if it will save the life of a Muslim terrorist, who attacked Indian Parliament, so goes the CPM argument. The party will plead for a UN Security Council membership for Hugo Chavez—after all he is good at abusing President Bush—even if that will undermine India’s chance for a seat in the UNSC. The party has no qualms in cohabiting with Hajis and namazis, bartering support for votes with SIMI, Jamaat-e-Islami or Madani’s PDP. But it will punish its minister for visiting a temple. It would blame Hindus for the spread of Islamic terrorism, and will even condemn the police for trying to search in Muslim localities, for the criminals of serial blasts in different parts of the country. It will promote special economic zones (SEZs) in West Bengal, but protest them in Congress and BJP-ruled states. Political hypocrisy cannot be more immodest. Treason has never been so couched in dialectical secular mask. Ideological double-speak never had such currency as now under the UPA regime.