Left with nothing

It was dual shock for the Leftists this week. The Airport employees called off their strike after "assurances" from the PM and India voted against Iran in Security Council. What does left have to say now ? It will be interesting to note. But my guess is they will eat their humble pie. They will make some token noises but nothing much. They cannot afford to loose this government. This is their golden period where they can make noises and yet remain unaccountable. They are are a masters of nuisance.

Swapan Das Gupta - brilliant as he is - smacks the left wonderfully well in this article in Pioneer

Embarrassing Leftovers

Swapan Dasgupta

Judged purely by inches of column space in newspapers and minutes of footage on television, the past seven days has been truly momentous for the Left. From the kerfuffle over Iran's nuclear programme to the stinking lavatories in India's airports, the Left has intruded into the public consciousness more effectively than at any time since the Chinese invasion in 1962. And what interventions!



It began with the Karats and Yechuris threatening socialist retribution if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh succumbed to US pressure and voted at the IAEA to refer Iran to the Security Council. In the backdrop of the outrage over US Ambassador David Mulford's indiscretion, the Government was understandably nervous and anxious not to be seen as an American supplicant. It didn't matter that India's national security would be horribly jeopardised by Iran conferring an Islamic depth to Pakistan's rogue nuclear programme. It was the stability and coherence of the UPA Government that was deemed paramount. By that incredibly short-sighted logic, there was just no way India could be seen siding with the US and the European Union.

Then the miracle happened. A meeting of the five-member nuclear club (P-5) in London decided the twaddle of the bit players was becoming insufferable and it was best to deal with the Iranian crisis through the UN Security Council. That way international diplomacy could devote its energies attending to the problem rather than having to lend an ear to either a dithering India or a completely insane Venezuela.

For the Prime Minister, the news from London came as a breather for his non-eventful press conference last Wednesday. However, it left the Reds stupefied. How could the Communists be seen to be opposing an arrangement that had been sanctioned by China? Emerging from what was billed as a make-or-break meeting with the Prime Minister, Sitaram Yechuri could only blabber incoherently about Russia still insisting on a dialogue with Iran. Gone was the fire and missing were the threats. It could well have been a throwback to August 1939 when Stalin unexpectedly negotiated a non-aggression pact with Hitler. Then, the relentless war against fascism abruptly became the "imperialist" war.

The Communists have repeatedly disclaimed their extra-territorial loyalties. Yet, if anyone took their pronouncements of patriotism seriously, they have to merely look at the way the Red guns in India were silenced on the Iran issue to judge for themselves. If it was in India's national interests to keep the Iran issue in the bureaucratic muddle of the IAEA, things should not have altered because China changed tack. Whose national interests were the Comrades upholding?

The battle in the airports was a convenient diversion, with Comrades simulating the war on barricades. Privatisation not now, never, became the chant of the public sector aristocracy, led by the Communist unions. As a dress rehearsal of a genteel insurrection, the harassment of passengers was quite effective. Coming as it did at the height of the tourist season, the Left managed to give Incredible India a new, unexpected meaning.

The timing was also perfect because it provided a smokescreen over a brazen act of crony capitalism. Since highlighting the manipulative bidding process ran the risk of being seen to be opposed to the much-needed modernisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports, the non-Left parties preferred silence.

Ultimately, it was all-round public outrage that forced the Left to eat humble pie and relegate a political strike against privatisation to a pedestrian issue of seeking assurances against retrenchment. Those Airports Authority of India employees who struck work with such enthusiasm must have by now gauged that were used as cannon fodder in a game of extortion. After the strike collapses, we would probably have seen the last of trade union belligerence at the airports for a long time. Has anyone heard a squeak from Gurgaon after the Left cried hoarse over the police beating of Honda workers last July?

The conclusions are inescapable. Left politics in India doesn't stem from conviction; it flows out of collateral considerations.