In CPM - Speak, N-Deal = 26/11

By Balbir K. Punj

In Parliament’s debate on the Mumbai events and its aftermath, the alibi that the Marxists were providing for the terror merchants did not come as a surprise. While all other political parties sought to emphasise a unanimous voice of India in their speeches, pinpointing Pakistan as the breeding ground of terror, the CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury was finding excuses, even justification, for the terrorists’ attacks.

If Mr Yechury is to be believed, the Mumbai attacks were because “India was seen as a strategic ally of the US” by the Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The Communist leader went on to recall: “We had warned at that time, with the Indo-US nuclear deal, with the strategic partnership that you are building with the US, are you prepared to face the threats of Taliban and Al Qaeda reaching our shores?… Has this even entered our radar of thinking that, because of the nuclear deal and strategic partnership, we are exposing ourselves to new types of terrorist threats which did not exist in India earlier?”

So here is the justification for the killing of nearly 200 people and the mayhem by terror mongers from Pakistan on 26/11. When the whole world has condemned this attack, and the international community has demanded of Pakistan that its government eradicate terrorist organisations from its soil, the Marxists alone are saying that the attacks were a reaction to our foreign policy. The foreign policy that India should follow, whether there should be an N-deal or whether India should have a strategic alliance with the US must all now be decided by Pakistan-based terrorists. That seems to be the Marxist gospel.
This Marxist expostulation of a justification for the terror attacks should not surprise those who have been following the Communist line in India since the second decade of the last century. It was the Communist Party of India that supported the demand for the creation of a theocratic Pakistan in the 40s. It has been the Communist line that India is not a nation but a conglomeration of nations. It was the Communist Party that refused to recognise India’s Independence in 1947 and launched an armed insurrection against the Indian State that year itself.

V.K. Krishna Menon, a known Communist who held the defence portfolio in the Nehru Cabinet, purposely ensured that the Indian Army remained poorly equipped compared to the Chinese whose hostile intentions were well known. In 1962, when Red China attacked India, we suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the invaders. The Indian Communists refused to stand by their beleaguered motherland. Instead, they supported China against India!

Even now, the Marxists continue to aid and abet extreme orthodoxy among the Muslims — a breeding ground of the ideology that the Taliban groups exploit. Despite their (false) claim of being “progressive,” they would not countenance Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen staying in Kolkata. The Marxists have consistently sought to blocked all attempts to end Bangladeshi Muslim infiltration into India. The result is that in several parts of the country Bangladeshi Muslims have a significant say in the election of representatives to state Assemblies and even Parliament.

In Kerala, the only other state where they are in power, organisations like Simi, banned in the country for their anti-national programmes, have found a haven. Two years ago, Simi organised a camp near the bustling city of Kottayam and the training, as revealed by some of those arrested by Gujarat police subsequently, included making petrol bombs, use of wireless sets, moving through forests at night, lessons in geography etc. Yet, the Kerala police pretended that they did not even have a hint of such a camp being held there.

When at last the news of such a camp broke out, police sources had to confess that they did arrest a few people on learning of the camp, but political interference prevented them from proceeding further. The Kerala Marxists genuflected before the Islamic extremist preacher Madhani, prime accused in the Coimbatore serial blasts of 1999, by organising a public function for welcoming him after he managed to get an acquittal on technical grounds.

Mr Yechury was even prepared to ignore facts in claiming that the “new type of terrorist threats which did not exist in India earlier” was due to India’s foreign policy. There was no nuclear deal with the US and no strategic alliance in 2001. Yet, did not the same organisations of terrorists launch an attack on India’s temple of democracy? What about all the terrorist attacks, including the serial train bombings in Mumbai, over the last several years?

The thesis that India must determine its foreign and domestic policies with reference to so-called “Muslim reaction” has been a long-standing Marxist demand that was repeatedly stated when the CPI(M) opposed the Indo-US nuclear deal. Now Mr Yechury has once again returned to that theme. Not just “Muslim reaction,” but even the Al Qaeda and Taliban will decide what India should or should not do. If Taliban does not like India working out a close relationship with the US, we should respect that sentiment lest they come and stage a second Mumbai mayhem in the country. India should fear and surrender to the Taliban and Al Qaeda and, logically, to their allied outfits like LeT and other terror mongers. This is the Marxist thesis.

And to hide his blatant anti-national stand, the Marxist leader quoted some terrorist leader hoping for BJP’s return to power in 1999 so that it could give enough excuse for the terrorists to strike and strengthen themselves. That a top Marxist leader could quote this with approval exposes his party’s frustration at the failure of its policy of promoting political untouchability of the BJP at one end and the promo for terrorist organisations on the other. After all, Al Qaeda, LeT and others are opposed to the US. As the CPI(M) is also opposed to America, whatever the terrorists do is justified in the Marxist eye.