The Times of India
Maoists not communists: Karat
TNN 1 August 2009, 01:45am IST
KOLKATA: Some Left Front constituents may consider Maoists as members of the broader Left family, but not Prakash Karat. The CPM general secretary holds that Maoists are part and parcel of the anti-Communist force working in tandem with all reactionary groups to oust the Left government in Bengal. He thus gave a go-ahead to the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government to book them under the law, while the party strives to isolate them politically and ideologically.
"CPM cadres have been the main target of the Maoists. The present day Maoists are the degenerated version of Left adventurism," Karat said on Friday at a party gathering in Kolkata. The programme was organised to celebrate the birth centenary of country's first communist chief minister, EMS Namboodiripad.
Reminiscing the anti-Communist move in 1959 when the Centre first invoked Article 356 to dislodge the Namboodiripad government, Karat said: "The Right reactionary forces, including religious leaders, were up in arms against the communist government at that time. The attack in West Bengal in recent times comes camouflaged, as it is from the Left. Left slogans are being used, while Maoists are killing CPM cadres." The CPM general secretary argued that the reason behind targeting the CPM and the Left government in West Bengal on all fronts is that the party is spearheading the struggle against neo-liberal policies.
Earlier in the day, CPM state secretary Biman Bose took serious note of Union home minister P Chidambaram's comment that West Bengal has turned into killing fields. Bose also cried foul over the Trinamool demand to impose Article 355 in the state. "I fear that the Union home minister has not been properly briefed. Fact is, those who are spreading terror are the ones who are throwing tantrums on this issue. A total 72 of our comrades have been killed after the Lok Sabha elections. The demand for imposing Article 355 is absolutely untenable," Bose said. CPI state secretary Manju Majumdar also took exception to Chidambaram's remark on West Bengal. "Such politically motivated statement will further aggravate the situation," Majumdar said.
Sensing the winds of change in West Bengal, the CPM general secretary urged party cadres to reach out to the people. "Electoral reverses do happen. We have to go back to the people. The Left government has to orient itself towards the uplift of the rural and urban poor," Karat said. He stressed on the government's taking pro-people measures some of which such as electricity subsidy, giving land pattas to the rural poor, forest rights for the adivasis, identifying urban land for settlement rights of the urban poor, are already under way. CPM state secretary Biman Bose urged party members to identify the "corrupt and self-seeking lot" within the party as part of the rectification process.
-- My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty. - Jorge Louis Borges