சீனாவின் குரல் பிரகாஷ் காரட்

பிரகாஷ் காரட்டுக்கு அவரை சீனாவின் குரல் என்று சொன்னால் கோபம் வருகிறது.

ஆனால், சீனாவின் பத்திரிக்கை என்ன சொல்கிறதோ அதனையே திருப்பிச் சொல்கிறார்.

இந்திய நிலங்களை சீனா ஆக்கிரமித்துள்ளது. அந்த நிலங்களிலிருந்து சீனா வெளியேற வேண்டும் என்று சீன தூதராலயம் முன்னால், சிபிஎம் கட்சி போராட்டம் நடத்தலாமே?

அப்படி நடத்துங்கள். நீங்கள் சீனாவின் குரல் அல்ல என்று ஒப்புக்கொள்கிறோம் என்று கல்கத்தாவிலிருந்து வெளிவரும் டெலிகிராப் பத்திரிக்கை தலையங்கம் எழுதியுள்ளது..




CHINESE CHECKERS

A political party’s past has many ways of complicating its present. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) suddenly finds itself in a similar mess, thanks to none other than its general secretary. When he launched his crusade against the civilian nuclear deal between India and the United States of America, Prakash Karat obviously had not thought of one consequence of his action. Mr Karat’s anti-American rhetoric has forced him and his party to face some ghosts from its past. The way Mr Karat has railed against the media for dubbing his party “pro-China” suggests that he has been stung by the criticism. His is the kind of discomfort one has in facing unpleasant truths. Yet, while defending his party against the charge of being pro-Chinese, he argued that the US wanted New Delhi to act as a counterweight against Beijing. Only two days earlier, People’s Daily, the organ of the Chinese communist party, had exactly the same thing to say about the Indo-US deal. It said that the deal would bolster the US’s efforts to “contain” China. The Chinese party thus confirms what Mr Karat denies — the fact that he is really China’s voice.

It is not that this was a secret in Indian politics. Mr Karat has only revived old political memories that his party likes people to forget. The people would now remember that the CPI(M) had always been pro-Beijing, just as the Communist Party of India had been pro-Moscow. They would recall that Indian communists had refused to condemn the Chinese aggression in the Himalaya in 1962. The Soviet aggression on former Czechoslovakia in 1968 rattled even the CPI. At its national council meeting, a fiercely debated resolution in support of Moscow’s action passed with a majority of only one vote. But the CPI(M) never condemned that aggression, just as it saw nothing wrong with the Soviet army’s tanks rolling into Afghanistan or the Chinese annexing Vietnamese territory. Mr Karat sees the Indo-US nuclear deal as part of Washington’s “imperialist” designs. Obviously, he has no problems with communist imperialism.

However, Mr Karat has another chance to redeem his party’s past. He can answer the charge against his party by simply doing a few things. Let him and his party condemn the former Soviet Union for its aggressions in erstwhile Czechoslovakia, in Hungary in 1956, and in Afghanistan in 1979. He could also condemn China for the Himalayan aggression of 1962. China has occupied large chunks of Indian territory on the Himalayan border. Let the CPI(M) organize protests against it outside the Chinese embassy in New Delhi. Better still, it could give a new meaning to bandhs by calling a ‘Bangla bandh’ to support India’s claim on the annexed lands. Mr Karat has unwittingly forced a nationalism test on his party that it might find difficult to pass.