They are back, ready to intervene, eager to
redeem. They are India's self-chosen nation
builders-cum-national clairvoyants. There is
a crisis, and a funeral fragrance is wafting
through the corridors of powerlessness, and
the government may or may not die. Only they
can do something, for the nation is calling.
What timing. Ideally, they would have liked
to solve the crisis in Kosovo, work out a
brand new Warsaw Pact against the nasty NATO.
But the immediate national nastiness called
the BJP is begging for intervention. So our
good old communists are back in action, their
ancient cells suddenly throbbing with the
idea of responsibility. Look, both the CPI(M)
and the CPI want to avoid a midterm poll.
Certainly a good idea, a very communist idea:
the masses, who are more or less same as the
people, should be kept out of the business of
governance or governments, for leaders of
lofty intentions are there to handle such
things. Also, both the parties are confident
of an alternative. Communists and
alternatives,you know what they are all
about: zero principle, more power and little
responsibility. Thank Marx, what would have
been India without the communists?
More aptly, what would have been India
without Comrade Harkishen Singh Surjeet?
CPI, the little brother of the red parivar,
is a bit player, despite the General
Secretary's illusions of importance.) In the
Age of the Coalition, he is Mr Manipulator,
the wisest among the wise, the
numerologist-in-chief. If Jayalalitha's
national demands bring down Vajpayee's
nationalist government, there will of course
be a new government, conceived and
constructed by Surjeet, who is reportedly
spreading across the conclaves of conspiracy.
How? A Congress government resting on the
mighty pillars of the Third Front, which, as
history shows, is a loose club of politicians
whose constituencies are smaller than their
egos, politicians whose national vision is
defined by the worst kind of provincialism.
But Surjeet and his party are high above
them, and as usual, leastinterested in
ministerial powers. Also, he has a historical
role to play: a helping hand to the Congress
in distress. The CPI(M)'s anti-Congressism?
It has always been a sham.
Well, the party itself is a sham. An enlarged
pretence the size of which continues to be
mocked by reality as well as history. For,
the Marxists have nothing at stake, except
the textbook and the slogan. They have lost
India long ago, they have lost its classes
and its castes. They have no empires to
preserve, no prisons to guard. What is there,
except a few Soviets in Kerala and West
Bengal? The CPI(M) is a very very regional
party with a Delhi-centric passion, with a
mind that has internalised the remains of
this century's biggest horror story. Still,
it wants to be a defining force in Delhi, it
wants power without responsibility. The party
achieves it not by resorting to the people,
sorry, the masses, but by Surjeetising the
coalition confusion. And Marx won't miss the
show: No new spectre is haunting
Indraprastha. It is only aSurjeet. Sorry for
the optical illusion.