When Manmohan Sin
gh became the prime minister in 2004 I was working as an editorial trainee in Mangalam daily in Kottayam. The se cular left in MG University as well as in the newspaper was genuinely happy with the poll outcome. We believed that a non-BJP government at the centre was a historical necessity given the atrocities of the Muslim genocide in Gujarat in 2002 engineered by the fascist Narendra Modi and the shameless way the Advani & Co defended them. There was so much hope in the air. We called the critics of the Left-Congress alliance cynics. But a colleague of mine in Mangalam, a Leftist and a committed secularist, warned that it would prove to be a fundamental error if the Left backs Manmohan Singh, a servile of the global capitalism, as the prime minister of the country. We also shared apprehensions at that time, but tried to remain hopeful. I still strongly believe that the decision to support the UPA was a historical one. Historians may judge how this ideological tie-up helped restore the faith of Indian poor and the minorities in the democratic institutions that were completely maligned by the fascist BJP. But as Kishore Abraham, my Mangalam friend, warned, Manmohan Singh steered the corporatisation of Indian democracy through out the last 4 years. He buried down the attempts of the Congress party to regain its social democratic agenda and paved the way for the complete corporate takeover of Indian democracy. When India first voted against Iran in the IAEA, we saw how the Left upped the ante along with the Samajwadi Party and others. In a class room discussion, I asked a JNU professor if India would change its vote in the second IAEA meet. She was blunt: "We were bought". And India again voted against Iran. Those words get louder now. Desperately we have to admit Deepak, we all were bought by the American imperialism.
(John Stanly)
gh became the prime minister in 2004 I was working as an editorial trainee in Mangalam daily in Kottayam. The se cular left in MG University as well as in the newspaper was genuinely happy with the poll outcome. We believed that a non-BJP government at the centre was a historical necessity given the atrocities of the Muslim genocide in Gujarat in 2002 engineered by the fascist Narendra Modi and the shameless way the Advani & Co defended them. There was so much hope in the air. We called the critics of the Left-Congress alliance cynics. But a colleague of mine in Mangalam, a Leftist and a committed secularist, warned that it would prove to be a fundamental error if the Left backs Manmohan Singh, a servile of the global capitalism, as the prime minister of the country. We also shared apprehensions at that time, but tried to remain hopeful. I still strongly believe that the decision to support the UPA was a historical one. Historians may judge how this ideological tie-up helped restore the faith of Indian poor and the minorities in the democratic institutions that were completely maligned by the fascist BJP. But as Kishore Abraham, my Mangalam friend, warned, Manmohan Singh steered the corporatisation of Indian democracy through out the last 4 years. He buried down the attempts of the Congress party to regain its social democratic agenda and paved the way for the complete corporate takeover of Indian democracy. When India first voted against Iran in the IAEA, we saw how the Left upped the ante along with the Samajwadi Party and others. In a class room discussion, I asked a JNU professor if India would change its vote in the second IAEA meet. She was blunt: "We were bought". And India again voted against Iran. Those words get louder now. Desperately we have to admit Deepak, we all were bought by the American imperialism.(John Stanly)
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