Comments on: All those who do not sleep tonight

By: Nandigram: Left is Right : ARC

Nandigram: Left is Right : ARC — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:38:12 +0000

[...] for the recapture of Nandigram. Read this statement put out by JNU intellectuals and the rejoinder here. Then, read this amazing statement calling for ‘left unity’ and the rejoinder by [...]

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:31:35 +0000

I feel really grateful for this post. Distinctions have almost vanished between liberals and the Communists in popular perception. I don’t read Hindu, do had missed this one, and was generally satisfied with the outrage in the media, pretty much unaware that Hindu was carrying on thus.

By: Nandigram: Left is right at India Unplugged

Nandigram: Left is right at India Unplugged — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 15:21:05 +0000

[...] the recapture of Nandigram. Read this statement put out by JNU intellectuals and the rejoinder here. Then, read this amazing statement calling for ‘left unity’ and the rejoinder by [...]

By: Bhochka

Bhochka — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 15:54:39 +0000

Thanks, Shuddha, you’ve articulated the way so many of us feel – that mixture of sadness and anger, of solidarity betrayed, of sheer, jaw-dropping amazement at the ease with which principle and conscience can be traded. It hurts to see names one had associated with ‘the better side of the CPM’ for so long shuffle to attention at the dictation of the Party. And they choose to do so at this moment,when an act of genuine political courage and commitment, a refusal of the politics of the Party in West Bengal, which is violent and corrupt and sick from bottom to top, would have meant so much.

By: Devika

Devika — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:17:11 +0000

I do want to report that the ‘soft’CPM- TINA (there is no alternative) Buddhijeevi brigade is doing its work, though much more mutedly, in Kerala. This week’s Matrubhumi Weekly (which has a circulation of above 45,000 copies) carried a ‘conversation’ between two ‘Marxist observers’ — T K Ramachandran, an ex-Naxalite intellectual and Dr K N Panicker, who answers the former’s question about the direction of the Indian left in the light of Nandigram,Singur and Munnar,and in the process turns it into — what else would you expect — a Stalinist development issue. These three, according to him, are ‘failings’, and they point to larger issues, specifically, the issue of the relative importance of ‘agriculture’ and ‘industry’ in moving ahead! How convenient such theory can be, as a Procrustean bed, and how it can turn people into ‘productive forces’! There is a saying in Malayalam which refers to the story of Rama acknowledging the services of a sqirrel that did its bit for the building of the bridge to Lanka — right now, even the little bit done by the TINA brigade counts a lot! The fact that Nandigram is ethically indefensible is precisely why the CPM is now frantically summoning everyone from the ghost of Christopher Caudwell to Tariq Ali to provide them with good-character certificates!

Meanwhile, other left-liberals who’d recite poetry or make speeches till they turn hoarse at the tiniest signal from the CPM, have kept quiet. When we asked they said that they lacked ‘reliable information’! Well they apparently never looked for it! The poet Balachandran Chullikad, who was a radical in the 1970s, told me that this was precisely the reply that he received when he and his comrades tried to organise a signature campaign against the Emergency…

And there is of course the Hindu — the Pride of the South — which is now producing the Left in a particularly aggressive way. Woe is yours if you aren’t on the Hindu’s list of left radicals!And you won’t be there unless you resemble Com Karat, Yechuri, Brinda karat and the rest…

By: Mario D'Penha

Mario D'Penha — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 03:31:06 +0000

Shuddha, Its so sad to see the names of people we’ve respected and loved for years here. My heart broke when I read this. Mario.