The CPI(M) leaders are consistent. They have always praised China. Now they are trying to emulate China. Prakash Karat is to be congratulated for warning the UPA government for its close ties with Israel and America. He is following the Chinese model. China has one government with two systems. Karat has one mouth with two tongues. One tongue praises China which has close ties with the US and Israel. The other condemns India for attempting the same.
While CPI(M) leaders deserve praise, the rest of us deserve censure. How can we be so hypocritical? Every day, we extol China’s model of growth. But when the CPI(M) starts following the Chinese model, we criticise it! China’s leaders arbitrarily confiscate agricultural land and hand it to foreign capitalists for setting up industry from which they build personal fortunes. Chinese police brutally stamp out peasant protest. Last year, according to its official figure, Chinese authorities crushed 86,000 protests. The controlled Chinese media does not report. The Indian media is not as yet controlled. Perhaps the CPI(M) will eventually succeed in controlling it in West Bengal.
Comrades Karat and Yechury might, however, exercise caution. President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao are attempting to reverse China’s policies. They seek to redress peasant grievances. They oppose former president Jiang Zemin’s loyalists. Why is only this and hardly any other columnist or commentator noting this infighting? Fresh proof of the infighting surfaced last week. Preparing for Olympics 2008, Chinese authorities are educating citizens in good deportment. People are advised to stop spitting and other anti-social behaviour. To illustrate unacceptable behaviour Chinese authorities released video footage of Jiang Zemin with his finger deep in his nostril, picking his nose! Could the message to Jiang loyalists and the rest of the world be clearer?
(Puri can be reached at rajinderpuri2000@yahoo.com)
