India and the 123 Treaty

It seems that Comrade Prakash Karat is a modern-day Rip van Winkle--he and his party have slept through the fall of the Berlin Wall, the absorption of the Eastern bloc nations by the EU and the dissolution of the Soviet Union into the Confederation of Independent States (CIS). They are unaware of the perils of terrorism unleashed by Islamic fundamentalists, the need for India and other democracies to unite against this peril and the economic development that is now taking place in Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC states). They would love a return to the Cold War era when their ideology still had some credibility and to the pre-1991 Indian state, when the Hindu rate of growth was sacrosanct.

However, Rip van Winkle had to wake up one day, 20 years after his country achieved freedom from the British, and Comrade Karat will also have to follow suit. The strategists who brokered the 123 agreement on behalf of India will not have it otherwise, even though the Congress and its other allies would prefer to avoid a mid-term poll.

Karat and Co. feel that their party, with a 5 per cent of the vote, can stand against the need of the hour for India to have an energy policy that might enable it to provide for its teeming population. They have criticized the growing Indo-US military ties, not keeping in view the fact that India, with a Hindu-majority population, a secular society and a democratic form of government is, because of its very existence, a magnet for terrorism of the Islamic fundamentalist variety. Let's not forget what happened in Ajmer Sharif a few days ago, or what happened in Hyderabad two months ago--those who died came from all parts of India. A weak economy, as US strategists have found and as the Left knows all too well, means that the educated are unemployed and turn to violence. The Left has often used this group for its own ends. However, the Left must now prove that it is capable of going beyond its Cold War mindset and can plan for the future.