Monday, March 30, 2009

How to Break Muslim Political Power: Why Madani is Key to CPM Strategy in Kerala?



PDP's Abdunnasser Madani and CPM's Pinarayi Vijayan are kindred souls in Kerala politics.

WHAT IS the rationale for CPM’s alliance with Abdunnaser Madani’s PDP in Kerala despite stiff resistance from sections within the left front and even from within the party? Is the PDP such an influential force in Kerla politics to help CPM win this election, while in fact, it appears the PDP factor has alienated substantial sections of left followers and voters away from it?

Recently I came across a defense of this policy made by a CPM intellectual in a discussion forum. I reproduce the argument here:

Let there be no mistake; the CPM's effort in Ponnani is to try and break a traditional stranglehold that one party has had in the region. This stranglehold, along with another stranglehold in central Kerala, has been holding up the growth of progressive forces across Kerala for many years. It is not an issue of winning one seat. It is a part of a strategy that is likely to alter fundamentally the balance of
political forces in Kerala. And that is a good thing.


So the point is very clear: the effort is to break the stranglehold of one party to pave the way for the growth of progressive forces in Kerala. Read it as the decimation of Muslim League in Malappuram for the CPM to take control over the entire state of Kerala, and enjoy a free ride for decades as they had done in West Bengal.

As a political party, no one can blame the CPM for nursing such hopes of hegemony. But how would it help minorities, say Muslims in Kerala? I suspect it can prove to be the proverbial last straw and if the Muslims lose even the little political clout they have today, they would face grave consequences soon.

Here I reproduce some comments I made in the discussion with regard to Madani and his politics and the long-term impact of such moves on Kerala Muslims:

1. I think for the Muslims in India, and even Kerala, they would expected to be constantly apologetic and would need to accept a position of playing second fiddle to certified anti-imperialists like the Communist party.

Rigth now, thank God, Madani has been accepted as a genuine anti-imperialist while people/orgnizations like PFI need to wait for further clearance.

I heard the continuous false propaganda against PFI as a terrorist group by people like P Jayarajan, CPM MLA and present ideologue, on TV the other day. I was there but I chose not to react because I think such calculated calumni painting a community and new elements in it as terrorist is part of a game-plan to which Madani has now fallen a willing tool.

But how long they can keep a proud and historic community like Muslims at this game of blackmailing?

2. ...I was trying to point to a much more serious and even sinister trend that I see in Kerala today. That is painting those who you do not like, or those who may oppose you, as nothing but terrorists and enemy of the nation. The Jayarajan quote I mentioned was part of it, to paint NDF/PFI as the one and only enemy, as the epitome of terror in Muslim community, allowing the real culprits do their dirty work undisturbed.

The CPM MLA referred to Kashmir incidents and death of four people. Who recruited them and who sent them there? The police are investigating and indications point to a certain place and I do not want to say anything more about it.

But we at Thejas daily) had made an investigation as a newspaper and the series was published in our newspaper. Two things emerged in the story. First, some secretive spiritual groups like thareequaths seem to have links to sinister and even criminal elements as proved in the case of Vennakode thareequath, where Thammanam Shaji was a regular visitor. They have a national network too. The police are well aware of it.

The second aspect was the role of some people who keep a close link to police and seem to play a role in inciting such extreme religious sentiments. Some of them are known police agents. They play a role that is dictated by interested parties and groups with links in police. We had exposed a few people with such links and detailed the extreme religiosity they showed on certain occasions.

You know even before this series was fully out, the police became very restive and they threatened to arrest the reporter. It was a very curious phenomenon, and I have not seen it happen even in the time of Emergency. They were asking for sources but anyone who reads it would see the police knew about all this. The same period, they took into custody another of our reporter foisting a terror tag, in Tirurangadi, but the game backfired as the 'terrorist' proved to be a poor brahmin from Jharkhand who came to the place and knew our reporter.

I see that this is part of a wider plan, a plan that has been successfully implemented in the north of India where Muslims have been effectively destroyed as a community. Recently my friend and human rigths lawyer Bobby Kunhu was writing about the success of Modi project in Gujarat.I know it would not be restricted to Gujarat alone, it could come here and indeed it is now appearing in many ways. But why should progressive political parties and sensible people like you and me be a party to such sinister games?

3. I am returning to this link only because I find even people like Satchi daa seem to think the new political line being adopted by the Kerala CPM could be of some benefit to Muslims, dalits and other backward sections in our society.

I have very serious reservations about it. In fact I do feel Madani in his recent press conference was acting according to a script prepared elsewhere and the key to this script seems to be the weakening of these sections who are now slowly emerging as an alternative force, perhaps a third force that is likely to emerge in the near future.

Who are the principal components of the third force, which would try to replace the Congress-led groups and the CPM-led parties? To my mind, the Muslims along with Dalits will have to lead such a force in Kerala, and parties and groups that belong to backwards, and other minorities, including Christians, would also have to join in. Madani would have been a real force, a leading power, in such a situation, but unfortunately his present role is that of a hatchet, a willing tool in the hands of CPM to strike at his own community.

As for the CPM leading the subalterns to liberation, let us look at Bengal and see what has been the experience in the past 30 years of CPM rule there. I would only like to invite attention to the latest editorial in EPW (March 21, 2009) which gives a balanced and objective assessment of how little CPM did to these sections by way of empowerment, both economically and politically.

Now people speak of a new CPM. What is it? Has there been any change in the party programme which we are not aware of? The party has been saying they are committed to a left and democratic alternative and left parties would be the core of such an alliance. And who are the NEW left forces they are forging in Kerala now? By what yardstick could they say that Madani or Raman Pillai are the real and legitimate left and democratic forces to replace old left like CPI, RSP and Janata Dal?

Friday, March 27, 2009

Elections as Spectacles and Cover-Up of Past Deeds



Madani and Raman Pillai are hot subjects in Kerala elections this time: news.

WHAT MATTERS in elections today is success. Hence, there is no use expecting an informed public debate on issues, policies, governance and other matters which in a democracy should get some attention in times when the people are asked to elect their representatives.

But our electoral system has effectively nudged out all such informed public exchanges and instead what we have here is spectacles meant to entertain and get the electors forget to ask uncomfortable questions.

This time in Kerala, the leaders have successfully ensured that any public debate does not take place. We are now talking only about Abdunnasser Madani and his past antics and how a person like K Raman Pillai, once a firebrand Hindutva leader, has turned secular all of a sudden.

Both gentlemen are now in the company of Comrade Pinarayi Vijayan and his Communist Party of India (Marxist), once a party that I belonged to. I have no problem with Madani or Raman Pillai being part of the Left Front, but my problem is when instead of real and substantive issues like the looming economic crisis and the return of millions of people home after losing their jobs in the Gulf, we are not even spending a moment to think about such things.

I was reading all the newspapers and listening to most television debates, and I am convinced the media also has not much time or inclination to raise such issues. Yesterday, India Vision asked me whether this election time would be spent wholly on such non-issues and I expressed my hope that perhaps in the next few weeks things might change, people might force more serious issues into the public debate.

And one of the issues likely to come back to public attention, I am sure, would be that of corruption in public life. We need such a discussion because this is the first time even the topmost leader of our Communist Party is facing corruption charges and his name listed in the accused list in the SNC Lavalin case. Once this returns to our debates, no amount of flogging Madani or Raman Pillai brand of secularism would help them, because we need them to answer for their omissions and commissions in the past.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Muhammad Abdurahman: A debate on His Legacy and Contemporary Relevance


MY BIOGRAPHY of Muhammad Abdurahman (Muhammad Abdurahman, National Book Trust, New Delhi, 2005), written on the occasion of the 60th death anniversary of the freedom fighter, has been in public domain for more than three years now.

It did not raise any storm, and I never expected any, but I was a bit sad no one really took note of the book, writing on which I had spent quite a lot of time in Delhi, where I began it after my friend Rubin DCruz of NBT asked me to do it, and then in Kerala where I researched much of it.

Recently, at the discussion forum, fourth-estate critique, the book received a critical attention. In a discussion on electoral politics and appeasement of religious fundamentalism in Kerala, it was M G Radhakrishnan, special correspondent for India Today , who first mentioned my work, which helped generate a debate based on the book.

Here is what M G Radhakrishnan said:

It runs counter to the great tradition and history of the proud secular stream of the community symbolized by Muhammed Abdurahman Saheb et al (Chekkutty can revisit his own brilliant book on the legend) which has fought the fundamentalists and communalists among them for long.

To this I responded, thanking him for referring to my work on Muhammad Abdurahman. I reproduce below an edited version of the text of parts of the debate:

N P Chekkutty: I am extremely thankful to my senior colleague M G Radhakrishnan for inviting me to my own work on Muhammad Abdurahman. I am not speaking with even an iota of irony, because I am sincerely thankful to him for referring to this work mainly because though this book had been available for almost three years in English, there has not been any serious critical reference to it in any forum.

Hence my gratitude to MGR for referring to this work. It happens to be the only English biography of Muhammad Abdurahman, a freedom fighter who has been generally forgotten in recent years though some Congressmen do conduct some programmes in Kozhikode and Kodungallur.

But the point to remember is: What is Abdurahman's legacy? Is it right to paint him as a 'Non-Talibanist' Muslim leader who fought all kinds of 'regressive' tendencies in the community, a la our beloved Hamid Karzai of Kabul or Abbas of West Bank?

It would be simplistic to isolate Muhammad Abdurahman from his times and transplant him into our own and making him a windbag which could serve our own purposes. Let me say that Abdurahman was a fighter and he was a fighter deeply religious and he never abandoned his faith for political purposes. His commitment to his own community one can see at the moment when he went to the house of KPCC president K P Kesava Menon who had shut himself inside his office at a time when rebellion broke out in Eranad. Abdurahman decided to go to Ernad alone, in the company of E Moidu Maulavi.

But he did fight the regressive forces in his community, and he did it valiantly. But who are the representatives of the Attakkoya Thangals of his time in our own days? I thought the legacy fell on the shoulders of those who are the comrades in arms of our own CPM gentlemen like Pinarayi Vijayan.

If anyone needs a refresher course in history of Malabar 1935-40 these days, I think they are Comrade Pinarayi and his team of Jayarajan triumvirate, who seem to have no clue about history.

M G Radhakrishnan: I have also wondered why the book hasn’t received its due attention. But I have read only the Malayalam version and not the English. I think it easily merits to be one of the best bios in Malayalam. Particularly liked the warmth and details of the narrative through which the Sahib comes through as humane and as heroic as ever. So palpable are the passion for secularism and the concern about sectarianism not just of the protagonist but the author too. And I really want my friend to introspect on his present positions on these issues. Hence I feel a far greater urge to join issue with you than any one else on this forum too. Take it as a desperate attempt to retrieve a distancing compatriot. You really don’t belong to where you are now.

I haven’t de-contextualized Saheb in any way. On the contrary I have tried only to re-contextualize him. I think he is what he is because his relevance goes much beyond his time. Why should you pin down him to his time alone? For me he is not a windbag but a whistle-blower for our troubled times.

Surprised you don’t see him as a non-talibanized Muslim! I have not equated him with the other names you have mentioned.

I also don’t agree with the way you have condemned Pinarayi and others. With all its warts, the Organized Left still remains more than anybody else, the rightful legatees of Saheb. My difference with them is when they digress from this legacy -which often they do- though that doesn’t make them on par with the NDF or such others which represent everything contrary to what Saheb stood, fought and died for. Sure the Left needs a lesson in history but strange to see that you think they need it more than the fundamentalists about any of whom you don’t have a single word to utter for long. (Haven’t you seen in this forum too Saheb being portrayed as not the "real" Muslim but an "imagined" one as was done to him years ago? )

N P Chekkutty: Good and kind words do make people feel happy and make them less combative, I suppose.

Hence my difficulty in crossing words with my senior colleague MGR. Though I have not had the privilege of working with him, I had the benefit of being very close to his father who was the person who took the initiative to translate a work on Nilakkal I did in Mainstream Weekly way back in 1984 giving me the first major break in serious media studies. I will always be indebted to PG for the kind of support and encouragement he gave me, like many others, in those times when I was a simple non-entity from a remote village with no claims to intellectual pedigree.

Having said this, I would request MGR to introspect about his own positions of late. It has appeared to me that he is not really tuned to the changing perceptions among Muslims, dalits and other backwards in our society in the post-90 period. I had the fortune or misfortune of being not only a witness, but a part and participant of these events and changes. That surely would have had an influence on my world view and perceptions.

Now the questions to ask is: Why did we change the way we changed? What forces did play in these events and why is our once homogeneous left partisans are now divided into such disparate, mutually antagonistic positions? I do really hope MGR would think about it, just as all of us need to go for a period of introspection now.

Here a person like Muhammad Abdurahman can be a great guide.

I think we need to take a few very interesting aspects in his career here. One thing is that in his own time, he was dubbed an extremist by the entrenched forces in his community and his detractors in Gandhi Sangham. The left then did not buy this argument because people like P Krishna Pillai and EMS who worked with him were also dubbed extremist those days. So labels do not tell us much, neither then nor today.

The second aspect: Can religious faith and left convictions see eye to eye? People like Pinarayi dub the new forces in Muslim community like Popular Front of India as a mix of LTTE and Taliban (here I quote from his 1998 speeches) and he seems to to keep the same views now. But he has no problems having alliances with Madani or Kanthapuram.

If you look at history, you will see Abdurahman was part of a new emerging middle class in his community, mainly coming from Kodungallur those days. He had to fight the pro-British elite segments among Muslims and later the Muslim League, a party launched by Talassery traders with a lumpen cadre base.

If historical parallels are to be drawn, I would think the new social forces in Islam now represented by groups like PFI do inherit much of the progressive and forward-looking legacy of Abdurahman.

But here we may have to agree to disagree, perhaps.

Dr B Ekbal: Muhammad Abdurahman was one of the greatest secular politicians of Kerala. Apart from Chekkutty's excellent biography both in English and Malayalm, N P Mohammed has written a biographical novel about him and his son has written a biography of Abdurahamn for children as well in a literary style. Along with these books the biography of KA Kodugallor by C P Rajashekran also throws light on the life and time of Muhammad Abdurahman. There are also a few lesser known biographies of him.

nfortunately, none of the present organisations carry or imbibe the secular values expressed by Muhammad Abdurahman. Nobody can claim his legacy.

John Samuel: Thanks Chekkutty and MGR for this serious dialogue. The tone and content of it is much appreciated. In fact such serious dialogues (as distinct from scoring a point or throwing a stone)- with mutual respect- are really helpful to explore the various historical perspectives to understand and appreciate the emerging realities in Kerala and elsewhere.

I too enjoyed reading the excellent biography ( published by NBT) of Abdurahman sahib by Chekkutty. In fact I have learned a lot by reading the book and also through discussions and observations during my recent trip to Calicut.

So my sense is that the political and social landscape is shifting- and this will have impact on the present day "Left" politics in Kerala. I also think that newspapers like Thejas cannot be equated with Organizer or such entrenched fascist propaganda. From whatever I read, Thejas is liberal in its outlook and it has relatively better editorial quality than many other newspapers. I have not seen it spreading hatred or violence or lies. I am willing to be corrected if any furnishes such evidence. We need to evaluate a newspaper or book based on its content and real performance- rather than sweeping conclusions based on prejudices or perceptions.

It is too early to make a conclusive statement about the new modes of social mobilizations, communicative expressions and media experiments among the Muslim community in Kerala. There is indeed a shift from the old politics- and there are many social, economic and political reasons for that.

In fact, I am more optimist than pessimist in the evolving scenario in Kerala- many of the present formations and formulations will be challenged. But that is a part of any process of substantive change in politics and society.

The political landscape of Kerala ( and elsewhere) is beginning to change. I also think the present phase of binary political formation (LDF and UDF) may not be able to survive in the long run.

The shift in sociological and economic conditions of various communities in the last fifteen years would also influence the political perspective and choices of Kerala. My sense is that the present NDF/PFI, PDP, BSP etc will become a part of the political mainstream and the new power arrangements in Kerala in the years to come.

We have had several discussions in this space about the various streams of reformations, renaissance and reactions that happen within various communities in Kerala. So it is important to see these changes and shifts beyond the usual binaries and black/white formulations.They are much more complex shifts than what we see on the surface of it.

K Satchidanandan: At times I wonder: can a party, an organisation or a nation be secular at all? I am aware of the Secular Collective, Sahmat, Anhad, the Kerala Secular Forum... with some of which I have had associations at various levels; still ultimately perhaps only individuals are capable of being secular as it has deep kinship with individual life-practices. I know this sounds an individualistic position, but an organisation can claim to be secular only when all its members practise secularism in their everyday: is this happening in any organisation today, left or right? What about their alliances? Let me immediately add: I do not posit the secular against the religious or the sacred as I do not equate the secular with the atheist or the rationalist: I would posit it rather against the communal, the bigoted, the insular, the hierarchical and the mono-logic. I am posing this not as an ultimate position, but a genuine doubt.

S Sanjeev: Since we are into biography and minority positions let us look at a significant discussion regarding the ‘impossibility’ of 'Muslim autobiography' in India. While comparing the unfinished autobiographical fragment of Maulana Mohammed Ali with two other autobiographical projects of the time – Gandhi’s and Nehru’s - M T Ansari notes, “Maybe even now, for Muslims in India writing an autobiography remains a fraught exercise” in the sense that “autos or the self is somewhere, the bios or life is elsewhere and the grapheme is nowhere, in that it does not work as an intersection point for the other two”. (See his brilliant doctoral dissertation, CIEFL, Hyderabad, 2002).

We could list major examples closer home such as Vakkom Moulavi or Basheer.

Speaking of Vakkom Moulavi it would be worthwhile noting that while the editor of Swadeshabimani has been etched in the Malayali consciousness as the epitome of courage, its founder publisher never figures in those hagiographies. Let me quote Joseph Mundassery referring to Ramakrishna Pillai in his autobiography Kozhinja Ilakal: “that Dheera deshabhimany was honored as a Janasevakan, his statue was erected and the stuff [confiscated by the Travencore Government] was returned. Its owner was a karanavar of Vakkom Abdul khader.” (Current books, 2004, p301, translation&emphasis mine).

N P Chekkutty: Sanjeev's note on Vakkam Maulavi reminds me about the vanished heroes of our struggle:

It is very interesting to think about how some of our freedom fighters simply disappeared from public memory through a conscious amnesia on the part of our mainstream society.

Muhammad Abdurahman has never been a big name in our textbooks, though he has been one of the very few freedom fighters who inspired our poets. Not only our Satchi daa, but a number of great poets like P Kunhiraman Nair, Edassery, G Kumara Pillai and Vailoppilly had written about him in glowing terms. Perhaps poets are greater visionaries and truth-tellers than historians.

But where did you see a mention about a person like M P Narayana Menon, who spent 24 years in jail, in our school textbooks? And anyone heard about E Kannan, a dalit freedom fighter and political activist who was a member of the Kuttikrishna Menon Committee on land reforms in 1937along with EMS and Abdurahman?

No. They are all gone. What else we could say about it but our conscious collective amnesia?

M G Radhrsishnan: Chekkutty says NDF is the true claimant of Saheb’s legacy! What I have learnt (from Chekkutty’s book too) is that Saheb’s life was devoted to further the cause of secularism and also to fight the conservatism within the Muslim religion. Can you cite any example to prove NDF is doing any of these to claim Saheb’s legacy ? Except Muslim League, at least in a minor way, does any of the religious group among Muslims ever talk about the rising fundamentalism or the need for social reformation inside the community ? Or do you think fundamentalism does not exist at all or there is no need for reformation?

N P Chekkutty: I need to add a few brief points here by way of clarifications:

1. When we try to understand the life and legacy of a person like Muhammad Abdurahman, whose public life spanned from 1920 to 1945, we must confront the fact that there is a big chasm that divides that period from that of us. The concepts like secularism, human rights, etc, of which we speak now, were not fully developed in those days.

2. If you try to understand the life of the Saheb, you will see religion has always been the primary fountain of his political life. In the Indian nationalist politics in the post-first world war period, people of the minorities could not hope to find any other catalyst to drive them into action other than religion.

3. This need not be a hindrance for eventual development of secular, modern politics and social thinking in such communities. They can't remain backward or fundamentalist for ever. New ideas would always seep in and that would have a natural churning effect in such communities.

4. Watching the Muslim community in Malabar, I feel such a deep and highly transformative churning process is now on. For example I have a colleague who had to leave his home recently because he refused to accept dowry from his willing father in law. While his parents demanded money and a car, he refused to take it risking the anger of his father. Poor boy had to walk out of the home with his young wife because his organisation, in this case PFI, had asked the young members not to accept dowry at any cost.

(Courtesy:fourthestatecritique.google.com)

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Doing Brisk Business in Election Time



The KPCC list for candidates in Kerala handed over to the AICC; leaders prepare to return home: news.

Sales over, time to close shop...!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

The Curious Case of Good Samaritans and Dead Lamb: A parable from Kerala



CPM jumps in as the BJD-BJP alliance breaks in Orissa: news.
Political Samaritans taking home a lamb...!

KERALA'S EDUCATION department is now conducting a very interesting inquiry about a compact disc, that was distributed as part of training progammes in some parts of the State.

The CD contained a play, shot on camera, that was supposed to help the students and teachers in the class room exercises. But at some places, along with this innocuous one, another by the same playwright, was downloaded into the CD and distributed raising a hue and cry.

This play, surely, is enormously interesting if you look at its content. It shows a bishop and his driver travelling on a village road and accidentally hitting a little lamb. The driver asks the bishop what to do with the dead lamb and receives the instruction to put it in the dick of the car so that once in their palace they could make a good dish of it.

The lamb is owned by a poor village boy and he loved it so much. The boy comes to know about the death of his friend and comes to the bishop's house in search of it and the ensuing scenes are somewhat funny.

The church in Kerala is up in arms and Malayala Manorama, which broke the story, also relishes in it because they find in it a very good weapon to beat the education department run by M A Baby and the Left Front Government in the State. The education department is jittery and Baby denies there was any move to defame the church. It was quite accidental that such a play with which the department has nothing to do got itself into the CD, he explains. In fact they have suspended an official for negligence in his duty.

Watching the play, I thought it was not a bad thing, albeit accidental. The play raises some very disturbing questions about the morals of our religious leadership, whether it be Christian, Muslim or Hindu. There was a time when we heard stories about Jesus Christ and the good Samaritan, about the Buddha carrying a limping lamb to its abode and so many others.

And what kind of stories we do hear today? We hear stories about religious persecution, hatred, and violence, sexual assaults in religious institutions, fleecing of people in the name of donations and fees and what all these give is an impression of all round corruption and moral degradation. In fact if you read the newspapers, you would think our religious leaders are nothing better a mafia.

That should make us think, not only about our religions and their current plight, but about our moral principles too.

Monday, March 9, 2009

CPM Dissidents Refuse to Capitulate: A Cultural Revolution in Our Own Times

THE CENTRAL committee of the CPM, which came out with its assessment of the left prospects in the 15th Lok Sabha elections due in a few weeks, admits that this time it would be a very tough fight.

The statement, made public by general secretary Prakash Karat in his press conference yesterday, was based on the two-day discussions and the reports presented by state units, including West Bengal’s party chief Biman Bose and Kerala’s state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, among others.

But Prakash Karat said the internal divisions in his party or personal tussles among its leaders would not be a worry; he saw larger political developments like the possible Congress-Trinamool alliance in West Bengal as the reason why the left could face difficulties this time.

There is no doubt that the left is facing acute political challenges in all its strongholds this time. It is also a fact that the left, mainly the CPM, is facing serious ideological and organizational challenges also, though Karat seems to play them down.

In Kerala, what could prove to be the most serious threat is the recent divisions in the party and the mass erosion from its ranks with substantial numbers of supporters and cadres leaving the party. Yesterday, as Karat was addressing the Delhi press meet, news came that M R Murali, the CPM dissident in Shroanur, could be a candidate in Palakkad. It could mean the defeat of the CPM candidate there as we have witnessed in Shoranur municipality a few weeks ago.

And what about Vatakara, another sure seat for the CPM in north Kerala?

Last Sunday I was in Vatakara, a constituency that has always been with the CPM or left. This time too, it is most likely to remain with CPM. I was there for a seminar organized by the Indian Union Muslim League, and the mood I saw there was of confidence, because for the first time they were sensing blood. Not that they would win, but they will put up a tough fight.

I met T P Chandrasekharan, who is now the leader of the rebel CPM in Onchiyam. He was also there, and we had a long talk. (A very personal chat because he was my close friend and comrade from 77 to 83 in SFI). It gave me the impression that this division in the party was too deep and it has many undercurrents. The most important thing is that the CPM leadership, both local and state, is now totally out of touch with the cadre down below.

I asked what they would do in the next polls? He said we would not help CPM win, but would not go with UDF either.

It could mean they would decide to put up their own candidate, to show their strength or perhaps lack of it among the people.
It seems if they stood alone and put up a candidate, they will garner anything between 50,000 and 75,000 votes. Still CPM can win provided the new voters would stay with them.

But that would mean the base of CPM being challenged so thoroughly and openly. Will they be in a position to withstand this people's revolt, this revolt of those people who spilled blood for them, the people who gave their life for the party?

For the first time, we are witnessing something similar to Cultural Revolution in China in our midst. The people are now trying to put up barricades in the road to the headquarters, they are besieging the headquarters which has turned hostile on them.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Will Jai Ho Save Congress?



Congress Party gets the rights to use Jai Ho, the Oscar-award winning music score of A R Rehman,for its election campaign use: news

Jai ho, jai ho jay jaya he...!
 
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