CPIM and ABBAS front is good or bad for secularism.

 Editor: If rallying with the BJP in Calcutta is the most political 'sin' of the CPM in the last 40 years, did the Left abandon all its character by joining the brigade with Abbas Siddiqui? In the 33-year political history from 1986 to February 26, 2021, the CPM has repeatedly made the same "mistake". Compromise with any kind of party or organization to seize political power.

What it was like to lose the Congress at any cost in the eighties of the last century, to defeat Mamata Banerjee at any cost in West Bengal in 2021. Leaders of many of the Left Front's allies admitted in domestic talks that historically the Left had made two mistakes. For the first time, he joined hands with the RSS in organizing a protest movement against Indira Gandhi during the Emergency, because until then the Sangh family was "untouchable" in the larger political arena with responsibility for the "Gandhi assassination".

The second, of course, is to build political alliances with the BJP in the face of Rajiv Gandhi, who has won a huge majority. It was during the coalition politics in the eighties that the Sangh family again got the opportunity to exert influence in different states.

As a result of the oxygen that the Left indirectly gave to the BJP in ousting Rajiv and making VP Singh the Prime Minister, LK Advani got the opportunity to travel all over the country. And the emergence of the BJP as a Hindutva force centered on the Ram Janmabhoomi movement changed the political map of the next 30 years. Jyoti Basu later sensed the danger of sharing the stage with the BJP, but it took another quarter-century for the CPM to accept the political line that Saifuddin Chowdhury, son of Katwar, a CPM MP from West Bengal, spoke.

The CPM has been supporting the BJP for the last 25 years by turning Saifuddin into an "apankteya" in the party and rendering his line useless. Today, however, Sitaram Yechury or Suryakanta Mishra have no difficulty in holding the hand of the Congress. They also said openly that the line of equidistance from BJP and Congress will no longer run. Compromise with the ‘bourgeois’ Congress is much better to resist the ‘communal’ BJP.

But it took the Left 35 years to identify who was politically a 'bourgeois' party, and who was a 'communal', who could cause riots in the country through religious polarization. Today, even before this crucial election in 2021, the CPM has so much of an 'enemy' that Mamata has no hesitation in defeating him or even negotiating with a leader like Abbas Siddiqui of Furfura Sharif.

 

Maybe 20 more years from now, when the CPM will remain on the pages of a book, party theorists will admit that it was a mistake to join hands with Hindu 'communal' forces once, in 2021, the Muslim 'fundamentalist' party has a place in 'mainstream' politics. Doing so was such a big 'sin'. But since the leftists of this country have never taken a theoretical position, not only in their personal life, but also in their political strategy, they are making a fuss about Abbas Siddiqui today.

No one has explained on what political ideology the Left is allying with Abbas Siddiqui without trying to win a single election. Will Suryakanta Mishra or Sujan Chakraborty now have pictures of Marx and Lenin as well as Zakir Nayak in their party offices? What do the progressive leftists have to say about Abbas Siddiqui's views on Muslim women, the restrictions he wants to impose on women? Mamata Banerjee only went to their prayers and covered her head, the CPM of this state compromised with the 'radical' Islam in the hope of getting votes.

After Abbas Siddiqui is cherished as a 'son-in-law' on the brigade stage, what ideology can the Left boast of, how else can the leaders of the Forward Bloc claim to be the political 'successors' of Subhash Chandra Bose?

Blindly opposing the Congress, these leftists once gave political ‘recognition’ to the RSS, joining hands with them to help the BJP gain political influence. In the same way in West Bengal, while opposing Mamata Banerjee, the CPM is today taking the 'gin' of another religious fundamentalism out of the bottle and sealing it to become a star in the brigade.

In his famous interview, Jyoti Basu made it clear that it was a "historic" mistake for the CPM not to take over the PM's job with the help of the Congress-backed United Front. Today again the CPM made the same historic mistake by giving political recognition and dignity to Abbas Siddiqui.