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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Red Romance

For long, the Naxalite in news was recognisable by the gun. But the more insidious version of Naxalism has never needed a rifle. It has thrived in varsity classrooms and newspaper and magazine columns, fostered by men and women sympathetic to it. These academics and other members of the so-called intelligentsia have long enjoyed their status as ‘respectable dissenters’ even when their politics offered intellectual alibis for Naxals carrying guns. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent...

Red Romance

For long, the Naxalite in news was recognisable by the gun. But the more insidious version of Naxalism has never needed a rifle. It has thrived in varsity classrooms and newspaper and magazine columns, fostered by men and women sympathetic to it. These academics and other members of the so-called intelligentsia have long enjoyed their status as ‘respectable dissenters’ even when their politics offered intellectual alibis for Naxals carrying guns. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent Independence Day warning about “dimaagi Naxals” should therefore not be dismissed as another political label. His larger point was that an insurgency does not survive on ammunition alone. It survives on ideas and people willing to make violence appear morally fashionable. The most revealing feature of India’s Maoist movement was never simply its brutality. It was the strange attraction it exercised over sections of the metropolitan Left elite. The Naxalite with an AK-47 could be transformed into a romantic revolutionary while the policeman he killed became an instrument of an oppressive state. This was not merely naïveté. At its ugliest, it was the intellectual laundering of political violence. The fantasy of the romantic revolutionary has always been seductive. In this narrative, amplified through sympathetic media priding itself on telling ‘truth to power,’ India was not a constitutional democracy struggling with inequality and corruption but an inherently illegitimate state waiting to be overthrown. In the minds of this elite Left, Maoist violence has often been recast as resistance while attacks on infrastructure as blows against capitalism. The armed overthrow of the Indian republic was the liberation they craved for. Some of India’s most celebrated intellectuals have flirted dangerously close to that moral inversion. The issue here is whether intellectual prestige can be used to sanitise an ideology whose practitioners have murdered civilians, policemen and public servants and terrorised some of India’s poorest districts. A university cannot be the place where Maoist romanticism acquires the legitimacy of a fashionable campus cause. Professors who turn armed insurgents into heroic revolutionaries are not merely exercising academic freedom. If they knowingly excuse violence, they are helping to construct the moral vocabulary that makes violence possible. Let’s be clear here. A professor who criticises the Indian state is not a Naxal while a journalist who exposes state excesses is not an enemy of India. But an intellectual who repeatedly excuses, glorifies or rationalises political violence cannot hide behind the word ‘dissent.’ India has paid an enormous price for the Maoist fantasy. Thousands have died. Entire regions were held back by fear while development was obstructed. The people supposedly being liberated were often the first to suffer. The armed Naxal is now being pushed towards extinction. But the Indian republic cannot afford to leave behind the romantic mythology that made the gun respectable. A democracy can tolerate dissent. It should never be expected to tolerate the glorification of those who seek its violent destruction.

West Bengal Congress divided over Left alliance as TMC shuts doors for 2026 polls

With Trinamool Congress ruling out an alliance, Congress faces an internal split over seat-sharing with the Left Front for the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections.

West Bengal

Kolkata: With the Trinamool Congress (TMC) making it clear that it will not ally with Congress for the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections, the grand old party now faces a tough decision—whether to forge an alliance with the CPI(M)-led Left Front or contest independently.


Congress Divided on Left Alliance

The West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee (WBPCC) appears divided on this issue. One section argues that alliances have historically weakened Congress in the state. They recall how TMC, after forming an alliance in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and 2011 Assembly polls, gradually poached Congress leaders and eroded the party’s strength. Similarly, the Congress-Left alliance, which began in 2016, is seen as having made the party overly reliant on seat-sharing rather than rebuilding its own base.

However, others within the party feel that given Congress’ current weak organisational presence in Bengal, contesting alone in 2026 would mean certain defeat. With Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee categorically rejecting a Congress-TMC alliance, they see the Left Front as the only viable partner for a seat-sharing arrangement.


Congress High Command’s Approach

Congress’ central leadership is refraining from imposing any decision on the state unit. Instead, it plans to assess the opinions of state leaders and grassroots workers before finalizing a strategy. A delegation from the All India Congress Committee (AICC), possibly led by national president Mallikarjun Kharge, is expected to visit West Bengal in June or July to evaluate the situation.


CPI(M)’s Stance on Alliances

Meanwhile, CPI(M) has its own reservations about electoral tie-ups. The party’s draft political resolution for its 24th Congress, scheduled in April in Madurai, emphasizes an independent political approach over electoral alliances. The resolution stresses rebuilding the party’s presence in Bengal and Tripura through grassroots mobilization, particularly among rural communities. It also highlights the need to challenge the BJP ideologically while opposing both the TMC and BJP in West Bengal.

Given these complexities, the fate of a Congress-Left alliance remains uncertain, making the 2026 Assembly elections a crucial test for both parties.

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