From: bond@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Girish)
Subject: MARXIST  VOLT-FACE
Summary: Communists are hypocrites!
Keywords: Communist, BJP, Constitution, Politics
Organization: University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, Canada
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 22:54:56 GMT
Expires: Sat, 20 Mar 1993 04:00:00 GMT


                          _M_A_R_X_I_S_T _V_O_L_T_E-_F_A_C_E

                (An Editorial from The Hindustan Times)
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     An odd fallout of the Ayodhya calamity is the spectacle of the Commun-
ist  parties,  which have tasted more than their quota of President's rule,
applauding the assault on federalism that the wholesale  dismissal  of  the
BJP   governments   in  Madhya  Pradesh,  Rajasthan  and  Himachal  Pradesh
represents.  For a party that had made deletion of  Article  356  from  the
Constitution  an  article  of  faith, the CPI-M seems to have made a facile
compromise with its resolve, while pressurising the Prime Minister to  take
recourse  to this "OBNOXIOUS PROVISION" as the price for its support to his
government. More interesting is the fact that  the  arguments  advanced  to
justify  the Marxist somersault are far less tenable than the reasons trot-
ted out to justify earlier instances of Central intervention, including the
dismissal  of the first Communist government headed by Mr E.M.S. Namboodri-
pad in Kerala on grounds of law and order break-down. If the  sack  of  the
Kalyan  Singh  government  in  Uttar  Pradesh was inevitable because of his
self-confessed failure to avert the Ayodhya outrage, it was guilt by  asso-
ciation  that  caused  the axing of the three other governments, if the CPI
and CPI-M explanations are to be accepted on face value. Their  continuance
in  office,  according to the CPI-M Politburo, would have been "in conflict
with the national will to suppress communal forces!"

     It is clear that the Marxists pressed home their advantage at  a  time
when Mr Narsimha Rao was under great pressure from the Arjun Singh lobby to
come out with more concrete evidence of the government's  resolve  to  meet
the challenge of communalism. The CPI-M saw in it a golden chance to conso-
lidate its position in both West Bengal and Kerala and extend its  sway  to
the  Hindi belt too, using the dependence of the Narsimha Rao Government on
leftist support. In the process, both CPI-M  general  secretary  Harikishan
Singh  Surjeet  and West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu, who were assidu-
ously wooed by Mr Rao, chose to overlook the fact that the three  dismissed
governments  had  neither  involved  themselves  in  the  Ayodhya incidents
directly nor shown any disinclination to discharge  their  responsibilities
with  regard to the five banned organisations. There was nothing to warrant
the conclusion that the constitutional machinery had failed  in  the  three
states.  The  Governor's  doubts  about the sincerity of the governments in
complying with the ban requirements, whether real or cooked up, would  make
the  anticipatory  invoking  of Article 356 another instance of its misuse.
And yet, it has been endorsed by the same party which hailed  the  Sarkaria
Commission's  finding  that  Article 356 was more often invoked to subserve
the interests of the ruling party at the Centre. The CPI-M has to do  quite
a bit of explaining to show that its volte-face on Article 356 was not dic-
tated by political expediency.

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Organization: Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentatn, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA