By Ramesh Mathew
Staff Reporter
The setbacks suffered by the Communist movement all over the world, including eastern Europe are only temporary, a Communist youth leader from the eastern Indian state of West Bengal has said.
This was disclosed to Gulf Times in Doha yesterday by Tapan Sinha, general secretary of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), the youth wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
Saha, who is a co-ordinator of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (Asia-Pacific Region), the apex body of a large number of youth movements in about 100 countries was in transit here on his return journey to India from France.
The Communist leader had attended a global level meeting of the apex forum in Paris.
“It is true that the global Communist movement is passing through a tough time, especially since the latter half of the 80s. However, it is not yet time to write it off as a whole,” said Sinha.Describing the setbacks of the Communists in eastern Europe countries as a “temporary” phenomenon, the Indian youth leader said those who replaced the Communists in those countries were either former Communists or others adhering to the same values and ideals.
“Is there any other movement in the world that is still relevant, active and widespread as Communism, which has base in virtually every country, including some in the Middle East,” he said. “When the Israeli forces bombarded Lebanon in 2006, even the Communists from India mobilised financial resources for the victims of the Israeli aggression in Beirut and its suburbs. During the distribution of humanitarian aid too, the Communists from that country though in small number, were also in the forefront,” recalled Sinha.
Replying to a query on the series of defeats suffered by Communist Party of India (Marxist) in his home state of West Bengal in the last two years, Sinha claimed much of the powerful vernacular media, in particular broadcast and visual media and the English newspapers in West Bengal were on an anti-Communist campaign for unknown reasons. “They were successful in their hate CPI (M) tirade and it helped the Opposition parties in a big way,” he said.
Asked if the people of West Bengal were finally looking forward to a change in the state’s administration after more than three decades of uninterrupted rule, Sinha said the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) would certainly be voted back to power in the elections to be held in 2011.
“Even if there would a marginal fall in the total number of the LDF seats, we are confident of returning to power in West Bengal,” he said.
Queried if it was a mistake on the part of Left parties to have voted against Manmohan Singh government in the Indo-US nuclear deal, Sinha claimed the Left parties took a very “principled” stand on the issue.
“Instead of a single nuclear power station, we should have developed at least 20 highly economical hydro-electric power stations,” he said.
However the DYFI leader acknowledged that the CPI (M) and its allies could not present its anti-nuclear stance in its right perspective in the general elections. “We turned out to be very poor in marketing our stance among the voters,” he said.
Sinha said Communist International, a global forum which India is hosting for the second time in 29 years from today in New Delhi would help in setting a new agenda for the global Communist movement.
The New Delhi meeting, to be attended by 85 Communist parties from all over the world, is being hosted jointly by CPI (M) and Communist Party of India (CPI).
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