D K Singh: Detox driver

BACKSTAGE

If religion is the opiate of the masses, Iron Lady of the CPI(M) Brinda Karat's attempt to detoxify them has landed her party in a soup.

It was only recently that her party colleagues were gloating over reports from Kerala that some bishops had publicly declared that Communists are not "anti-God". Karat's spat with yoga guru Ramdev has pushed them back into the politically unflattering cast of atheists.

Also, the debate over the alleged presence of animal parts in the yoga guru's medicines has turned into an indigenous versus foreign issue, with the CPI(M), ironically, being cast into the unlikely mould of an MNC apologist by even friends like RJD supremo Lalu Prasad. Only the CPI has lent support to the beleaguered CPI(M) Politburo member at a time when her effigies are being burnt by Ramdev's supporters "" a few months ago, a Hindi weekly had levelled the same allegations, and got a Rs 500-crore legal notice slapped on it by Ramdev.

Karat had jumped into the fray against Ramdev last May after over a hundred workers were sacked from his Divya Yoga Pharmacy in Haridwar. While demanding better wages, they had also alleged that the medicines prepared in the pharmacy contained animal parts. Karat landed up in Haridwar the next month to lend support to the employees' demonstration and sought a probe into their allegations and also demanded that the pharmacy should be brought under the Factories Act.

Six months later, she came out with purported lab reports vindicating the employees' allegations. The Health Ministry has since sought to steer clear of any controversy arguing that it did not know the origin of the samples of medicines given by the CPI(M) leader.

Born in a half-Punjabi, half-Bengali family in 1947, Karat was educated in elite institutions like Welham's College in Dehradun and Miranda House in New Delhi before taking up a job with Air-India in London and it was there that she got attracted to Marxism. She rose to join the central committee of the CPI(M) in 1995 but resigned three years later protesting against the under-representation of women in the decision-making bodies of the party. She returned to the central committee four years later, but not before the party had increased women's representation. Leading the All India Democratic Women's Association, Karat has been very vocal on women's issues. Last year, she created history by becoming the first woman to be a member of the party's decision-making body, the Politburo. Today, she could arguably be the best-known face among Communist leaders across the country "" the Ramdev episode has only increased this.