NEWSMAKER: Prakash Karat

High on ideals

Will CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat help the UPA government out? This is the question everybody is asking. Walk into the Parliament and Congress leaders will collar you to find out about Karat's secret life and whether he is 'persuadable'.

In Congress lexicon, this means only one thing. But for Karat, the difference between right and wrong is 'line'. The basis for arguing party line is opposition to imperialism in all its forms. As currently, the US is the world's biggest imperialist power, party line has to be argued and calibrated accordingly.

Karat is not dogmatic though he may give that impression. True, in 1996, when there was a chance for West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu to become Prime Minister with the support of the anti-Congress opposition, Karat fought it with all strength at his command.

Though Harkishan Singh Surjeet was General Secretary, it was Karat who controlled the organisation. The Bengal unit of the party thought it would be good for the growth and development of the Communist movement in India to have a Prime Minister from the CPI(M).

Basu got more than one third of the votes of the party's Central Committee, not once but twice. But two thirds of the party voted this line out, a move Basu described as a "historical blunder" but a blunder that was endorsed by the party congress.

And yet, this is only half the story. Three years later, in 1999, when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government fell after 13 months, the Opposition was in search of a Prime Minister.

It is not generally known but the then President of India, K R Narayanan, sent a message to the CPI(M) asking if it would consider putting up a candidate for the Prime Ministership of India.

There could have been only one choice "" Jyoti Basu again. Karat, to his credit agreed that if Sonia Gandhi were to support the CPI(M), he would propose Basu's name for Prime Ministership.

At that time, Mulayam Singh Yadav, smarting under the snubs delivered by Gandhi, refused to agree to a Congress-led government but he, too, supported Basu.

However, Gandhi thought the Samajwadi Party would. When Gandhi was unable to produce the 272 MPs needed to form a government, the government fell.

In his mid 50s, Karat is a professional politician and a committed Communist. While creating the party line for the opposition to the civil nuclear agreement between India and the US, Karat had exhaustive discussions with India's scientific community, many of whom have seen the American denial regime and know how much damage it has done to India.

They were preaching to the converted. Today, Karat is personally handling all negotiations "" parliamentary, political, everything.

He has lost two crucial colleagues "" Chittabrata Majumdar and Anil Biswas. But Karat's statement on the Indo-US Civil Nuclear deal, and what the party will do in the Parliament, was: "As far as our approach to the government is concerned, we will take our own counsel". That's all he's doing.