Questioning the 'motivation' of Left-leaning intellectuals and activists like Medha Patkar for supporting the anti-Communist in West Bengal against the ongoing industrialisation process, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said the Marxist party "rejects the platform of anti-industrywallahs". |
The working class has suffered as a result of the de-industrialisation of West Bengal and the party wants the Left Front government to concentrate on making the state a manufacturing base, he said in an article in People's Democracy, the CPI(M) mouthpiece. |
The Tata Motors small car project in Singur was one step in this direction, he wrote. |
"West Bengal will have the basic features of a liberalised capitalist economy. Those who believe that it can be otherwise are only deluding themselves. The challenge for the Left is to see how, in extraordinarily difficult conditions in which state-sponsored economic activities are severely limited, economic development can take place in a manner that benefits the people, particularly the working people and the poor," he said in his article. |
Taking a swipe at critics who accuse the CPI(M) of 'double-speak' on account of land acquisition, Karat said the CPI(M) would continue to refute the 'modern day Narodniks' who claimed to champion the cause of peasantry. Narodniks in 19th century Russia believed that with if Tsar was overthrown, a traditional village-based communal system could go towards socialism. Ultimately, their very opposition to the change brought the Narodniks in conflict with the peasants. |
"It is saddening to see the line up of the Trinamool Congress, the BJP, and the Congress being fortified by the likes of Medha Patkar, who did not hesitate to make an outrageous comparison between land acquisition in Singur and George Bush's policy in Iraq. This is a typical illustration of the poverty of understanding of US imperialism that prevails among NGOs and the 'single-issue' crowd," added the CPI(M) general secretary. |