This refers to ‘Left struggles to find allies in many states’, October 27. Left parties today are in a disarray and are slowly sliding into irrelevance. If they continue to be the way they are, they will disappear altogether — even in the states of West Bengal and Kerala, where they are supposedly strong. Leftism is not completely dead — in the US, the democrats are leftists but they have reinvented themselves to remain relevant over time. The Indian leftists, on the other hand, still live in the 1950s, conducting bandhs and hartaals, shouting slogans and carrying out all such destructive acts.
While the ideology of public ownership itself needs to be revisited, what is lacking is a consumer-oriented approach on the part of the Leftists. The right to private property, as enshrined in the constitution, is in conflict with the core ideology of the communists — is the party’s policy then not predicated on an unconstitutional principle?
Capitalism, with all its flaws, is thriving not because of any ideological legitimacy, but because it has the consumers’ support.
In contrast, trade unions and labour unions indulge in so-called ‘collective bargaining’ process by resorting to strikes, bandhs and hartaals; but they fail to take into account the consumers’ interests.
With a rising per-capita income, consumerism is on the rise. Gone are the days when a telephone used to be a status symbol and an asset that denoted that the owner has a taxable income — everyone has a mobile today!
Raghu Seshadri, Chennai
