The Hindu Business Line : Left in the lurch

THE Left parties can no longer put off devoting a couple of days in a quiet retreat to intense introspection, reviewing the effect of developments in India and abroad on their movement. In particular, they need to ponder, with searing intellectual honesty, over the suitability of their ideology and goals to the era when the world is in the throes of five simultaneous revolutions in knowledge, communications, technology, governance and social mores.

Globalisation is making nonsense of shibboleths of the past relating to finance, industry, trade, commerce and government-to-government, business-to-business, and people-to-people relations. Everywhere politics is veering away from extremes and assuming a centrist complexion. The New Left of the UK is a conspicuous example of this trend.

India's Leftists cannot afford to ignore the changes overtaking every sphere of activity. There is plenty in the Leftists to admire and emulate: Incorruptibility, simplicity, austerity, uprightness, closeness to the common people, readiness to fight for what they consider to be right and just. They certainly can raise the quality of politics if only they shed their fixations.

In India, unfortunately, the very mention of the Left only evokes images of indiscipline and low productivity of unionised employees, agitations and strikes, obstructive tactics and outdated approaches to political and economic issues. Of late, the Government seems to have learnt to successfully thwart their attempts to force it to toe their line. It knows that the fear of fresh election and the prospect of the BJP coming to power and their losing whatever numbers they have in the current Lok Sabha will stop them from carrying out their threat of withdrawal of support.

Their position is further undermined by the bold and radical moves of China towards greater integration with the global mainstream economy. The Indian Left cannot claim to be holier than China, which already allows foreign direct investment in the retail sector and has voted against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The latest rebuff to the Left is the collapse of the strike of the employees of the Airports Authority of India following the tough stand of the Government on the modernisation of airports.

If the Left does not draw the appropriate lessons, it may find itself not only marginalised but facing extinction. It has to reinvent and revamp itself — and soon.

B. S. Raghavan