Alternative agenda

Alternative agenda

The Left is opposed to India's neoliberal economic reform trajectory, but does it have an alternative to offer? Left economist Prabhat Patnaik ponders this question in the CPM weekly, People's Democracy.

He argues that any alternative must mean a disturbance of the given situation. The alternative proposed by the Left, he says, "cannot of course be just a call for socialism, for that would be empty rhetoric... the alternative will be in the nature of what Lenin had called a 'transitional demand', which does not go beyond the system but which the ruling classes are incapable of fulfilling in the given situation," he says.

Elaborating on the "transitional demand" concept, he explains that while not asking for an immediate overthrow of the system and hence, in principle, being within the system, the Left's alternative must visualise a trajectory different from the one being pursued by the ruling classes — one that carries forward the interests of the people.

He observes that the Left has raised a number of demands that together amount to an alternative economic agenda. Among them are universal access to food and employment, free and compulsory primary education and free and universal access to healthcare, old-age pensions and care for the handicapped and disabled. "To be sure, these do not constitute the core of the Left's alternative agenda where radical land redistribution and other similar structural measures occupy the place of pride. But the alternative only starts with the institutionalisation of universal access to a set of basic provisions," he says.

CORRUPTION FIGHT

THE CPI journal New Age criticises activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal over his method of targeting individual leaders, arguing that such tactics do not help to fight corruption. "The fight against corruption cannot be fought in isolation. Like price rise, unemployment... and [the] ever-increasing gap between [the] rich and [the] poor, corruption on [an] unimaginable scale is an inevitable product of the policies of neoliberalism," the editorial says.

... contd.

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