Marx and Modi

After an arduous day spent shutting down the nation,there will be little respite for leaders of the Left. Not for them the bracing satisfaction that comes with a job done as best as could have been. No,this success of July 5,2010,bears investigation,and you have to feel for them. Try explaining this. How did it come about that a call for a Bharat bandh to protest against the rise in prices of petroleum products resonated far beyond their pocketboroughs of West Bengal and Kerala? How was it,in fact,that Gujarat,hotbed of rapid and presumably neoliberal economic growth,stole the headlines by shutting down completely? How did such a similar fate befall the lands of Marx and Modi?

First,the story as they see it so far. Reeling under another cruel blow,when the Congress-led UPA government abandoned the price of petroleum to the market forces,they resolved last week to have the peoples protest heard. A bandh was announced for July 5. Mysteriously because the Left certainly doesnt do business with the BJP the BJP-led NDA too chose July 5 to force a nationwide shutdown. Soon enough,a JP-like opposition unity was coursing through India. And communist leaders were stuck with explaining to the party faithful how it came to pass that they were stuck on the same side of the barricades as the communal forces,those same forces they would not let UPA-I do business with in Parliament for fear that NDA support for a bill would taint the Left by association. How then did their separate bandhs come fortuitously together? Calling it a coincidence is insufficient,because in the Lefts avidly rational worldview coincidences too must be explained.

Here are the political parties that pulled off this demonstration of opposition unity: BJP,Shiv Sena,JD(S),AGP,Akali Dal,INLD,Samajwadi Party,JD(U),AIADMK,MDMK,TDP,BJD,CPM,CPI,Forward Bloc,RSP. That too,without a Left-dictated common minimum programme because of course the Left parties do not blur ideological lines. Maybe there is no better explan-

ation than,as Dutch footballer Johan Cruyff says,Coincidence is logical. Especially when its the logic of political relevance.