Opinion Taking on Advani

Yechury also says that Nitish Kumar,in flagging off the yatra,has done a great disservice to the secular values that he professes: “The people being mobilised for the yatra are those belonging to RSS outfits. In the name of fighting corruption,the same crowd is being gathered which has been reared on a communal diet of minority-baiting.”

…And Modi

CPI weekly New Age uses the arrest of Sanjiv Bhatt to attack the Gujarat chief minister,saying the affidavit filed by the IPS officer “exposes the intentions of Modi to proclaim himself as future prime minister.” People’s Democracy,meanwhile,ridicules Narendra Modi’s sadbhavana mission. Modi’s talk of sadbhavana is like the “devil quoting scriptures,after having presided over the worst communal pogrom in independent India,” says the CPM weekly. New Age says that Modi has never expressed any remorse for 2002; he only tried to minimise the riots’ seriousness by arguing that “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

It alleges that Bhatt was “made victim of ever new methods of torture” in police custody and claims he was not the only officer who is being victimised: “Modi and the BJP government have been trumpeting the state’s economic growth,though the progress touted is not even factual… Modi-phobia has gripped the police department,the whole bureaucracy in Gujarat. In this situation it is very difficult to bring out the truth. Only regime change could protect the state and the innocent people and the whistleblowers.”

Joy for Wall Street

New Age continues to focus on what it called the “gripping discontent in the West and the rest.” An article says people have risen not only against tyrants (in the Middle East) but also against the economic tyranny of the West operating through the World Bank,IMF,and WTO. “Occupy Wall Street” may be the latest sign of a popular global backlash against elites,with increasingly shared slogans and tactics,an elated Left concludes: “In almost every continent,2011 has seen an almost unprecedented rise in both peaceful and sometimes violent unrest and dissent. Protesters in a lengthening list of countries,including Israel,India,Chile,China,Britain,Spain and now the US,all increasingly link their actions explicitly to the popular revolutions that have shaken up the Middle East,” it says. “America’s Left is finally going to lead a popular dissent,” it concludes.