You said idealism not ideology.

Ideology and idealism are very closely related. Idealism urges you to seek a change. What that change should be is where ideology comes in. At least in my case, both of them have merged.

Talk a little about how both have evolved, particularly in the past 10 years.

There is a marked difference between the generation I belong to or we belong to — back in the 1970s — and what you have in the 1990s and the turn of the century. It is not only a question of technological change or change in information access which has tremendously grown. During this period, there has been a process where sections that were otherwise marginalised are asserting themselves. In the last 10 years, one finds a very big shift in terms of realignment within the political stream in India, which is for the good. I don’t have any complaints about it. All of us will have to find our equations within that. There is a lot of grappling going on. People are not able to come to terms with some assertion of one marginalised group coming up and not being able to understand how to relate to it. But everybody will have to realise this is the order of the day.

But your party and ideology have also evolved — from not accepting parliamentary democracy to now inviting FDI.

That’s right. Ultimately Marxism is a creative science which is the concrete analysis of concrete conditions. Conditions change and if your analysis doesn’t, you are not a Marxist.

... contd.