There is no difference between the Left mainstream and fringe
It’s insidious how they do it, but mainstream Left-Liberal media, politicians and intellectuals have perfected the template of connecting every objectionable and vile comment made by any individual, organisation or group even tangentially connected with the phrase “Hindu” — given over 80 per cent of India’s population is of the Hindu civilizational ethos that’s never too difficult — to the powers-that-be. From a duly and democratically elected Prime Minister, to the BJP, a bonafide political party and today the largest in the world, to the RSS and its affiliates, and various NGOs, registered societies et.al., the aforementioned have no compunction in drawing linear links between them and every crazy on the street committing violence in word or deed and conflating what they choose to term the right-wing fringe and mainstream; indeed, many of them argue that they are one and the same. But when it comes the Left, a different set of rules seem to apply; at best, the usual suspects, or at least the more well-meaning if clueless ones among them, will try humour/sarcasm to ‘keep the balance’, at least in their own minds. We, on the other hand, suffer from no such hypocrisy.
Therefore, it is vital not to just gently mock the CPI-M for supporting the despot Kim Jung Un, who is alleged to have personally ordered multiple assassinations, and the absolutist state of North Korea run by him which has not only credibly been accused of mass murder but also compared by sober analysts to the Third Reich in both structure and ideological orientation albeit with Kim Family characteristics. For, there is no diluting the horror of the CPI-M’s stand. It may have started with the so-called fringe — a party local committee in Idukki, Kerala, which put up hoardings revering Kim and terming him a hero who should be emulated for standing up to the US. But this has now been followed by the Kerala party secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, which is as mainstream as one can get, who has delivered a eulogy to Kim for resisting pressure from the US “which is arming South Korea… to prevent North Korea from emerging as an economic force… (and for) its socialist policies.” To top it all, State Chief Minister and CPI-M Politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan — we are now in the realm of mainstream leadership, just in case you missed the point — has publicly held up and supported Kim and his rogue North Korean regime as exemplars of anti-US imperialism. A fit case, one would think, for the Constitutionally mandated reasonable restrictions to Article 19 dealing with the right to freedom of speech and expression to be brought into play, wouldn’t you say? Specifically, the restriction in the interest of maintaining “friendly relations with foreign States”, in this case read the US, South Korea and Japan.
Courtesy: Daily Pioneer
