The Rights To Look Towards The Lefts

Atal Vihari occasionally wakes up from his slumber to distribute the pearls of wisdom among his camaraderie. This time he had asked his party-men to look towards the lefts to set things right.That way they might be able to learn a lesson or two about how to stay in power years and years to come. Atal-ji might have hit it at the right spot at the right time. One of the weird puzzles in present Indian politics is who is the principal opposition party of the nation. Is it the BJP sitting on the Opposition benches or the lefts who contribute the biggest chunk of MPs supporting the ruling government ?

Take any goddamned issue under the sun that UPA lays its hands on the lefts are ever-ready to fire their salvos much before BJP spokesperson can even jot down their press statements. Footage of Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechuri delivering the gibberish beams across every alternate news channel at every alternate political intrigue. The principal opposition party sadly is missing in all these actions. It might be high time for the lotus worshippers to take a diet of the leftist crash course before they are lost into obscurity.

But however strong BJP tries to fight back unless they shift their priorities on their agenda list they will go down the lane. The reason lies in the very way that any other democracy works to protect the driving force of the respective nation : it's economy.

In every democracy there are different shades of politics for the people to rally their idealogies. While the rightists define the gripping conservative hardliners, the lefts are supposed to be the liberal, anti-establishment edge of the spectrum. In an hour of crisis either of these two shades of the political palette strikes as the exhaust passage to let the steam off the cookpot.


BJP rise to power was primarily fuelled by the economic crisis that marked the early years of the last decade. India was opening its economy to the world under the guidance of the then finance minister Manmohan Singh. The results would not be showing immediately but surely something was needed to instil the national pride, to make people believe that India also can do it. Who other than the rightists suited this role to bring back the order out the randomness of the whims and fancies of the Gandhi topi.

But once the economy stabilised and the sensex started leaping northwards, the hardliners might prove to be a threat to the investments. The Swadeshi essence always carried the potential reverse gear danger to a closed-door economy and was weighed as a too high risk to be taken. Logically the moderates will be best bet in the scenario when the boom of the economy surpasses expectations of the greatest of all sceptics. And thus we had the return of the Congress back to Delhi's corridors of power.

Even with the moderates running the country the economy does face hindrance. It faces blockades in the exasperation arising out of disparity that characterizes any free market-based economy. These angry voices can be best channelled across the intellectual leftist movement. They perfectly fit the role of maintaining the rebellious zeal with a promise of a volte-face as and when required.

The moderates and the leftists will mark the collaboration that will characterize the next few years of Indian political canvass till another economic factor changes this balance. Till then the lefts will be right and the rights might be left out.