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Left ensured passage of NREGA: Karat

Special Correspondent

He disputes Amartya Sen’s charge that they neglected hunger, illiteracy

No delinking social justice and anti-imperialism battles
UPA-Left coordination panel focussed on economic policy issues, pro-people measures

NEW DELHI: Disagreeing with the criticism of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on the political practice of the Left parties, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat has emphasised that the struggle for improving the lives of people has to go hand in hand with the fight against imperialist domination.

Joining issue with Professor Sen on his recent criticism that the Left did not focus on issues that were central to social justice and paid more attention to matters of India’s sovereignty, Mr. Karat said the two issues had to go together.

In an article in the latest issue of the party organ, People’s Democracy, Mr. Karat said the CPI(M) was indebted to Prof. Sen for his many insights into the nature of inequality and injustice in Indian society and system and that his views on social justice in India and the glaring failure to address the basic problems were not only relevant but also needed to be translated into action.

However, Mr. Karat disputed Prof. Sen’s argument that the Left had neglected issues such as hunger and illiteracy, stating that during the period it supported the UPA government, it consistently took up issues of food security and the public distribution system, the rural employment guarantee scheme, the impact of WTO rules on agriculture and farmers, land rights for tribal people, the need for greater allocation for health and education in the Union budget, and the whole gamut of neo-liberal policies that adversely affected the well-being of the people.

A UPA-Left coordination committee, which functioned during the first three years, was dominated by economic policy issues and the question of implementation of the pro-people measures in the Common Minimum Programme. The 20 notes and more submitted by the Left to this committee were in the public domain. Besides, it resisted efforts to bring in legislation and policies opening up the financial sector and the economy to speculative finance capital.

While opposing the UPA government’s foreign policy that was not in consonance with the Common Minimum Programme, the Left parties ensured the passage of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).

It was not any “gut anti-Americanism” or any exaggerated fear of the power of the United States that influenced the Left. “It is a recognition that the neo-liberal policies pursued by the Indian ruling classes get their greatest sustenance from the strategic link with the United States. This link not only affects foreign policy but also the domestic economic agenda,” he said.

The article said Prof. Sen shared the common social-democratic assumption that imperialism was a thing of the past. He would accept there were some exceptional imperialist acts such as the war on Iraq, but for the rest, imperialist-driven globalisation with its twin instruments of neo-liberal policies and military intervention was not germane to the central issues of social justice that were close to Prof. Sen’s heart.

The Left in India had not, so far, delinked its fight for social justice and against social and economic exploitation from the fight against the predatory neo-liberal policies perpetuated by imperialism.

The Left tried to integrate its strategy of fighting the forces that perpetuated injustice, poverty and exploitation in India with the struggle against the globalised imperialist system.

The test for all Left and Communist formations in these times of imperialist-driven finance capital and of neo-liberal policies at home is to be able to stand firm against both and work for alternative policies directed at the priorities Prof. Sen set out in his concept of social justice.

The inability to recognise this role of the Left led Prof. Sen to virtually recommend that the Left play a subsidiary role, one of supporting the Congress, or at best act as a sort of its Left wing.

The correct course

“More than six decades after independence, experience has taught the Left that this is not the path to take. The correct course, which is more arduous, is to work for a democratic transformation that will necessarily involve putting an end to at least the worst forms of class and social exploitation existing in India. But it is not very helpful to counterpose, as he has, the struggle for a better life for the people to the fight against imperialist domination. The two have to go together,” the CPI(M) general secretary noted.

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