The CPM is unabashedly unpatriotic. Its actions, responses and mindset on almost all issues that have a bearing on supreme national interests and India'ssecurity prove this to the hilt. The party'sinterpretation of the Marxist ideology prevents it from taking a nationalist line on any major issue, though in order to confuse the masses, it names its publications with fancy names like Deshabhmani and Deshsevak. May be, the Communist don'ttalk about India when they mention Desh. They may be thinking of their ideological fatherlands when they talk about ?Desh?. It is a matter of record that the Communist Party of India (Remember, it detests calling itself Indian Communist Party) denounced the Second World War as an ?imperialist war? but lost no time in declaring it a ?people'swar? the moment Communist Russia joined the allies. Its betrayal of the Quit India Movement during which Communist leaders and cadres acted as British agents to sabotage the movement and providing information to the police to get nationalist leaders like JP and Lohia arrested is a sad chapter of our freedom movement. The undivided Communist Party'srole during the Chinese attack on India in 1962 (when it declared India as the aggressor and justified Chinese occupation of large tract of Indian territory) is too recent to be forgotten by people, short though the public memory is.
The latest in the series is the CPM'sresponse to North Korea'snuclear explosion. The party that had roundly condemned the BJP-led Government for Pokhran-II in 1998 and organised mass rallies and street corner meetings to launch a tirade against India emerging as a nuclear power, has now gone out of its way to defend the Communist country'sright to make the bomb. It argues that North Korea can'tbe denied the right to go nuclear since US has a massive nuclear arsenal but never raised this issue and conveniently forgot that our hostile neighbour China had nuclear weapons that could reduce our cities to rubble. It rubbished the NDA Government'sassertion that the nuclear weapons had been developed as deterrence but defends Pyongyang'sclaim of being a nuclear state because it was meant to defend itself. The CPM took strong exception to the Indian Nuclear Doctrine in 1999 and went to lodge its protest with the then Prime Minister A B Vajpayee on the doctrine? formulation that in the absence of a global nuclear disarmament, Indian strategic interests required effective and credible nuclear deterrence and adequate retaliatory capability should deterrence fail.
Security of North Korea, and not of India, is uppermost in the minds of Communists. They don'tthink China that had a large arsenal of nuclear bombs and a massive delivery system a potential threat to our security and territorial integrity. The CPM was extremely upset and sad when India became a nuclear power but is elated?as is evident from stray remarks by its leaders?that the rogue country has successfully tested the bomb with the help of nuclear technology smuggled from Pakistan. The Communist parties persistently attack our security forces engaged in counter-insurgency operations in J&K and North East of ?violation? of human rights but the very same parties remain mum on an extremely poor human rights record of North Korea. Earlier this year, these parties roundly condemned plans to hold an international rally at Brussels – the headquarters of the European Union – to highlight human right violations in North Korea dismissing it as a part of the smear campaign to tarnish the image of Communist North Korea.
As if to prove that it is unpatriotic to the core, the CPM mouthpiece – People'sdemocracy – came down heavily on the Indian stand that North Korea had violated its international commitments. Not only that, People'sDemocracy pontificated by telling the UPA Government that it would make more sense if the Indian Government were to ?boldly decide? to initiate the process for a nuclear disarmament agenda and timetable and committing to roll back ?its own nuclear weaponisation? as part of this process. The CPM mouthpiece is suggesting that India should destroy its nuclear weapons to set an example before other nations, including the rogue states – Pakistan and North Korea. Its double standards have no bounds as it has no such advice for Communist China and North Korea and Islamist Pakistan. Atom bombs in the possession on failed states – Pakistan and North Korea – are no threat to world peace, according to the Communists but a nuclear India that has an impeccable record of adhering to its international commitment is a threat to peace in the region!!
Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush say India going nuclear is quite different from North Korea possessing the bomb. The British Prime Minister recently told a news conference that India was very strong on counter-proliferation whereas North Korea was going the opposite direction. Pyongyang, he said, had clearly breached its international obligations. Communists in India don'tagree. They think India was in the wrong and was guilty of pushing South Asia into a nuclear race, while ?poor and harassed? Pyongyang has no option but to acquire nuclear weapons to fight American hegemony. They are no doubt Chinese and Korean patriots but care too hoots for being patriot to their own motherland! That is natural for them. They are Communists.
