Everybody loves to hate the Left

It was quite ironical. On the day the Left was being decimated in West Bengal, its last bastion held for last 34 years, HBO was showing Michael Moore’s docu-film ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’.

For those who haven’t seen it yet, its an absolute recommended viewing — a huge comment on the American system, free economy, multinationals’ greed, bankers’ scheming ways of looting the gullible, and finally, how the so-called financial experts enter treasury to use taxpayers’ money to clean the mess created by themselves.

This column is not to shed any tears over the defeat of the Left. One has always been quite curious to see people’s reactions to the Communists (CPI or CPM…they are both communists, after all, aren’t they?). Most of the unions in Mumbai, which happens to be the commercial capital of India, were run by the Leftists once upon a time. And it was not just the blue shirts. Even today, white-collar staff in capitalist institutions such as banks owes its allegiance to the Lal Bavta (red flag). It was interesting to see that Communists, who believe religion is morphine to man, even managed stitch together a union of employees at Haji Ali dargah.

But despite their omnipresence in the working class of this city, the people never gave them the keys to the treasury. The civic body, for a long time, had a little bit of Left presence. Manishankar Kavthe even held the record for getting elected to the corporation the most number of times. One had visited his constituency and had found his voters were so content that they didn’t know what more they could ask from him. He was always available, he was deemed to be one of the cleanest. Yet, he was defeated that very election.

That’s how it has been with the Left. People remember them when they are in distress. Like the yuppies of the West who tried to revisit Marx in the times of the recession couple of years ago. Like our working class in this city which chooses Left when it wants to fight and get its demands fulfilled, but moves to the Shiv Sena-MNS when it comes to voting. Like we don’t remember how the Left was instrumental in keeping our petrol-diesel prices steady during UPA-I.

So does that mean that the Bengalis were wrong in voting out the Left? Certainly not. After all, the Left was supposed to be the voice of the poor. But it chose to ignore them at its own peril.

With more than 41% vote share in West Bengal, the Left is not dead yet. Let it not be. We need the Left. May be as a powerful opposition, if not our rulers.