Communalising Foreign Policy

So CPM general secretary Prakash Karat has been forced to come out and say that politburo member M K Pandhe’s warning to the Samajwadi Party that an overwhelming majority of Muslims are opposed to the nuclear deal and that it should therefore not support it do not reflect the views of the CPM. This follows outrage among Muslim groups as wonderfully reported in the Indian Express (http://www.indianexpress.com/story/327171.html). They told the CPM to stop firing from their shoulders and using them for its political ends. Mulayam Singh’s lieutenant Amar Singh also snubbed Pandhe.

But who started this communalisation of foreign policy? Prakash Karat himself. In November 2005, when India was caught in a dilemma about how to vote on Iran’s nuclear programme at the IAEA, Karat while addressing a rally in Lucknow said “there is a close link between Lucknow and Teheran”. At the same rally, a Shia leader Mukhtar Anees claimed that after Ayodhya, Iran is the biggest issue for Muslims. It will go against Congress.”

That time only the Indian Express had written an editorial against the communalising of foreign policy. This time almost every paper has hit out against Pandhe’s remarks. But I think it was the reaction of the Muslim organisations that has forced Karat to distance the party from Pandhe. But make no mistake; this is only a tactical retreat. The Left will not stop playing the Muslim card.

And these are the defenders of secularism!

That’s another bogey being played out amidst this crisis over the nuclear deal – that secular forces should stay together. So the BJP and its allies are communal forces and the UPA and its allies who are cynically exploiting the Muslims with meaningless tokenism are secular!