By IANS
New Delhi : Equating communalism with imperialism, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has said that while it supports the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in order to fight communalism, it is opposed to the government’s leaning towards ‘imperialist’ US.
“The CPI-M and the other Left parties had extended outside support to this UPA government precisely to prevent the communal forces from holding the reins of state power,” the CPI-M said in an editorial in the latest issue of party mouthpiece ‘People’s Democracy’.
“This support, however, was based on the CMP (Common Minimum Programme). Surely, no one can expect the CPI-M to support this UPA government, which in violation of the CMP is pursuing to continue the direction of India’s foreign policy that was begun in the first place by the BJP-led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government.”
It blamed the BJP-led NDA for taking the country into a “direction of subservience to US imperialist strategic interests in the world today” and alleged that it had established an “illegitimate nexus between imperialism’s trimurti (trinity) – the World Bank, IMF (International Monetary Fund) and WTO (World Trade Organisation)- and the communalism’s trishul (trident).”
“The interests of India as a nation and the livelihood of our vast millions of people need to be protected from being squeezed between the trimurti and the trishul,” it said.
The party said both communalism and imperialism were dangerous.
“Both (communalism and imperialism) are dangerous, both need to be fought and at no cost can the struggle against one be given up leave alone weakened in the name of struggling against the other.”
The article pointed out that the CPI-M had an “unblemished record” of protecting the Indian social fabric from communalism and “safeguarding the country’s sovereignty from being eroded by imperialist incursions”.
Taking exception to allegations that the CPI-M was no longer fighting against communalism but confined to its protest against imperialism, the editorial said: “The Indian people simply do not have a choice. Both communalism and imperialism need to be fought against. Those who pit one against the other are doing disservice to both the country and our people and are in fact aiding both these forces that seek to erode our sovereignty and therefore our strength as a strong independent nation in the world.”
The CPI-M, which has been opposing the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh government’s foreign policy as pro-US, also alleged that US imperialism was seeking to “impose a unipolar world under its tutelage”.