Answers to shout-box queries - 10

On July 5th, Suresh was asking as to what compelled Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to accept the monumental truth. That socialist alternatives are not practical alternatives.

Here goes my take on that:

I would say it is plain and simple realization of the futility of age-old beliefs. Communist ideology as I see it is one such age-old belief. The Comrades have failed to realize that even in the last remaining bastion of Communism that China is today, what is able to sustain it is -- hard-nosed realism with which that form of communism is laced and practiced. Any ideology could take only the past and the present in articulating a solution for the problems it sees. It cannot predict the problems of the future and come up with solutions NOW. It has to keep changing with times. It has to make amends. China was successful in making such amends. Compare all the fool-hardy behaviour of our communists in raving and ranting against capitalism with the realistic behaviour of the Chinese communits. They have welcomed and in fact pioneered the concept of SEZs. They have welcomed the private sector behemoths to operate in their country. They have realized that even for a country as vast as itself, an export led growth need not be an anathema. Our communists have falsely been chanting the mantra of self-reliance. China bade good-bye to such policies long back in the mid-1970's itself as it has realized that the solution is in changing with the times. It has also carefully articulated such paradigm shifts that it has undertaken and sold them well in its larger body politic. It has seen the Long March and the subsequent land-reforms as solutions relevant for that particular time. It has not prevented it from articulating a One-China Two-systems policy.

Can we expect such realism from our Communists? One only has to look at our Kerala CM to know where we stand. Even the Central leadership of the CPI(M) and CPI is not inspiring much confidence in spite of it having some of the best brains of the country. They are wedded to a failed concept. They are too wedded to it to disown it now. It is realists like Buddhadeb that the communists very badly are need of now. But will they allow such people to thrive? That is the big question.