Ab bue gul na baad e saba maangte hain log
Wo haps hai ki loo ki dua maangte hain log
(No more the scent of flowers or the morning breeze feels nice
In this suffocating stillness a blast of summer`s white heat will suffice)

It must be a curse of our times, to borrow from Josh Malihabadi`s lines above, that we are required to choose between hardline mullahs and American-sponsored moderates as the only political space available to negotiate our destiny — the mullah here being a religious zealot of any militant hue be they Hindu, Muslim, Christian or Jew.

Looking at Pakistan from New Delhi these days, it does look pretty stifling. Is there a party or a leader in the political fray who opposes the sway that Taliban and Al Qaeda have gained over the minds of millions and also rejects the relentless intervention by the Bush administration in crucial areas of the nation`s public life? The same holds true for India though not entirely. There is hope from an as yet entrenched liberal polity here, which rejects the religious fanaticism of Mullah Umar and Narendra Modi on the one hand but is not prepared to give any space to the poisonous politics of George Bush either. However, these equations are changing in India, mostly for the worse.

For 30 years the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has ruled West Bengal in alliance with smaller leftist groups. The unbroken rule in a democratic framework must be a world record of sorts. In Kerala, the communists have ruled off and on since 1957 and their political hold is deeply rooted. To the liberal middle ground in the country this state of affairs has become a sort of habit. People have basked in the comfort of the two Marxist fortresses, or three if you count the remote tribal state of Tripura. The CPI-M was not going to usher a Bolshevik revolution but at least, it was thought, there was someone there to shore up the country`s left-of-the-centre political spirit. A third term victory for the religious right in Gujarat last month rattled the hitherto cocooned middle ground. What if Narendra Modi, the BJP`s chief minister, digs in for a fourth, fifth or even sixth and seventh term a la the Left Front in West Bengal? And what if he aspires to become the prime minister? What then? Taking advantage of this widespread fear, corporate newspapers are beginning to project Lal Kishan Advani, the chariot-riding communal rabble-rouser of the Babri Masjid notoriety, as a moderate option. And many a reasonable soul is hoping that should there be choice between Modi and Advani then Advani should win. That`s the kind of alternatives Indians are expected to be offered in the arriving future. At least that`s what editorials in the corporate media are suggesting.
The conundrum is intriguing, and also instructive. Apart from Sonia Gandhi, Mani Shankar Aiyar and perhaps Arjun Singh, there isn`t a leader of repute in the Congress that could be trusted as its left-of-the-centre standard-bearer.

Aiyar was shunted out from the oil ministry because his policies were inclusive of China and offered little space to the world`s most powerful nation and its Indian drumbeaters. Congress detractors are ready to drive the wedge in deeper. British MP Meghnad Desai, an economist who claims to dislike Modi`s fascist methods, is advocating a widely shared remedy. He wants the Congress party to give up its centrist pretensions and become a secular rightwing party, is that is possible, as opposed to the BJP`s religious rightwing politics.

“I know the feeling well,” Desai wrote in the Times of India last week. “I had similar feelings — as a member of the British Labour Party — as my party lost election after election to Margaret Thatcher. All the `right-minded` people like myself and my friends thought she was authoritarian, strident and more or less fascist.

“Yet the Great British Public went on voting for her and we kept losing. It was only after three defeats that we began to ask whether we had not got something wrong and whether the public was trying to tell us something.

“After a fourth defeat even without Margaret Thatcher, the Labour Party decided to change. It adapted to the positive kernel in the Tory package. Thatcher, far from being reviled as an authoritarian monster, is now recognised as one of the greatest British prime ministers of the post-war period.

“Analogies are never exact and the Great Indian Public has not yet spoken on Modi; only the Great Gujarat Public has done so. But Congress would do well to study the Labour Party`s experience.” That`s one approach, prescribed by a British MP of Gujarati extraction. And if you can begin to like Margaret Thatcher than George Bush can`t be too far behind. Given the choices many worried voters would want a credible alternative to the Congress should the Congress find itself ready to accept Desai`s prescription, a prospect many senior party men favour. The history of anti-Congress experiments has not been encouraging though. Influential regional parties that once looked durable in an alliance with the CPI-M had no qualms in joining a coalition with the BJP when the opportunity came.
Moreover, if India`s impoverished millions were expecting succour from the CPI-M they were in for a surprise last week. Veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu explained fairly cogently on Saturday why he had no objection to capitalism any longer. “We want infusion of capital, both foreign and domestic for the State`s development. But we have to take care of each other`s interests and also safeguard workers` interests.” How that elusive balance would be kept was left unstated. Basu`s comments were seen as admission of an ideological departure that has lurked in the deep recesses of the party but never yet discussed openly.

Journalists sought Basu`s reaction on the role of private capital for West Bengal and why his party was perceived as opposing it at the federal level because it tended to worsen India`s chronic unemployment. “What objections? I don`t understand,” he shot back. “We live in a capitalist system and only three other States are ruled by the CPI(M) and its partners.” The State`s political agenda might be socialism-oriented and socialism was its objective, but “we have our limitations since we are part of a federal structure — how can we practise socialism?” As someone quipped, from now on Stalinism minus revolution equals CPI-M.

Going by the success of a major meeting in Calcutta staged by the CPI (ML), a smaller but infinitely more radical rival of the CPI-M that seeks to pursue revolutionary change without opposing the parliamentary route, there is change in the air. Its leaders hailed the CPI-ML`s 8th Party Congress as a runaway success. They will no doubt endeavour to woo the CPI-M`s cadre in case disillusionment sets in with the party`s changing stance towards market economy and politics that accrues from it.

CPI-ML chief Dipankar Bhhattacharya didn`t mince words about his party`s problems with the CPI-M. “There is a government in this state, a ruling party and Left leadership, that constantly hobnobs with industrialists, but is extremely hostile to intellectuals and the people,” Bhattacharya said. “This spineless, tailist Leftists think that they can continue in state power in Bengal only by selling out the interests of the Left forces nationally. They imagine that they can stop the BJP by allying with... the Congress. If anyone imagines that the CPI(M)-led Left`s degeneration will repeat the circumstances of Eastern Europe after the Soviet Collapse, then we are determined to prove them wrong.”

So as we can see, there is no dearth of left and liberal opinion holders who are staunchly opposed to religious fanat icism at home and reactionary political ideas emanating from foreign shores. But these groups are not at peace with themselves. Do they have the resources to stay the course against the rightwing onslaught, to remain unharmed by the blast of the white heat?