A visit to the Marxist Bastion

About a week back I paid a visit to my college senior and close friend, VR Srinivasan who is presently in JNU, which is widely regarded as a Marxist stronghold and breeding ground for future communist leaders in Indian politics. Before I get into the specifics of my visit, a word about my friend who has had a very interesting career path till date!!

VR Srinivasan or VRS, as he was popularly called in our Engineering College CECRI (Central Electrochemical Research Institute, Karaikudi), found out that after all Chemical Engineering wasn't his first love in life, so he let his GRE score of 2290 go in vain. Instead, he took up a plush job in software with Infosys, like a 'true' Engineer. Within a year he was sent onsite to Japan where he had a 'comfortable existence' for two years. Then, all of a sudden, in 2004, he put in his papers, left it all, responded to some 'inner calling' and joined MA Political Science in JNU. Now he is an executive member of the CPI(M) affiliated SFI (Student's Federation of India) and actively participates in politics on and off the campus.

After more than a year in Delhi, I touched base with him and was surprised to know the developments. My first reaction was "Why politics?" and "Of all parties and ideologies, why Communism?" Obviously, like most others I had a kind of biased opinion against Communists. I have never interacted with anyone professing a communist ideology, so, mine were third-person views. From the coverage and reports in the media I was of the impression that the Communists were hell bent in cutting off India from the global community, take it back to the impoverished days of pre-liberalization, bring back public-monopoly and the resultant corruption, inefficiencies and demand-supply mismatch.

When the last parliamentary election results came and the communists had come back strongly, I was then working in Cognizant. We were having a discussion and some of my friends strongly opined "Whats wrong with the Indian voting populace? How can 'anyone' vote for the communists in today's globalized world? There was also an opinion that Communism is an outdated concept which doesn't have much relevance today!"

Nevertheless, VRS getting into this apparent 'pit' prompted me to rethink and I was grappling with a bevy of questions in my mind. So, when he actually extended me an invitation to go over and visit him in his 'den', it got me excited. Immediately I accepted it and planned for a detailed tete-a-tete. Finally around mid-Feb, one of our presentations scheduled for late evening at FMS got cancelled and I pounced at the chance to materialize the meeting. I called him up and confirmed. However, for some reason I wasn't very comfortable with the visit, probably because of my strong biases. After a 20 minutes drive I reached JNU late in the evening with a plan to spend time till late-night.

Well, it was not my first visit to JNU. Of these two years in FMS, we have been struggling hard to spend quality night-time in a city starved of night-life. There are just a couple of places in South Delhi that are open at night and JNU is one of them. So, we used to drop into JNU's Ganga Dhaba now and then, for tea and snacks, usually around 1-2 am in the night. During our visits we used to observe the people and get amazed by the posters that were put up all over the place. Checking the communist posters and pamphlets used to be a routine practice during our visits. Our feeling about the posters can be summed up in just three words: Strong, radical and hard-hitting!!

Now I was venturing to explore the source of these very posters and pamphlets, for, I heard that VRS had taken up responsibilities of preparing these for the SFI. Every time I used to read in the news about the Left front stalling liberalization measures like raising FDI limits, entertaining foreign players, my heart sank. Now, I was expecting a healthy dialogue on the various pro and counter viewpoints with him and wished to fathom what the communists were 'actually' upto! Finally I met him in his hostel room. After six years he still looked pretty much the same as in college, atleast by appearance! Then we caught up on the happenings over the past years and did a status-update. Now it was time for dinner and we decided to thrash out issues over South Indian food at Udupi's in Munirka!

After placing orders, I started with questions as elementary as "Are CPI(M) and CPM one and the same?"!! From a person who considers all left parties equally 'evil' you cannot expect better awareness! Okay, before I move on, for people with similar doubts, yes both are the same! Also I was 'educated' that CPI (Marxist) was an offshoot of the CPI and that they have 'some' differences in their ideologies. I was also told that the 'Left front' is a boquet of many parties (which, I broadly knew) including CPM, CPI, Forward Bloc and RSP amongst others. We debated on three major issues:

1. I first broached discussion on the issue which was fresh in mind and that was rankling me "Why does the Left oppose FDI in sectors like, say retail and also the entry of players like Wal Mart?" This has been a hotly debated topic at FMS in our Retail Management course, but our views were the pros and cons from the management standpoint. To this question, he asked me the need for it. I had ready reasons like a) Stimulation of the sector by foreign investment, b) Competition and efficiency, c) Availability of better and advanced goods. He countered this by saying that the Left front doesn’t totally oppose FDI, and in the process he shocked me! He qualified it by saying that they are open to FDI with certain restrictions like transfer of technology, local employment and procurement among other conditions. He reasoned saying that unbridled opening up would lead to greater disparity of wealth and exacerbate things like the Andhra farmer suicides. I was open to the issue of controlled-FDI, but was not comfortable with some of the overriding conditions, which I felt would make India unattractive as a destination and would dissuade foreign participation. However, one argument against Wal Mart appeared valid. It wasn’t about job losses, but about Wal Mart’s probable sourcing of goods from foreign destinations like China even after its entry into India and hence it ultimately leading to a major structural problem for the country.

2. I raised the common criticism that people have against the left when it comes to National politics. "The Left parties have one stance when it comes to the centre and another when it comes to their own state, like West Bengal". I expected an obvious denial of a double-stance. But I was surprised when he admitted to it and defended it with "When it comes to state policies, it is partly dictated by Centre and ultimately it has to compete with other states for development. But it is a different issue when it comes to centre's policies, as they have to look at structural issues keeping in mind the objective of national self-sufficiency". It kind of answered my question but I wasn't totally convinced with this as I felt that even at the national level, the centre has the responsibility of competing with other countries to make India the preferred destination for global capital.

3. VRS spoke about the Iran gas pipeline issue. I didn't have a personal view on this issue earlier, so am presenting his views. "After India's peace process with Pakistan since 2004, the four countries Iran-Pakistan-India-China have chalked out an ambitious pipeline project to transport natural gas from Iran to India through Pakistan. This would ensure energy security for India and breed cooperation amongst the major countries in the subcontinent. Now in the midst of all this, the US has stepped in and offered to give India Civilian-Nuclear energy know-how through a Indo-US Nuclear cooperation agreement." He claimed that this was a move by the US to preclude the possibility of a consolidation of power in the subcontinent. He also reasoned saying that the Left doesn't have any vested interests with Iran on this issue. This argument appeared very convincing. Later on, after getting back to campus I've tried to dig more information on this issue and came to know about the various arguments and the real power dynamics behind it. For people who want to know more about the project, here is a link I had googled:

http://www.bhpbilliton.com/bbContentRepository/Presentations/IndiaOilGasConfence.pdf

By now we were done with our dinner, so off we went back to JNU to continue our discussion! It was now that he decided to introduce me to his 'leftist' friends! I had the chance to meet two very learned people: Caesar Basu, 2nd yr MA Pol Science AND Maidul Islam, 1st yr MPhil. Probably they were surprised to meet a management student professing ‘capitalism’! Again we had a discussion on issues some of which I had discussed with VRS, nevertheless, it was an enjoyable argument!! Maidul spoke at length about econometric theories and macroeconomics, some of which I could related to from the economics paper I had done at FMS. All the while, Caesar silently listened to my justification of the need for FDI in retail! But, I must admit he had a very charismatic presence.

Then, back in his room, VRS shared the posters and pamphlets he had prepared. His latest posters were on the protest against the arrival of the French decommissioned aircraft carrier Clemenceau in India. He also told me about his just-concluded Guwahati conference on Open Source Software and his forthcoming conference at Pakistan!! He was then making a poster on Abhu Gharib prison torture and the human rights issues. I couldn’t help but be surprised with his total involvement into Marxist politics. He also proudly tells me that he has participated in some strikes and has faced the water cannon!! Really something unimaginable of the VRS I knew of in CECRI. While I was about to leave I met the SFI secretary Subhanil, 3rd yr PhD in Economics AND Moggallan, another active member and interesting person!!

As I bade good bye and left JNU at 2 am, I had come to grips with a new awareness on Communism. I had also found out that the Left doesn’t hold an ‘Extreme or Utopian’ position when it came to majority of the policies. Some of their stance was reasonable, particularly those professing all-round development of the country and reduction of the income disparity of the various classes of population. However, some was still unfathomable to me, yet.

VRS maintains a blog called 'New Praxis in a Changed World' where his inner voice finds a space on the net. Here is the link: http://srinivasanvr.blogspot.com/ The same link is also permanently available under the 'Blogs I Track' header.