The return of the prodigal

Communists are now owning stuff and selling it too

My eyes popped out. As a seasoned journalist, I thought seen all sorts of published news – wars, riots, pestilence and revolutions. But this took the cake. Consider this report put out by Reuters a few days back – NEW DELHI: A US citizen, representing the All India Students' Association (AISA), a union affiliated to the Communist Party, on Saturday became the first foreigner to win a student election at New Delhi ’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) after mounting a campaign critical of his country’s foreign policy. Tyler Walker Williams, a student of Hindi, was elected vice-president of the students' union of JNU, which has produced many of the country's top politicians.
My first reaction was: Yankee Communist? But wait. Did anyone say the commies are on the rebound? For me, till recently, Communism was like T-Rex – extinct, or something to be studied in class rooms. Looks like I am out of sync. The commies are coming back, and how? In Nicaragua, Sandinista hero Daniel Ortega, who during the Cold War time of Ronald Reagan vowed an endless fight against the US , which was determined to overthrow him, is back in power after nearly 20 in the waste bin. In nearby Venuzeuela, Hugo Chavez is thumping his chest and daring the US to take on him, thanks to his petrodollars. Closer to his backyard it is Evio Morales in Bolivia, a country so loved by Indian Commies that is has been a running joke in movies to see comrades at indoctrination classes mouth grandiose words like “comrades, in the dark jungles of Bolivia …!!! Then there is the grand-daddy of the Communist rump, Comrade Fidel still refusing to call it a day. So it is Communism redux?
Back to JNU, which maverick Indian politician Subrahmaniyan Swami once famously called the “Kremlin on the Yamuna.” Yamuna is the Volga-of-sorts of Delhi . Walker Williams’ victory is not surprising, for he won the election for mounting a campaign critical of the US, particularly on Iraq . Running down the US is now the most popular spectator sport in the world, Gary Kasparaov wrote in the Wall Street Journal some time back. One does not have to read the esteemed Journal to know that. But I wondered why Walker Williams didn’t chastise the US for tightening the screws on the ‘democratic” North Korea . Maybe Dear Leader Kim of the ‘workers paradise’ was a not an easily saleable commodity; remember the other equally well known but jettisoned Commie, none other than the one and only Pol Pot of Cambodia (or was it Kampuchea?)
Walker Williams and the Indian Communists surely are not alone in this opposition to Washington’s policies as the recent US elections results have shown. So one can’t say for sure whether it is a case of the JNU-ites for once seeing eye-to-eye with the Yankee voters or it is the case of cheering a Yankee leading the charge from the Indian Kremlin against his Commander-in-Chief. Or was it a case of ‘Globalisation’, so earnestly pushed by the US only to rebound on it so conclusively?
Speaking of Globalisation, I always thought the Communists were much ahead of Washington in this game. But the globalised proletariat had a more saleable name for it – ‘Anti-imperialism’. How they sold this platform worldwide, both to the illiterates and the intellectuals alike, should be a case study at Harvard for aspiring PR students. Nothing succeeds like success and the Indian franchisee of this global proletariat conglomerate has seen its fortunes also rising with the global tide. Now they have a big say, if not a stake, in the coalition that runs the Indian government. Recently they returned to power in their only base in the south, Kerala, which once boasted of the first elected Communist government in the world.
For the Communists of Kerala, more famous as God’s Own Country on the tourism circuit, the going has never been so good. The party owns a TV company, which has a few channels. It is listed on the stock market, and is now planning a string of mega shopping malls! Frank Zappa once said Communism doesn't work “because people like to own stuff.” But now the Commies are owning stuff and selling them, too. Not bad. But the problem in Kerala now is that the commies are trying to sell is Saddam of Iraq fame. He is the election poster boy for them. Their TV channels are running a ‘Save Saddam Campaign’ just in time for a by-election. This is not very surprising since Anti-Americanism has been a pet theme for anti-imperialists. But this has left the ex-leftist in me confused -- from Marx to Saddam, that’s quite a distance. Maybe Stalin (of the Gulags fame) to Saddam would be better. So who has lost the plot? The Commies or poor me?
Economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who passed away recently, once said that “under capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism, it's just the opposite.” All these years I wondered what he meant. Now I get it.
Ortega says he has now traded his wartime military fatigues for a white shirt and jeans. His guide, he says, is God, not Karl Marx. That sounds like George W. Bush. Wonder what Walker Williams has to say on that.

This article was first published in Oman Tribune