The Left Has Given Voice to the Voiceless, But Is it Politically Relevant?  

Superb point Syed

Anything is possible if you lie

Momata and Rahul are just fooling public ,they are not left not right they are just opportunist and have no economic policy What they are doing Just populism Left front is only alternative to bjp

Firstly, as flawed as the Janata Dal was, it was a centrist formation which principally relied on the revolt and aspirations of the middle and backward caste groups. Although the Indian socialists have gone through multiple mergers and splits with Congress breakaway factions and other caste-based parties (like Charan Singh's), in a sense, what was left of Indian "socialists" was put together by VP Singh, mobilized around a new caste-based aspiration represented by Mandal politics. The Congress was firmly a right of centre party during Rajiv Gandhi's days. It always was dominated by upper-castes overall and by right-wingers in the provinces, but Rajiv Gandhi's overall policy direction was one of rightward shift in economy and capitulation to communal forces. During his tenure, North India was burning in communal flare. There were multiple riots in this period, 3 in particular, Ahmedabad in 1985, Hashimpura in 1987, and Bhagalpur in 1989. Of these three, Congress politicians took the lead in attacking Muslims in 2 (remember the state governments were all under Congress so even when Congress members didn't take the lead, the administration allowed RSS to attack Muslims, such as in Ahmedabad). Rajiv Gandhi had already given new wheels to the Ayodhya issue by opening the Mosque in 1986, and in 1989, right before the elections, he performed a Shilanyas there in order to influence voters. This is just vis a vis Muslims. Rajiv had come to power on the back of the slaughter of Sikhs in 1984, and several other anti-Sikh riots took place in this period, mostly organized by RSS and Shiv Sena. Perhaps no Congress PM had encouraged such a high degree of communalization before Rajiv. Moreover after Bofors, there was wide resentment against Rajiv. In this context, the most genuine secular force that remained in North India was the Janata parivar, which had middle-caste agriculturalists as its base and their leaders like Lalu Yadav and Mulayam Yadav made it clear that Muslims are not the enemies of backward caste groups. In fact, ultimately, it is precisely these figures who stopped Advani's Rath Yatra. The Congress, under Narasimha Rao, was entirely complicit in the demolition of Babri. This is the degree to which Congress was encouraging or tolerating communalization of politics. Look just to clarify, the Janata Parivar was not a leftist group. VP Singh himself was Rajiv Gandhi's Finance Minister, and he initiated the conditions for economic liberalization. The only progressive potential that Janata Parivar had was that it kept several poor Hindus away from communal politics and it also advocated the correction of a genuine problem in Indian society: that all institutions are dominated by upper-caste groups. Lastly, because Janata Parivar relied on middle and lower-caste alliances, although they favoured big farmers and other local businessmen, they had to be more populist in developing welfare schemes to hold together these caste alliances. That is overall the limit of the progressive potential of the Janata Parivar. But the point is that in the context of the communal flare and the rightward shift of the Congress, and the aggressive onslaught of the RSS, the Janata Parivar was the only real alternative in North India, where the Left was mostly weak (barring some areas of influence). The decision to support the JD government in 1989 was correct on the part of the Left, and in fact it was the Left's conditionality which ensured that BJP didn't participate in the government, but could only offer support from outside. Naturally, you cannot control who else is supporting the same government as you. You can only influence the policies and measures of the government, and in that regard, VP Singh and his lieutenants were far more consistent in resisting the communal agenda than the Congress. As I said, it is some measure of the commitment of the JD that they chose to halt the Rath Yatra even though their government's survival was dependent on the BJP's support. On the other hand, Narasimha Rao had no reason (in Parliamentary terms) to appease the RSS, yet he was entirely complicit in the fall of Babri. Jairam is forgetting the history of his own party when he is enlisting the faults of the Left. The Left made these decisions not out of choice but precisely because of thr lack of better choices, especially when Congress has betrayed constitutional values as many times as it has.

go back to school and learn what a lawyer does.