Prakash Karat

t is indeed unbelievable. The weather at Cambridge (max: 16 degrees Celsius; min: 7) gives one a clearer perspective of the world. Now that’s something that doesn’t happen in Calcutta or Delhi. And this despite having had my fill of appam-stew and sandesh. In contrast, an almond croissant washed down with coffee at Nadia’s Patisserie (1, Mill Street) makes your mind tingle with ideas. That’s exactly what happened days ahead of a seminar organised by the Centre for South Asian Studies (CSAS), Cambridge, where I was to speak. The topic: ‘Lessons of Empire—Past and Present.’ The conference was in honour of the late Victor Kiernan (the famous Marxist historian and my guru). Needless to say, I was eagerly looking forward to the event.

Well, after a lazy hour at Nadia’s I joined my old friend Christopher Bayly, CSAS director, for a walk near the Cambridge University cricket ground. He too was brimming with ideas. “I say Karat,” he said, “you better say something sensational at the seminar.” I wondered what. “Well,” Chris thought a while, “perhaps something about how Indian commies have got it wrong. You know, old chap, how they are stuck with outdated ideas. That will shock many....” Chris really loved drama. 

Anyway, once the walk was over, I went back to my room with his words ringing in my ears. I sat on my bed and thought.... Finally, I recalled something that I had long forgotten. It was in the summer of 1996 when comrade Jyoti Basu sent politburo members a coded message. It read: ‘Think anew. Think Capital-ism.’ Incidentally, it also came with the instruction that we read it, chew it and swallow it with a glass of water/lassi/rasam so that “enemies of the proletariat do not lay their hands on it”. To be frank, at the time I did not take it seriously although I followed the instructions to a ‘T’ (paper, I discovered, tastes best with rasam). Anyway, when I look back I can see the import of the message. What comrade Basu meant was that we must seize power in Delhi (the capital) to bring about any change in ‘ism’.

Lost in thought, I decided to go out for a stroll and with the autumn sun setting behind me I saw the light. You could say it was my Buddha (not Buddhadeb!) moment. I suddenly knew it. Our comrades need to change. They were still trapped in the 1940s mindset (except the few who have realised that to understand India’s petty bourgeoisie one has to be at least a ‘not so petty’ bourgeoisie). Anyway, whistling Bob Dylan’s The Times They are a Changing I went back to write my momentous speech. The rest, as they say, was all in the headlines....  

So, will the comrades ever change? I once advised a senior leader to at least switch to new music (I suggested Sunidhi Chauhan, not the Sex Pistols) but he still prefers old revolutionary songs. And one minister from Bengal thought that Ian Rankin was a Bengali poet, ‘Ronkiiin’. Is there no light at the end of the tunnel? As Goethe put it: ‘In all things it is better to hope than to despair....’

(As imagined by Ajith Pillai)