'Misrule By Gun'

Letter From Justice V.R.Krishna Iyer to Prakash Karat on Nandigram

URGENT
March 15, 2007

My dear Prakash Karat,

I adore you as the top leader of the Marxist Party even as I hold Com. JyotiBasu as a creative wonder of the Communist Marxist Party. As you know, Iremained in power with the Communist Government in 1956 in Kerala under thecharismatic Chiefministership of EMS, the great Leftist thinker. But alas!, inWest Bengal things are murky, capitalism is happy, poor peasantry is inprivation and deprivation, if newspaper reports throw light on eventsobjectively. We, in 1957, came to power by the ballot and rarely, if ever, usedthe bullet, with the result the police violence was hardly an instrument againstthe peasantry.

Look at the contrast. The brutality and bloodshed, at the instance of thepolice force is now bulleting of humble humanity. I had and have great hopesthat the Marxists if in power, will rule with compassionate ideology and winvotes and people’s co-operation beyond party barriers. But to my horror, theterror practiced yesterday at Nandigram fills me with dread and disappointment.The illusion of exploitative power has led the ministry to govern by the gun.The consequent bloodshed demands your urgent attention and commands the party’sauthority to arrest the frequency of bloodshed policy and police barbarity. Sri.Sumit Chakravartty telephoned me last night about the police misuse offirepower. If true, I protest and entreat you and the party to take immediateaction and restore the basic proposition that Communist Government is not powerwith violent weapons. And action at party level must be taken if governance overhumanity is for the benefit of the peasantry. I am sure, thousands like me willbe shocked by the Nandigram incident. Please, please have some regard for thosewho feel that socialism is not terrorism, but humanism; and misrule by gun willnot be the rule of the Left in State authority. Do forgive me for expressing mystrong feelings with the expectation that the Left Administration believe andpractice as a fundamental for the humble people, not for the proprietariat withthe brute force of the bullet.

With high regards,
Yours sincerely,

(V.R. KRISHNA IYER)

To
Sri. Prakash Karat
General Secretary
Communist Party of India (Marxist)
New Delhi