(Was written on March 13, 2021)
I called Prasantada in Nebraska. He was busy finishing his new book : India after Modi. The book was due for publication in 2019 but unfortunately Modiji returned to power taking the wind out of this book’s sale (no spelling error).
“What’s going on in my favorite West Bengal? “he thundered.
“Well the election campaign is in full swing. CPI-M has just released their new parody of lungi dance hoping to divide TMC’s vote bank. BJP has released the parody of Bella Ciao in the form of Auntie Go Go Go (Pishi Jao Jao Jao). And TMC has copy/pasted the Awami League slogan of Khela Hobe (Let’s Play). The originator of the slogan Shamim Osman from Bangladesh has given an interview in an Indian channel saying imitation is the best form of flattery. The imitator has not been given a ticket in the elections, so he is melting away.”
“Who will win?”
“As of now, the polls are predicting a TMC victory but psephologists have been proved as wrong as your breed of absentee economists and as Harold Wilson famously said: A week is a long time in politics. My question is who are you rooting for in West Bengal because this time the Left and Rahul Gandhi are pitched against Trinamool. You can’t vote for both !”
” We are applying Hegelian dialectics here. We cannot openly support Trinamool. That would make us a target of mockery among our academic colleagues in the West. We cannot openly oppose Rahul Gandhi or the Left after pretending that we are evangelists of the Left. So we have coined a dialectical phrase : Not one vote for BJP. That is a clarion call for a broad anti-fascist platform”.
“But the platform is divided against itself. Unless you are politically schizophrenic, you cannot support both, you must choose.”
“We cannot choose. If we have to publicly choose we have to support the Left/Congress and if we do that BJP will win. Therefore, the dog whistle : not one vote for the BJP. In public we are neutral between two warring camps, in private Not one vote for BJP means vote for TMC.”
“Then heck, why don’t you say so? People are confused.”
“We have to balance our Left image with our dialectical position of thesis-anti-thesis-synthesis and support TMC by stealth. The Left cannot resist BJP only TMC can, so it is our broad anti-Fascist Weltanschauung that is driving our political polemics.”
“So that is the ideological wrapper of your undiluted hypocrisy? Thank you.”