Q: In terms of ideology, CPI (M) is one of pillars of Indian democracy but you have failed to create a niche for yourself in Hindi heartland, be it UP, Bihar, MP or Rajasthan. Is it because people rejected your ideology or is it, as some people, because of your obsession with BJP? Some people say that since you are so obsessed with preventing BJP from coming to power, the energy that you could have used for building you support base in these areas got diverted.
Brinda Karat: There is a contradiction in your question. On one hand, you are saying we were obsessed with Congress and on the other hand, you are saying that we are obsessed with BJP. As far as Hindi heartland is concerned, it has nothing to do with being obsessed with one or other.
The fact of the matter is that the universal mobilization of poor people in the Hindi heartland was fragmented by the blatant caste politics which was played out by almost all political parties in the Hindi heartland from the late 1960s through the 1970s and onwards post-Mandal. So we have seen the kind of very sectarian caste based mobilization for politics and for political purposes in this part of India and which both BJP and Congress apart from some other regional formations have led that, in fact.
It is true that although we do have a mass base among important areas in north India, we have not really been able to translate that into the kind of electoral politics which would liked to have seen although we have made some what a breakthrough in Rajasthan in many areas. In Himachal also, we have done quite well. In some other areas like Bihar and Jharkhand , we have been fighting on very critical issues .
So I think it's not as grim as you are suggesting. And our fight against BJP is a very fundamental fight for the principals of unity of our country and against the use of religion as a political instrument to gain power. We are opposed to the BJP because the BJP is just a front organization of RSS and we know the RSS is ‘Rashtriya Sarvanash samiti' as far as Indian unity is concerned.
Q: Politics in India is gradually becoming ‘personality' centric and the political pundits say that your problem is that you are not encouraging individuals, even in states, around whom people could rally. Do you think its time to do a rethink on this?
Brinda Karat: I think you are entirely wrong. I don't think you need to project a person spending thousands and crores of Rupees like Mr Narendra Modi's PR agency is doing today. Modi has employed some Israeli PR agency which is projecting Narendra Modi as the new avtar who is going to solve India's problems. We don't need to do that. Did we project Jyoti Basu? No, his work projected him. Did we have to project EMS Namboodripad? No, his work, his vision, his sacrifice projected him. After all, Buddha Deb Bhattacharya led our party to its highest victory in 2004. Did we have to project him? No.
So leaders emerge from struggle and we don't believe in ‘neta' based politics. We believe in ‘Niti' based politics. And for that we need a collective leadership. And I think that is the actual model that we should have in Indian politics. We don't believe in dynastic politics, we don't believe in individual based politics and we definitely don't believe in PR agencies.
