Left - and Their art of provocation

(Published in the August 16, 2015 issue of Organiser and can be visited using this link http://organiser.org//Encyc/2015/8/10/Opinion---%E2%80%98Left%E2%80%99-and-their-Art-of-Provocation.aspx)
I often get amused at the fact that although leftists have always remained in hopeless minority in India but still they manage to influence and occupy the decision making instruments of this country. Fortunately for them, the overwhelming majority in this country is rational, liberal and have always remained against all kinds of victimization. Leftists use the 'politics of victim-hood' to influence this rational and liberal majority. They use different methods and tricks to project themselves as victims. They have mastered the 'act of provocation' and have evolved it into an effective weapon in this regard. Using apparently-patient and cunningly-academic techniques they provoke nationalists and force them in breaking the fine line of socially acceptable behavioral norms. Then they use those incidents to paint the nationalists as hooligans and goons. They efficiently abuse the 'freedom of expression' and stretch the limits of 'human rights' to provoke nationalists to force them in committing legal-lapses. To succeed in their evil designs, they go to any extent to provoke the nationalists forces. They would not hesitate in calling a social and peaceful organization producing nationalists for the country as a terrorists' organization and would also go to the extent of not only blaming an arguably progressive community as repressive and conservative but instead would also project the other community, that needs reforms urgently, as better. To provoke the nationalists they not only never hesitated in creating a hero out of Aurangzeb but also painted the greats like Sikh gurus, Rana Pratap and Shivaji in poor light in the same breath. They would not only ignore an entire carnage incident altogether but keep on reminding us the incidents that took place after that. They would not only ignore the exodus of a particular 'Pandit' community from a state but would also not stop from asking the army to leave the state. They would resort to support a terrorist waiting to be hanged and they can even show that community as communal who is the reason for secularism in our country. They keep on producing and screening films that would project only nationalists as rioters. The list is huge and they have built this up in the last century with the help of British before the independence and the Congress thereafter. The only factor that favored the nationalists till now and was completely underestimated by the leftists was the fact that Indians have always felt a positive influence of religion and our faiths have an overwhelmingly progressive outlook towards our thoughts and beliefs. This striking feature of our religious behavior and spirituality, irrespective of our worshiping styles, did not allow leftists to spread its influence horizontally but with the help of the rulers they have been able to spread their roots deep in our soul wherever they could.

Nationalists however, need to realize now that they are in a position to spread their influence in this country after a very long era and they must now counter this age-old left strategy by refraining from falling into their trap again and again. Nationalists forces have an opportunity to construct a trap for them that would help in exposing the anti-national mindset of the 'left-leaning intellectuals'.

Thanks to FYUP – Left is growing in DU while it is way out from India

Let me hold nothing back and admit here that due to inept handling of the FYUP implementation, the congress have reasonably lost its ground to the Left in Delhi University. It only made it worse as they also showed signs of engaging themselves in narrow caste considerations to help their failed cause. I must not shy away from what has been in a visible public domain that the right wing teachers' and students' fronts NDTF and ABVP, who were earlier hoping the Center to corner Left with their hammer of FYUP could not remain mute spectator when they witnessed them hammering even common stakeholders hard. I have nothing to prove in this connection as the alarming rise in the share of votes in favor of the Left both in the students as well as teachers elections left little room for us to analyze. It was only in the nick of the time that right wing took up the cause of common stakeholders to keep their relevance alive in DU.

The major drawbacks of FYUP that those opposing FYUP utilizes are

1. the fact that the students were required to pay for an additional year and invest an additional one-third of their time for getting the same degree was enough to create repulsion among students
2. that the DU was complete unprepared to handle the task and the University along with the college administration kept on failing to preempt logistic problems that started coming up on each fresh day after the implementation. They were further exposed hollow in handling in these problems as they started building up an army of DU officials mainly on narrow considerations.
3. that while seniors were slow and sometimes afraid of adapting to modern teaching tools, they were expected not only to learn these but become a master of these in no time.
4. that Foundation Courses were introduced without enough study materials and helpless teachers were asked to engage 'classrooms' in a manner that they were never used to - only helped the discontentment to grow.
   Even though I would not shy away from admitting my admiration for some aspects of this exercise, I would sum this up as a clear case of giving an years' dose of drugs to a TB patient in a single day. And we are left with an impossible looking task of saving the patient. Believe me, we were never required to sow the seeds of dissatisfaction among the stakeholders, we had only a task left to show our concern to the cause. Without even discussing the merits of this arguably ill-conceived but surely ill-timed reform I can say for sure that the primary mistake that the authority made was that before they themselves analyzed and got prepared for the new challenges they decided to handle them as they would encounter them during the process of implementation. This overconfidence that later resulted in an ego problem made it worse as they were left with no option but to look for narrow identity considerations to somehow make this effort appear as success.
   I am at a loss of words as I am not sure now whether one should prescribe a rollback or just a sincere review of FYUP that would not only address all major concerns of common stakeholders as listed above by me but more importantly keep us open for any fresh and sensible reforms.