CPI(ML) Liberation’s Polit Bureau member and a Central Committee member for more than two decades Kavita Krishnan has been relieved of all posts she held in the party and all responsibilities after ideological differences between the party and Kavita as far as socialist regimes were concerned, reported The Hindu. According to the report, she has also been removed from the primary membership of the party.
Only recently, Kavita Krishnan had commented on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and asserted that socialist regimes were autocratic regimes, far worse than parliamentary democracies. Evidently, for stating this proven fact, differences emerged between her and the party that led to Krishnan being relieved of her posts.
Interestingly, Kavita Krishnan has expressed these views in the past as well while supporting “true communism” and Kark Marx, nonetheless.
She had in June called China a totalitarian regime.
This is totalitarianism not “socialism” in any sense that Marx meant it. China is a dystopian nightmare. If any Indian communist thinks it’s ok for “communists” to rule like this, then they should ask themselves what kind of democracy they’re fighting for in India? https://t.co/mAEFOXrliL
— Kavita Krishnan (@kavita_krishnan) June 26, 2022
She had also criticised USSR under Stalin.
How much of the Left is ignorant of – or in wilful denial of – this fact? That the “miraculous industrialisation of USSR”under Stalin was possible because of the violent subjugation of Ukraine’s peasants (starvation, execution, exile) & colonial expropriation of Ukraine’s grain. https://t.co/WgmvA0YK1k
— Kavita Krishnan (@kavita_krishnan) July 3, 2022
Speaking to The Hindu, Kavita Krishnan said that she had requested the party to relieve her of her posts since she felt an urgent need to defend parliamentary democracies, not just in India but across the world. While she would remain a primary member of the party, she said that there was a need to recognise that socialist regimes, past and present, have been authoritarian, far worse than Capitalist parliamentary democracies.
Kavita Krishnan said that she needed to explore these political questions and it was not possible to do so while holding posts and responsibilities with the Communist party. “The party Central Committee has agreed to my request,” she said. “It was not possible to write on these questions remaining in the leadership. It is not a resignation, it is a mutually agreed to step aside from the responsibilities. There is no quarrelling with the party,” she said.
“The conviction that for our fight for democracy against fascism and growing totalitarianism in India to be consistent, we must acknowledge the entitlement to the same democratic rights and civil liberties for all people across the world, including subjects of socialist totalitarian regimes past and present,” she added.
Interestingly, while Kavita Krishnan wanted to remain a primary member of the party, the Communist party, that has been talking about dissent and freedom of expression, decided to remove her from primary membership.
It is evident from this development that the Communists believe that authoritarian regimes like China, USSR led by Stalin etc are acceptable forms of government, where people are starved, subjugated and beaten. Any deviation from this line that calls out Communist and Socialist regimes as authoritarian would not be tolerated by the Communists. It is also worthy to note that while Kavita Krishnan lost her political career with CPI(ML) for stating a basic fact about socialist regimes, her other opinions continue to be vile and problematic. That even those vile opinions were not enough for her to continue with CPI(ML) speaks volumes about the space for dissent in the Communist ecosystem.
In the past, Kavita Krishnan has compared Hindutva to the Taliban and the Ku Klux Klan and denied the existence of “Love Jihad” (Grooming Jihad) which has claimed the lives of several Hindu women. Over the last few years, Kavita Krishnan has been caught several times for peddling fake news, however, she continues to do so with impunity.
Besides expressing solidarity with anti-national elements, Kavita Krishnan has a history of backing radical Islamists, fake news peddlers, and pro-Pakistan propagandists. Last year, she was exposed for standing in support of a notorious fake news peddler Mohammad Asif Khan, who has a history of propagating communally sensitive fake news.
