Going woke is better than going woke. Why do I say this? Well, The Hindu had shocking news. Kavita Krishnan (she/her) has been ‘relieved’ of her leadership role in CPI(ML). In case you didn’t know, this is one of the alphabet soup of communist parties mostly active in the North. Her sin was that she said “socialist” regimes are totalitarian. Given the high levels of liberalism and tolerance amongst our leftists, naturally, this makes her position untenable.
Kavita probably doesn’t read OpIndia but if she does, she has my kudos, congratulations and best wishes. It is the right decision and I will tell you why.
One perfectly understands and sympathises with Kavita. It is one thing to carry the red flag and shout slogans at JNU but once you are out in the real world, reality hits like a blast of hot wind as you step out of the air-conditioned room. There are bills to pay, and careers to build.
One of her comrades and fellow revolutionaries, Kanhaiya wisely signed up with the famiglia. As I said earlier, this makes total sense because if being a commie these days is all about working 24×7 for this corrupt dynasty or that, why not cut out the middleman in the Politburo and work direct?
While this is a lucrative option, firstly this may not be to everyone’s taste. Gucci and Ferragamo perfumes are nice but their shoes may not be so tasty. Plus, slots are limited and fully taken up. After all, the dynasty can only accommodate so many comrades given their own gravy train has been derailed for ten years now.
But all is not lost! The global woke ecosystem is a growth market that can be tapped! It is flush with cash and can happily play piper if you dance to the right tunes. And since Modi has reduced the dollar to 80 rupees, unlike its yearly appreciation during the dynasty years, it gets more lucrative by the day.
Kavita is clever and she has been dropping the right hints for a while now. The she/her is a clear pointer. It screams I am woke, let me in. After all, which toiling Indian worker, proletariat or dispossessed subaltern really knows or cares about she/her, zee/zim and they/them? They will be totally lost. It only makes sense if your target audience is in NY, Washington, Boston or LA.
As if that is not enough, she talks of “menstruating people” and has been busy re-tweeting a well-known Ukrainian propaganda handle. This too sends the right signal to the US wokes. After all, they have rehabilitated a man they themselves were calling corrupt and authoritarian, turned him into a war hero and have been pumping him billions in arms. So that they can fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. A cost-effective tactic that almost always works. It may be tried in India too where coolies are even cheaper to hire for tukde tukde tasks.
A fly in the ointment
But her “leadership” role in the CPI(ML) is a fly in the ointment and can be embarrassing. The loyalties expected of our comrades to “amadher Chairman” and the ideological fatherland are well known. And it is also well known that US wokes led by Biden are now totally anti-China. Or to be more precise anti-Chincom. Remember Pelosi’s bravado in visiting Taiwan? Chip wars? Sanctions by Trump that are mostly in place well into the second year of Biden, unlike other Trump actions that are mostly reversed?
In this scenario, proudly flaunting your leadership role in a “Marxist Leninist” outfit is clearly something you can do without. It is best to adopt a lighter shade of red façade, like Arfa or Siddharth. Obviously many wokes in the US are practically commies, so they will understand with a wink and a nod. Don’t ask don’t tell is the motto. Just don’t make a song and dance of it or wear the red chip on your shoulders with pride.
Since Comrade Eleven has thrown his lot behind Putin it can be inconvenient for someone in the ‘leadership’ to support Ukraine, and this problem is solved too.
Do you agree Kavitaji’s move makes a lot more sense?
India’s AOC?
AOC has leveraged woke activism into a Tesla-fancy-dress-ball high flying lifestyle. That is highly inspiring to a lot of wannabes. India too has many.
Personally, I would recommend that Kavitaji takes this route. In fact, she is practically halfway there. If she were to ask me, this is what I will suggest.
She should float an NGO or fundraiser carefully targeting the woke market. It is a pity that the millions set aside by Soros for such noble causes are lying unused and we need forex to bring the rupee value up. Every bit helps. If she needs help, I am pretty sure Teesta or Ranaa will be more than happy to provide guidance.
Working with USAID and other such friendly, independent, anti-imperialist, pure-woke organisations with an illustrious track record in the third world, and their lecture seminar circuit is a clever move, but this can be taken even further.
Washington is overflowing with lobbies and buying woke silence and escaping their cancel culture is becoming imperative for many corporates. If I were the CFO of Infosys or General Motors, I will happily employ a woke to do a six-month well-paid study on how to appreciate LGBTQ+ persons of colour instead of facing protests and cancellations. That market is taking off in India too.
Of course, the market is tough and competition from fellow wokes, that too of Tambram, Janeudhari and Ashrafi origins is high. After all, the market for speaking up for subalterns is practically cornered by them. But there is clearly room for one more and it is a growing market.
A questionable past and a questioning future?
Comrade Krishnan, going by the Hindu article wants to question the totalitarianism of so-called socialist regimes. In fact, one doesn’t have to travel abroad to find examples of rapist savagery, mass murders and crimes against humanity by comrades. It is in their DNA. Kavita herself has questioned them in the past – see her article for countercurrents website, thankfully still available.
In that article, Kavitaji is questioning Brinda Karat’s silence on rapes, murders and horrific violence in Nandigram, including the case of a woman “whose buttocks are hanging, having been nearly severed by a chopper”. You see these are the defenders of Bilkis Bano’s rights.
But then she happily joined CPM and CPI in the “Grand Alliance” with Lalluji to win a few seats in Bihar. The victims of Nandigram can wait. Will this round of “questioning” be a similar farce?
But one must also pity Kavitaji. She is relatively young and we wish her a long life but if she starts questioning every communist despot and his or her crimes against humanity both present and past, I am afraid her one lifetime would not be enough. In fact, even if she were to pick at random one of the mass murderers regularly worshipped by left in India, it should keep her busy for years.
To set a more modest target, she could perhaps start questioning the fake intellectuals, pseudo historians, Bollywood divas and Carnatic singers that, through their propaganda, anti-Hindu hate and selective silence, effectively act as enablers of Stalinist mass rapist butcher ideologies. And to make matters worse, enable dynastic dacoity in their spare time.
Will she do that? Time only can tell!
