A Commie in Coma

Harkishan Singh Surjeet is back home from the hospital recovering from the coma he had been in and I'm sort of thankful. Its not that I'm a fan of his or the ideology he espouses, but it is because I consider him as a relic and want him to live to see the end of communism in India even if he enters the Guinness Book of records as the world’s longest living man.

He isn't a relic just because he is a nonagerian. He is one because he is a living example of the oxymoron that his communist principles stand for. He was the only example my late dad used whenever he wanted to take a dig at the communists. "Look at him." my dad used to say, "He belongs to a party whose primary tenet is that God doesn't exist and he wears the turban, and has the beard. Thats what the communists are, Hypocrites." The logic my dad used was irrefutable. I've wondered often if Harkishan Singh Surjeet ever recognised that he is everything that is wrong with the communists everywhere. I find communism to be a wonderful ideal (though impractical), but my right-leaning dad had his grouses against it especially its principle of - From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. “An IAS officer having two children will earn less than a peon having four children because his need is less” my father rationalized as he explained the basic communist principle to me one fine day, ingraining in me much of the abhorrence he had for the communists.

As I grew up, my interest in communism grew as immensely as my loathing of the Indian communists. Just as the Ideal Gas in chemistry or the Ideal Transformer in physics do not exist , Communism is an ideal that cannot exist and the so-called communism as practised by the present day communists is a really big sham. Jyoti Basu was the greatest marxist-leaning leader of the Indian Communist party but inspite of him preaching state-owned property and common wealth, his own son is one of the biggest businessmen of his state while the state Jyoti Basu ruled for decades is still one of the poorest in India. After the collapse of communism in Soviet Union and my dad had a perrenial "I told you so" look and with any luck, Jyoti Basu & Harkishen Singh Surjeet might live to see the same collapse happening in India