Now, it appears that perhaps more than Vajpayee, Advani and RSS chief Rajendra Singh, the two Calcutta-based journalists -- Subrata Nagchoudhury and Santanu Banerjee felt more hurt by the Central government's retreat.

A write-up by these two journalists published in the front page of the Indian Express dated February 13, 2000 betrayed the journalists' intentions. The five column heading screamed: "The CPI(M) in West Bengal changed service rules so that state government employees could participate in the politics, now it cries foul". The second, but bolder headline, stated that Marxists are no different from RSS pracharaks, in respect of infiltration into government services.

Any innocent reader, on reading these headlines, will think that perhaps the Marxists are caught on the wrong foot on their vociferous protest. But, when one goes through the contents of the write-up, these two journalists cite the decision of the West Bengal Left Front government in 1980 to amend the service rules for its employees, to prove their charge that Marxists had already done in West Bengal what BJP governments in Gujarat and UP now sought to do.

And, what according to them is the Left Front government's amendment?

"But it was the rights clause where politics was sneaked in. It (the amendment) gave each government employee the `right to form associations/unions/federative bodies' and `full trade union rights, including the right to strike'." (Indian Express, February 2, 2000)

Is it not obvious that what the Left Front government in West Bengal has done in 1980 is simple extension of democratic right to trade unionism to the government employees? Is permitting the state government employees to form their own trade union organisations, the same as the right to join a fascistic political formation as the RSS is?

In fact, the Left Front government was congratulated by the vast section of democratic opinion in our country for making this amendment. A number of strikes by state government employees had taken place in a number of states, prior to 1980, where their main demand was the right to trade unionism including the right to strike. The Marxist Party, while out of government, had actively supported this demand of the government employees. And, as soon as it came to power in West Bengal, it carried out its commitment to the government employees as well as to the general public.

The authors further proceed and say, the West Bengal government "having taken care of state government employees, it was the police force that was also given the go-ahead to form association in the mid-80s."

Here again, the authors' refer to the trade union right conferred by the Left Front government on the police force. It is pertinent to remember that those were years when series of strikes were organised by the state police in various states, where their basic demand was right to form their own unions/associations.

The CPI(M) legislative party in Tamilnadu, as in any other state, has been agitating on the floor of the House to concede that demand of the police. (At that time, late Thiru M.G. Ramachandran was the Chief Minister.) The democratic opinion was so strong that the late Chief Minister declared at a huge election rally (1980) that if AIADMK is returned to power, he will extend official recognition to the policemens' union.

The West Bengal Left Front government conceded the democratic demand of the state policemen by amending the Service Rules in 1980. Is this the same as the Gujarat and UP BJP governments conferring the right on a communal fascistic, political formation like the RSS, to enroll state policemen as its members and associate them with their activities?