Prakash Karat is the youngest General Secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist [CPI-M]. He is seen as "more inflexible and ideologically rooted than many of his seniors" [11 April 2005, The Tribune]. He is also India's second most powerful politician and the most powerful in Left. The India Today commented on Karat being the "conscience keeper of the United Progressive Alliance government without being a part of it".
Karat came into prominence after he vehemently opposed the Indo-US Nuclear Deal as an ally of the coalition government. As the General Secretary of the CPI-M, he has maintained a 'deafening silence' on China's claim on Arunachal Pradesh. Later on he issued a statement saying "Arunachal is within Indian territory" after the Left party came under pressure to come clean on the issue because of its long-standing proximity with the leadership in Beijing.
Recently, he has been active in propagating the need for establishing a 'third front' on the three principles of consistent opposition to communalism, agreement on a common minimum program and a firm commitment to an independent foreign policy and pro-people economic policies. [The Hindu]
Early Life:
Prakash Karat was born into a Konkani family on October 19 [conflicting date is February 7], 1948 in Rangoon, Burma where his father worked for the British railways. After his father's death, he moved to Madras in India.
Karat graduated in Economics from Madras Christian College and went ahead to study Politics from the University of Edinburgh. At the University, he was expelled for anti-apartheid protests but was taken back on the basis of good behavior. He is an Atheist by religion. [8 January, wikipedia.org]Political Career
Karat was drawn into the Left movement in the 1960s, as a student in the Madras Christian College. He retuned to India from the University of Edinburgh in 1970 and joined the Communist Party of India- Marxist [CPI-M]. He was involved with the student politics and was elected the President of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Student's Union. He founded the Students Federation of India and was the first President between 1974 and 1979.
He married Brinda Das in November 1975. Brinda Karat, as she is known post marriage, is the first woman to be a member of the CPI-M Politburo. She had been the general secretary of the All India Democratic Women's Association for 10 years.
It is to be noted that Brinda Karat's sibling Radhika Das is married to NDTV group owner Prannoy Roy.
Karat worked underground for one-and-a-half-years during the Emergency rule of 1975-76 imposed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and was arrested twice. Over the years Karat has kept a low profile but emerged as a key leader of the party.
Prakash Karat was groomed by E.M.S Namboodiripad, the first Chief Minister of Kerala and he also worked closely with A.K Gopalan, CPI-M leader in the Lok Sabha or the Lower House of Parliament. Karat was elected as Secretary of the Delhi State Committee of the party in 1985, to the Central or the federal Committee in 1985 and the Politburo, the key decision making wing of the party, in 1992. [www.whataboutu.com]
Since 1992, Karat has been on the editorial board of CPI-M's academic journal, The Marxist. He is also the managing director of Leftword Books, a publishing house. He is the author of three books.
Language, Nationality and Politics in India (1972)(editor)
"A World to Win" Essays on the Communist Manifesto (1999)
Edited 'Across Time and Continents: A tribute to Victor Kiernan' (2003)
At the age of 56, Karat was elected as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on the 11th of April, 2005. He is the youngest Leftist leader to hold the post. This came at a time when the CPI-M along with the three other Left parties were giving crucial support from outside to the Congress party led United Progressive Alliance government in New Delhi.
Nuclear Deal and US relations:
Karat dominated the news in 2007 for single handedly stalling the India-US nuclear deal. His opposition to the deal was not nuclear energy but a "pathological sense of anti-Americanism." [India Today]. He became the most vociferous votary on national interest when PM Singh wanted to have a strategic alliance with the US. He had make it known and accepted that a nuclear pact with the US cannot survive without the Left's support. Karat steered CPI-M to emerge as a "sharp and dangerous weapon against the coalition government" which had the capacity to "spoil the plans of those" who have the strength to rule India. [The New York Times].
Karat, like other communist leaders, has been vociferous in voicing his dislike of US and President Bush. While attending a function commemorating the 90th anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution in 2007, Karat, visibly angered by President Bush's comparison of Lenin with Usama Bin Ladin and Adolf Hitler, said ''The world knows he is weak in the knowledge of history but now it has also been established that George Bush is also a fool" [ndtv.com, 7 November 2007]. Karat has repeatedly pointed out that US 'imperialism' is a threat to India's "national sovereignty" and to support his cause, he has used the unstable political situation in Pakistan as an example. [NDTV]
Relations with China
Prakash Karat has been criticized in the media and in India's political corridors for his 'deafening silence' on China's claim to Arunachal Pradesh. Owing to the party's long standing proximity to top leadership in Beijing, Karat was under constant pressure to come clean on the issue. Eventually, he came out with a statement saying "Arunachal is within Indian territory". The Left party also made news when it opposed the UPA government's decision to bar a few Chinese companies from sensitive Foreign Direct Investment [FDI] projects on grounds of security.
Relations with Bangladesh
Karat and the CPI-M politburo had discussed the deteorating political situation in Bangladesh with the UPA government. Here again Karat urged the Indian government to be cautious of the apparent American intervention in Bangladesh's parliamentary elections. [Asia Times]
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