That Left parties have gone way beyond the mainstream foreign policy framework in demanding Indian support for Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, is only a small part of this farce. The Communist defence of the Iranian clerics today shows the depths to which the notion of ‘progressive internationalism’ has sunk. An impressive tradition has been reduced to simplistic slogans of ‘anti-imperialism’. In practice this has meant opposing whatever the US does. In this knee-jerk discourse, Indian Communists are willing to back any regime in the third world, irrespective of its internal orientation. They find it hard to come to terms with the reality that many third world states have used slogans of anti-imperialism to brutalise their own populations. The trivialisation of anti-imperialism has increasingly put the Left in the company of tin-pot dictatorships and theocracies. If the Left shifts its focus away from the US for a moment and looks at the evolution of Iran since ’79, it would perceive numerous contradictions in its present stance. Contrary to the widespread perception that the Iranian revolution was an ‘Islamic one’, it was shaped by the blood of progressives. Within a short span, this popular revolution was transformed into a theocracy. The clerics seized control and systematically destroyed the bases of the left and secular forces. All dissent was labeled pro-US and crushed. The brief political spring under Mohammad Khatami, which had raised hopes for the emergence of a liberal Iran during ’97-’05, was ultimately defeated by conservative clerics. By preventing liberals from running for the recent presidential elections, the mullahs have reconsolidated their hold on Iran. Setting aside Khatami’s moderate foreign policies, fundamentalists in Tehran have now embarked on a nuclear confrontation with the world. That the Left is willing to endorse the defiance of a bunch of clerics, who claim the ‘divine right’ to rule, under the so-called theory of Vilayat-e-faqih, reveals how surreal India’s Communist internationalism has become.
