The Long View on Steel

community interested in the maintenance of ordered life in the State find it increasingly difficult to view the situation with equanimity". "The strangest thing", the paper said in conclusion, "is that, instead of bending all their energies to an improvement of the situation, some of the members of the United Front Government are content to accuse the Centre and the Union Home Minister, Mr Chavan, of creating difficulties of the smooth functioning of their government!" The Tribune invoked what had happpened in the past, not only in Telegana but also in Pepsu, and said that "the danger of communist groups running parallel governments is certainly not a remote phenomenon". The reign of terror was "not a nuisance but a deadly menace", and if what was happening in Naxalbari was not a parallel government, what was? The responsibility for what was happening in Naxalbari, said 'the Tribune', was "inescapably with the Chief Minister*' who ruled over a coalition of as many as fourteen parties. "But'', it added, "few will sympathise with him because the predicament is of his own making. If he cannot prevent a 'reign of terror' anywhere in his State, the only honourable course for him is to resign. But dismissal has also its undeniable charms which he and his unrepentant colleagues can exploit to their hearts' content in an effort to show that the real enemy was not in Naxalbari but in New Delhi", Only New Age saw the intra- party conflict sparked off by Naxalbari. It laid the responsibility for the events there at the door of Left sectarianism. "If Naxalbari has focussed attention on infantile and, disruptive adventurism", said the Communist weekly, "much to the chagrin of even the CP(M) leadership, there are ideological and political causes which must on no account be papered over". Naxalbari, it said, was by no means the only foothold of this ultra Leftism. "Such trends", it went on, "inside the CP(M) are more and more coming into the open, though in varying forms. The CP(M) leadership seems to be almost at the end of its tether. After all, the ultras are the offspring of dogmatism and secta rianism which still continue to be dominant in the CP(M). To claim their right of inner-party revolt, the 'hard-core' elements in the CP (M) are citing what other leaders did four years ago". 'New Age' said "Naxalbari at least should cause serious re-thinking in the CP(M) leadership and ranks. Disciplinary action against the Naxalbari defiers and their like are no substitute for the ideological house- cleaning which the CP(M) badly needs".