Tomorrow as we prepare as a nation to genuflect to the might of - TopicsExpress

Tomorrow as we prepare as a nation to genuflect to the might of the USA and its President Barack Obama I am reminded of a stirring scene that I saw as a nine year old boy in 1969. Robert Mcnamara as the then president of the World Bank on a visit to India was also supposed to come to Kolkata as part of that visit. A million people, no less, turned out on the streets to protest his visit because of his complicity in the genocide in Vietnam as the US Secretary of Defence before that from 1961-68, chanting in Bengali, Aamar Naam Tomar Naam Shobar Naam - Vietnam (my name , your name and everyones name is vietnam!!!). Mcnamaras visit to Kolkata had to be cancelled as a result. However, much we may blame the left in this country for having betrayed the masses in the end, there was a time when they upheld their interests and that of the nation heroically. I grew up in that Kolkata and imbibed some of that rebelliousness and can only recall it with a wrench of the heart and a sigh. Unfortunately neither that Kolkata nor that left remains anymore, though to be fair to the latter they are putting up a token protest against Obamas visit, and today we are only too pleased to go down on our knees before American neo-imperialism. Looking back on the five decades since the mid sixties, one cant but accept that the power of capitalism has been too great and it has overwhelmed all and sundry whether leftist or anarchist!!!