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Hans India
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Hans India
Red Flags Rise, Voices Roar: CPI Marks 100 Years with Powerful Call for Equality and Justice
Mahabubnagar: Red Flags Rise, Voices Roar: CPI Marks 100 Years with Powerful Call for Equality and JusticeIn a powerful show of unity and ideology, the Communist Party of India (CPI) painted Palamuru red on Wednesday, celebrating its centenary with thunderous slogans, cultural vibrancy, and a fiery reaffirmation of its relevance in modern India. Leading the charge was CPI State Secretary and Kothagudem MLA Kunamneni Sambasiva Rao, who declared that "Communism is not just an ideology of the past—it is a living force against today's exploitation." He reminded the nation that the CPI's legacy is built on sacrifices during India's freedom struggle and continues to offer a vision of a just, equal society. Thousands marched with red flags from the CPI office to Almas Function Hall via Telangana Chowrasta, Ambedkar Chowk, and Ashok Talkies, chanting slogans that echoed through the town. Folk artists from Prajanatyamandali added rhythm and power to the event with traditional drum dances, electrifying the atmosphere. Addressing the massive gathering, Sambasiva Rao said, "As long as inequality, exploitation, and oppression exist, Marxism and Leninism remain the only way forward for the poor." Taking aim at current political trends, he accused the ruling systems of fostering caste, communal, and corporate divisions. He warned that such divisive politics threaten the foundations of Indian democracy. Referring to BJP leaders Narendra Modi and Amit Shah's repeated remarks about ending communism, Rao responded sharply: "Those who want to destroy communism will turn to ashes. You cannot kill an ideology with guns or propaganda. The very fear of returning Maoist bodies shows the moral strength of our movement." He challenged other parties to compare their record of sacrifices, saying, "Where else will you find leaders who give up all personal wealth, face jail, fake cases, and still stand by the people till their last breath?" The CPI leader made a passionate appeal to the youth and students to enter politics not for power, but to serve the people and fight inequality. The event also served as a launchpad for the next phase of the centenary celebrations, with plans for a grand public meeting in Khammam on December 26, 2026. CPI State Executive Member M. Bala Narasimha demanded that governments at the Centre and state fulfill their election promises, warning that ignoring people's issues would have serious consequences. He called for preparing the party ranks for widespread agitation in the coming days. The event was attended by a wide range of CPI leaders and supporters, including district secretary B. Balakishan, state committee member H. Anandji, senior leader Ushannaiah, and many more. Their presence underscored CPI's deep roots and enduring strength among workers, peasants, and the common people. Why CPI Still Matters In an era dominated by money power and identity politics, the CPI's centenary celebrations serve as a powerful reminder of the party's continued relevance. With a legacy of struggle, sacrifice, and social commitment, CPI still stands as the voice of the working class, the poor, and the voiceless in India. As inequality widens and democratic institutions face erosion, CPI's call for people-centric politics resonates louder than ever. And in towns like Mahabubnagar, the red flag still rises with pride.
Hindustan Times
01-05-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Delhiwale: Dante's CP, last circle
Things are winding down, giving a sense of an ending. This sentiment besets a Connaught Place (CP) stroller, who finally steps into its Outer Circle, after faithfully journeying through all of the preceding circles. In Dante's epic poem Inferno, Hell has nine circles, each denoting a distinct tier of sin and damnation. Similarly, Delhi's colonial-era CP has four circles, each encompassing a world of distinctly different sensations. The initial three circles were tracked over the previous weeks. The first runs along CP's core: the Central Park. The second is the popular colonnade, alive with showrooms and street performers. The third lends the shopping district its perennially dishevelled appearance. The fourth circle has its colonnade dutifully interspersed with points of hyper-liveliness, comprising cafés and restaurants. But these crowded islands are bridged by sterile stretches of long-shuttered storefronts, the silence and solitariness relieved by only a handful of venerable landmarks. The notables among them include Amrit Book Company in N block, which used to be patronised by Dr BR Ambedkar. And Rikhi Ram Musical Instrument Manufacturing Co. in G block, which was famously visited by the Beatles. Indeed, the two icons are CP's last standing survivors—Amrit since 1936, Rikhi Ram since 1920. This noted, the Outer Circle also has two long-standing living landmarks. One is the so-named Bangali Babu, a pavement barber in N block—'I have been working here since the time Pandit Nehru was our Prime Minister.' The other is Lalji, a seller of sweet dishes (rasgulla, rabri, rasmalai) in H block—'I've been selling these for 60 years.' The Outer Circle's most sublime aspect, however, lies in its four-arched passageways. Linking the corridor to the Middle Circle within, each passageway shelters a unique secretive world of its own. The one in G block, for instance, bears a souvenir of the pre-cellphone era. A rusting plaque is engraved with the drawing of a rotary dial landline telephone, informing that 'You can make local calls here.' Most likely, this must have been the site of a telephone booth (PCO!), a public utility now as uncommon as… say, a bookstore selling books on Marx and Lenin. Incidentally, the Outer Circle houses a rare bookstore selling books on Marxism and Leninism. People's Publishing House is embalmed with the residue of a vanished era. Some volumes trace their publishing origins to a country whose existence ended decades ago—the USSR. Close by, towards the Regal Cinema building, lurks the extremity of G block. It is the best vantage point to see Connaught Place's most panoramic sunset. This is also where the Outer Circle ends. With this, the four-volume series on Dante's CP also ends.
New York Times
18-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Anthony Dolan, Speechwriter Who Gave Reagan ‘Evil Empire,' Dies at 76
Anthony R. Dolan, who as Ronald Reagan's chief speechwriter deployed the phrase 'evil empire' in 1983 to describe the Soviet Union and in another address consigned Marxism and Leninism to 'the ash heap of history,' died on March 11 in Alexandria, Va. He was 76. His death, in a hospital, was announced by Fred Ryan, the board chairman of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute, who said, 'Tony's ability to distill complex ideas into powerful, memorable speeches helped define the Reagan presidency and shaped the course of the Cold War.' The cause was not specified. Mr. Dolan was one of the youngest winners of a Pulitzer Prize in journalism. As a reporter for The Advocate in Stamford, Conn., he was 29 when he was awarded the prize in 1978 for local investigative specialized reporting, for a series of exposés of corruption in that city's municipal government and organized crime's infiltration of its police department. After serving for eight years as a speechwriter in the Reagan White House, he was a special adviser to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and a senior adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell during the administration of President George W. Bush. He was a White House special assistant during Donald J. Trump's first term, and in January was recruited as a special assistant by the president's Domestic Policy Council. Mr. Dolan began his political career as a teenage volunteer in Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign. He went on to take jobs in three Republican administrations and was for a time a singer and lyricist of conservative folk songs. (His 'The New York Times Blues' parodies the paper as containing 'all the news that's fit to print, unless, of course, its anti-communist.') In the White House, he was a dogged defender of President Reagan's blunt war of words against what Mr. Dolan saw as the ungodly Soviets. He resisted pressure from presidential advisers who, subscribing to realpolitik, wanted him to tone down his verbal assaults — including his hope that 'the march of freedom and democracy' would 'leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history.' 'Evil empire' and 'ash heap,' both derived from earlier iterations ('Star Wars' and Leon Trotsky among them) survived into final drafts thanks to Mr. Dolan. He also oversaw the speech his assistant, Peter Robinson, wrote in which Mr. Reagan, at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in 1987, challenged the Soviet leader: 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.' In a video tribute to Mr. Dolan, Mr. Robinson recalled a tug of war between 'the true believers vs. the pragmatists — and the true believers were the speechwriters and Ronald Reagan.' Several mentions of 'evil' were deleted from drafts of the 'ash heap' speech that Mr. Dolan wrote for delivery to the British Parliament in 1982. But he persisted in using the word, and he triumphed the following year when, in March, Mr. Reagan addressed the National Association of Evangelicals, who were divided between antiwar Quakers and anti-communist conservatives. Mr. Reagan urged his audience to 'beware the temptation of pride, the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all,' which, he warned, would be 'to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire.' 'With some nifty footwork, Dolan finally managed to get Reagan to deliver the speech he wanted,' Simon Lancaster, a British speechwriter, recalled in 'You Are Not Human: How Words Kill' (2018), 'deploying that age-old speechwriter tactic of circulating the draft at the very last minute, so no one has any time to comment.' Natan Sharansky, who was imprisoned at the time, later wrote that he and fellow Soviet dissidents were ecstatic. 'Finally,' he wrote in The Washington Post in 2000, 'the leader of the free world had spoken the truth — a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us.' David Gergen, who was Mr. Reagan's communications director, wrote in his book 'Eyewitness to Power': 'I hate to admit it, but it's true: History has shown that Tony Dolan was right and I was wrong. That phrase, the evil empire, allowed Reagan to speak truth to totalitarianism.' And Vince Haley, the director of Mr. Trump's Domestic Policy Council, and several other speechwriters wrote in Real Clear Politics this week, 'Dolan channeled Reagan's moral and intellectual arguments that framed the U.S.S.R. not simply as a competitor but as an aggressive force of evil in the world.' Anthony Rossi Dolan was born on July 7, 1948, in Norwalk, Conn., to Joseph and Margaret (Kelley) Dolan. His father was a store manager. Mr. Dolan was a Roman Catholic who attended Mass daily and a fierce anti-communist. In a eulogy for his sister, Maiselle Shortley, last year, he told a story from when he was 6 years old: 'My mother took a course on communism downtown at St Mary's Church from Louis Budenz, former Soviet operative and editor of The Daily Worker, who had become a Catholic and Fordham professor. She took Budenz's talks to heart about communism's global menace. 'I used to wonder if you kids would even have a country to grow up in,' she would say.' Mr. Dolan kept a book that Mr. Budenz had inscribed to his mother. Mr. Haley said in an interview, 'Tony didn't just condemn communism in the speeches he helped craft; he rallied souls to a positive conception of freedom of God with man.' After graduating from Fairfield College Preparatory School in Connecticut, where he was class president, Mr. Dolan majored in philosophy and history at Yale University and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1970. He served in the U.S. Army as a specialist 4. Mr. Dolan was the deputy press secretary in James L. Buckley's 1970 campaign for the United States Senate in New York, worked for F. Clifton White & Associates as a political consultant and was a reporter for The Advocate from 1974 to 1980. He was a protégé of William F. Buckley Jr., the founder and editor in chief of The National Review, who importuned William J. Casey, manager of the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980, to hire Mr. Dolan as a speechwriter and a research director. He joined the White House staff in March 1981, becoming chief speechwriter and an assistant to the president. He played a role in drafting the administration's crackdown on organized crime and was an adviser to U.S. delegations to UNESCO in 1984 and the United Nations disarmament conference in 1988. Mr. Dolan advised the campaigns of Fred Thompson, Newt Gingrich and Ted Cruz for the Republican presidential nominations of 2008, 2012 and 2016. He had a communications strategy firm and was an essayist on political affairs. In Washington, he was a frequent customer of Cafe Milano and Martin's Tavern, favorite political hangouts. His closest survivor is a nephew, Robert A. Shortley. In addition to his sister, Ms. Shortley, a brother, John Terrence Dolan, known as Terry, a founder and chairman of the National Conservative Political Action Committee, died in 1986. Mr. Dolan paid tribute to Mr. Reagan long after his presidency ended and well after his death in 2004. In 2023, speaking at the Victims of Communism Museum in Washington on the 40th anniversary of the 'evil empire' speech, Mr. Dolan said, 'Freedom had triumphed over tyranny due in large measure to President Ronald Reagan, who summed up his strategy with four simple words: 'We win, they lose.''
The Guardian
28-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
The UK has a history of coddling authoritarian leaders – now it's happening again
Why is Westminster, supposedly one of the world's great centres of democratic moderation, so welcoming to far-right foreign governments? For more than a century, since the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, authoritarians have often found allies, apologists or a deliberate absence of criticism in the Commons, despite our parliament's self-image as a historic enemy of fascism. One reason for this forgiving attitude is that foreign policy is a pragmatic business, and Britain has increasingly become a country that can't afford to make enemies. The Starmer government's determination to see no evil in the Trump administration can be partly explained in those terms. Yet other, darker and less-examined impulses have also shaped the behaviour of some of our MPs, ministers and political journalists towards rightwing autocrats – both those who have wielded absolute power and those who apparently would like to, such as Trump. These impulses reveal much about British politics and the frustrations, fears and fantasies of some of its practitioners and observers. To some jaded or impatient players of the Westminster game, the regimes of foreign strongmen – so far, female authoritarians have been far less common – are objects of fascination. They represent politics pursued by alluringly different means. At times such as now, when many voters are disillusioned with liberal democracy and its compromises, abandoned commitments and slow pace, autocrats can appear to be politicians who actually get things done. 'People ask me what difference new leadership will make,' said Kemi Badenoch last week. 'Well, take a look at President Trump.' Admiration for his new administration is not confined to the Tories. Last month, Anna McShane of the New Britain Project, a thinktank which describes itself as 'progressive', wrote on the pro-Labour website LabourList: 'Starmer must learn from Trump: act fast, prioritise visible change … While his policies remain polarising, the effectiveness of this approach cannot be ignored.' For some on the British right, foreign autocrats also appeal if they appear to be leading a crusade against one of conservatism's global enemies. In 1927, Winston Churchill, then a Tory chancellor, met Mussolini in Rome, five years after the dictator had seized power and begun violently suppressing the left. At a press conference after the meeting, Churchill said: 'If I had been an Italian, I am sure that I should have been wholeheartedly with you … in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism.' In the 1970s and 1980s, many Tories and British rightwing journalists similarly supported Augusto Pinochet's brutal military regime in Chile, as an anti-communist ally in the cold war. Nowadays, the British right's bogeyman is the supposed threat to western values from Islam and immigration. The ultra-aggressive approach of Trump to both, with his contempt for the law and the whole concept of multiculturalism, offers political cover and encouragement to Badenoch and Nigel Farage, as they take up ever-more illiberal positions. Trump's transgressive, seemingly all-powerful populism is the kind of politics they might dream of practising, were either of them to occupy Downing Street. His presidency also thrills the Tory press. 'Trump has an extraordinary knack for tapping into the frustrations of … the respectable working class – the quiet, skilled or semi-skilled man paying for the food on the family table,' wrote John MacLeod in the Daily Mail last year. That Trump, with his vast inherited wealth and endless personal scandals, can appeal to millions of voters with utterly different backgrounds and values is a conservative fantasy come true. Since the dawn of mass democracy, the right has been trying to make its elites politically palatable. In Britain a century ago, Mussolini also 'attracted the admiring attention of leading Conservative journals … as well as several newspapers, notably the Daily Mail,' wrote the historian of fascism Martin Pugh in his 2005 book Hurrah for the Blackshirts! As the paper's pro-fascist then owner, Lord Rothermere, put it: 'In my judgment, he [Mussolini] saved the whole western world.' Apparently successful autocrats reassure rightwing journalists and politicians that history can be shaped by individuals, as conservatives have always wanted. An autocrat's cult of personality also provides the media with constant stories and opportunities for character studies. Among the Italian dictator's British admirers, wrote Pugh, 'those who met him invariably depicted Mussolini as simple, charming, businesslike, not the bombastic and theatrical figure portrayed in leftwing demonology.' In January, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, described the new US president in a strikingly similar way. 'The Donald Trump I met,' he told the BBC, 'was a man who had incredible grace, generosity, very keen to be a good host, very funny, very friendly, very warm about the UK, our royal family, Scotland …' Gone are the days when Lammy, as a less guarded Labour MP, called Trump a 'tyrant in a toupee'. One problem with Westminster's warmth towards autocrats, whether diplomatic or genuinely enthusiastic, is that it eases their way by making them seem more respectable – rather than influencing them to moderate their behaviour, as is often claimed. All the British deference towards Mussolini in the 1920s and early 1930s did not stop him from eventually forming a hostile alliance with Adolf Hitler. Similarly, the refusal of Labour and the Tories to label Trump an extremist who is subverting the US constitution enables the BBC and other mainstream media organisations to avoid calling him an extremist, too. Meanwhile, his escalating transgressions continue. Sooner or later, the far-right tide will recede in the US and elsewhere. Authoritarian populists are often poor at governing, as Trump showed in his first term. This time, his approval ratings – already very low for a new president by historic standards – have started to fall, as the drawbacks or impracticality of many of his policies have become clear to more people. When the authoritarians do lose power, their acceptance or encouragement by so many British journalists and politicians may be widely seen as a huge moral and strategic misjudgment, as it was after Italian and German fascism had been defeated in the second world war. But Westminster will probably quickly move on. We are a moderate country, after all. Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist
