Despite the cold spell in north India, there is an enormous amount of hot air in New Delhi. This hot air originates in the state conference of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Kerala. The CPI(M) which spearheads the left is now in a spot, or as the clich? goes, it is caught between a rock and a hard place. The left supports the United Progressive Alliance government. Indeed, its support, in terms of numbers in the Lok Sabha, is critical for the survival of the UPA. The left knows that if it were to stop supporting the UPA government, the latter would fall and the Bharatiya Janata Party would come laughing back to power. The left supports the government of Mr Manmohan Singh only to hold aloft secularism and to keep out the BJP. Theoretically, this should not have posed a problem for the left but for the fact that Mr Singh and his cabinet are committed to an agenda of carrying forward economic reforms. The left believes that many aspects of the economic reforms run counter to the common minimum programme agreed upon when the UPA was formed. Mr Singh and his colleagues do not quite agree with this interpretation of the CMP. The left thus continues to threaten the UPA government but also knows that it cannot really afford to withdraw its support to the UPA government.

This is the context for the fuming and fretting of Mr Sitaram Yechuri who has gone to the extent of saying that ?the left would not hesitate to withdraw its support to the government if the Congress fails to adhere to the CMP.?? Mr Yechuri has, by implication, posed a very tough question for himself and his party. The left will have to decide, by the logic of Mr Yechuri?s statement, which constitutes the bigger danger to India and Indians: the communalism of the BJP or the economic liberalization of the Congress. Mr Yechuri will also have to face the question of how the Left Front government in West Bengal continues to woo foreign investment. One suspects that Mr Yechuri and his comrades in the politburo have already pondered such issues and have come up with a remarkable answer. The answer is this: when left leaders speak in public, they spout the hoary ideological shibboleths for their cadre to hear. In private and in actual political moves, they act differently. The hot air should thus be allowed to pass. It means as much or as little as the word communist means in CPI(M).