PRAGOTI

 Here the past and future
 
Are conquered, and reconciled.
– T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets.
 

 As part of the ongoing series on the post election scenario , Pragoti reproduces an article written by Prof Vijay Prashad originally published in Counterpunch. Vijay Prashad is  the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His new book is The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, New York: The New Press, 2007. He can be reached at:vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu 

"In 1932, Colonel Marcelino Galdamez of the El Salvador army said, “Communism is like a tree shaken by the wind. The moving tree causes the seeds to fall; the same wind carries the seed to other places. The seed falls on fertile soil. To be done with Communism it is necessary to make the ground sterile.” The Party of the Army and ARENA failed to make El Salvador aseptic. The tree shook. The FMLN grew, and now takes over the Casa Presidencial". Vijay Prashad historicizes the FMLN's electoral victory for Pragoti.

All of us in the know of political affairs in India are aware that Amar Singh of the Samajwadi Party represents the worst form of cronyism in the country. This member of parliament gets a free pass in the investigations on the cash-for-vote scam because of a nonsensical technicality that prevents Lok Sabha members from summoning Rajya Sabha members for a committee investigation. Not long ago, Amar Singh's name figured in the list of contributors to the Clinton Foundation, headed by the erstwhile scandal-tainted (remember Whitewater, the dubious Wag-the-dog bombings in Sudan and what-not) president Bill Clinton. The shameful circumstances in which the Nuclear Deal was passed through, and the government survived a trust vote over the issue, and Amar Singh's name getting splashed all over the place in the allegations and counter-allegations; the lobbying (a legitimate illegitimacy in the United States) for the Indo-US Nuclear deal, Amar Singh considering himself a close friend of Messrs Clinton -- all these add up to an intriguing story.Vijay Prashad wants to figure out where (and where from) Amar Singh's supposed contributions to the Clinton Foundation ended up.