The fifth lecture in the ‘Democracy Dialogues Series’ organised by New Socialist Initiative was delivered by Kumar Ketkar, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha at 6 PM (IST) on Sunday, 6 th December

Theme : The Spectre of Evil…The world Since 1989

The Speaker : Kumar Ketkar, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha

• Has spent nearly 45 years in Journalism. From the reporter and then correspondent in Atheust Economic Times, to Chief Editor of Maharashtra Times and Loksatta.
• Has covered Collapse of USSR from Moscow, Unification of Germanys, Integration of Hong Cong with China, Covered eight US presidential Elections.
•  Recipient of Padmashri in 2001, Maharashtra Bhushan Award from State government, LifeTime Achievement Award in Journalism from US based Maharashtra Foundation.
• Written 12 marathi books, on politics, literature, sociology, journalism

Thematic Synopsis :

The spectre of Evil looms large across the world.
Defeat of Trump was essential.
But may not prove be a dawn for Hope or Transformation.
Nor would it change the character of “Pax Americana”
China has checkmated the spreading tentacles of Project “Pax Americana”.
Like the Russian Red Army neutralised the Nazi Plan of Fortress Europe.
But I do not think China is a threat world Peace.
The so called formulation of Second Cold War is a clever obfuscation by the “Boston Brahmins” of the Think Tanks sponsored by the Pentagon Pundits and the CIA led by the State Department, and the “MI 6 Machiavellian” minders who have still not recovered from the demise of “Pax Britanica”.
The Aggressive Assault of the Right and the Evil forces came as a revenge of the Sun setting on the Empire and the meltdown of the American Dream in the catastrophic collapse of Twin Towers on 9/11/2001.
It was a symbolic salvo for the twenty-first century.
I want to begin with some rather outlandish hypothesis.
With full awareness that I will be accused of stretching the argument too far.
The year 1989 did not “End History”, the year Francis Fukuyama presented his thesis.
It only forced fundamental paradigm shift.
The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 coincides with the Shilanyas at Ayodhya.
The starting of the Rath Yatra and the fall of V P Singh government in November 1990, coincides with the fall of Eastern European countries.
The victory of the US in the Gulf War in early 1991 coincides with the revolt in the Baltic States of the Soviet Union.
The collapse and disintegration of Soviet Union in 1991 coincides with the launch of Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation (LPG) in India.
The thesis of a lash of Civilisations is ceremonially launched by the Western Think Tanks almost at the same time on 1992, when Babri Masjid was conspiratorially and aggressively destroyed.
Indeed, these events and the coinciding dates are not interdependent.
And yet there is a socio-ideological and psycho-political link.
In all these developments, the Liberal ideas are challenged, the Welfarism and Affirmative Actions questioned and the Right has established its hegemony and  the Left is forced on defensive if not defeated.
At philosophical level post-modernism has usurped power over modernism, in academia and in arts and literature.
It is not an “End of Ideology” nor “End of History” or the “.End of Left”
It is perhaps a new beginning, a challenge to all those who believe in the Ideas of Civilisation, Ideals of Humanism, Ideas of Ecology and Reconstruction of Ideology.
We cannot afford to fail, nor surrender to “fait accompli”, certainly not to compromise.
Because the Spectre of Evil is looming large across the world.