Much has been written about the alliance between certain leftists and Islamists in the west around certain key themes: to be specific, anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism (which of those comes first depends on your standpoint regarding the proverbial dog and tail.) So I was very interested to come across this comment by a Bangladeshi journalist, Amitabh Tripathi, on how this particular configuration is shaping up in India.

Amitabh’s written English isn’t perfect, so you need to persevere a little. That said, his English is infinitely better than my Bengali. I worked in Bangladesh for a few months during 1999, and while I spent some time getting to know this fascinating country and its turbulent, painful history, I made no headway with the language.

Anyway, I digress. Here are a couple of striking paragraphs, but do read the rest:

Present political turmoil in India has very short life but the manner in which Left and Islamists have developed an anti America syndrome in last few years has few implications for nation. It is very strange coalition as Islamists struggle for religious world order as well world order based on Shariah at the same time Leftists are atheists but they have a point where both meet and that point is anti- America and anti- Zionism. This is not the first time in India when Left and Islamists have come close to each other four years back in assembly elections of one of southern states of India called Kearal which is one of states where leftist grab power some time leftists used Islamist appeal for electoral gains. Their campaign was based on Israel-Palestine conflict using the poster of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat paying him tribute. This trick was successful in electoral terms and leftists came in power. When Indian government voted against Iran in IAEA left got furious and massive rallies were organized with various Islamist groups to condemn the decision of government. Same thing was happened again when president of US George W Bush visited India huge rallies were organized in various cities and states to protest his visit. Even in Mumbai more than 6 lakh Muslims came out on street to demonstrate against president of US. All these rallies were performed under joint banner of Leftist and Islamists. These demonstrations have so much impact on government that it was forced to change the venue of president’s address to parliamentarians from parliament to somewhere else in capital.

On the one hand Leftist and Islamist have come closer on anti-American and anti-Zionism plank but the other hand Indian people are totally divided on this issue and majority of Hindus support any initiative from government to go close to America or Israel. We have two examples before us. www.worldpublicopinion.org done two surveys on the issue of popularity of American president George W Bush and on the issue of Israel-Palestine conflict. On the issue of popularity of American president India was the only country where George W Bush was more popular it was 45% and only Nigeria was the other country where his figure has more than India, but in other countries he was termed as the most unreliable fellow. The other poll which was conducted on the issue of Israel-Palestine also has surprising results. In this survey people from various countries were asked whose side your government should take in Israel -Palestine conflict Israel or Palestine. In India 24 % people were of the view that government should take side of Israel and 23% were of the view that government should go with Palestine. Website has quoted this result as divided opinion. This division shows that Indian people are sharply divided on foreign policy issue with communal overview.

This division has some implications for India which also indicates that leftist Islamist alliance is getting momentum in India as well as undercurrent is also building against this coalition.