So, India's planning a coup in China?

The fact that there has been a time machine among us all this while is a best-kept secret. For anyone wishing to go back to the Cold War era of the 1970-80s, a sure-shot transportation device has to be S Ramachandran Pillai. The 83-year-old CPI(M) politburo member cut through spacetime and brought us, even if for a moment, to a time when raging against American neo-imperialism was all the, well, rage. Pillai dived against the temporal loop on Thursday with this wonderfully twee comment: The Indian government's anti-China policy is aimed at destabilising the communist movement in China. As if the world was still sure that its chairman would be synced to China's chairman, Pillai emphasised how China's growth was proof of the 'power of socialism'. Whether Comrade Xi Jinping would agree with Comrade Pillai's causation would have been interesting - if anyone did take the communist (Pillai, that is) seriously.

Perhaps Pillai also believes that Maoism - officially junked in Mao's country - is in the deep pink of health in China today. But the seamless coalescing of '70s-80s-era high CPI(M)-ism with controlled capitalism in 2022 is an ability that only time travellers and Maoists in Marxist clothing like Comrade Pillai can pull off. As for the coup in China that India is orchestrating, we wait patiently.