The other day, at a friend's home, the conversation inevitably came around to the Left. At one point the hostess asked, "Is it the Left you dislike, or the Leftists?"

That focused minds. Some said it was that old communist with the sour face who irritated them most. Others said it was the curly-haired fake.

The women said it was the Lady with the Big Bindi and Convent Accent on NDTV. And so on and so forth. But everyone agreed it was the patronising tone of these worthies that was most offensive.

The term "Left" goes back to the years preceding the French Revolution because those demanding change used to sit to the left of the Speaker.

Ironically, in India, the Left has come to mean those who oppose change!

Or, more accurately, those in the political Left who claim to speak for the entire Left have become the "no-changers". The controversy over the "foreign" experts on the Planning Commission's consultative committees is perfectly illustrative of this.

Interestingly, although it has become received wisdom now that the Indian Muslim community needs a new leadership, no one says the Left also needs a change of leadership.

But if you define the issue in terms of opposition to change, there is really not much difference between the mullahs and the politicians of the Left.

Why, seen in terms of self-perpetuating oligarchies, the CPM is like the BCCI. The same bunch goes on and on and on and on and on.

This is a great pity because even if the Left's messengers are rotten, its message is not entirely bad. That is why it is important to separate it from the messengers.

Shorn of all the jargon and prejudice, the message is an easy and legitimate one: don't let the rich and, therefore, the powerful, push you around. And howsoever much they may deny it, the rich will push you around if you let them, simply because they can.

That's how it works, and there is no point in pretending to the contrary. Nor is there much point in investing the rich and the powerful with a sense of charity that overwhelms their sense of self-interest. That's complete nonsense.

Anyway, be that as it may, the recent exchange between Meghnad Desai, a Labour Lord from the UK, and Prabhat Patnaik, a professor at JNU, is typical.

In an article in the Indian Express, Patnaik had explained why he was opposed to foreign experts on the Planning Commission's consultative committees. Desai joined issue with him a few days later.

Intellectually, there is no contest between the two men. So it is not surprising that Desai missed the point about sovereignty altogether.

Patnaik, unlike Desai, does not draw his enormous credibility from the formal institutions of power. He stands on his own.

So even if he was not altogether right, his objection needs to be answered sensibly, and certainly not in the sneering tone that Desai adopted.

Indeed, one could say that Desai was guilty of the very thing that people find objectionable in the Indian Left -- a sanctimonious and hectoring tone and the arrogance of the poorly informed.

The point is this: the Left is not completely wrong. For example, there are two major issues on which I am in complete agreement with the Left. One is divestment, the other is labour.

I have maintained for long that it is wrong to sell off the best of the public sector. It was built with taxpayers' money and to hand it over to a bunch of private shareholders without giving the taxpayer a chance to acquire a share in the ownership is wrong.

That is, the IPO route is preferable to the strategic partner one, all the more so if the partner chosen is a foreigner.

I have also maintained that it is wrong to sell off the profitable ones first and, therefore, that the loss-making ones should be sold off first -- as kabadi, if necessary.

After all, what sense does it make to retain the ones that drain the exchequer, while selling off the ones that contribute to it? As for labour, it is foolish to view public sector labour as being homogeneous.

It consists of two clear parts: the skilled and semi-skilled people that work in the factories, and the unskilled rascals who work in the offices, that is, the vast army of clerks, peons and junior administrators who account for over 65 per cent of the PSU wage bill. The first category is in short supply but the second is almost entirely redundant.

It is extraordinary that the debate in India, even after 13 years of so-called reform, has not begun to focus on this aspect of labour reform. People still talk of the public sector as being a monolithic group.

Even where the merits of the private and the public sectors are concerned, the debate is carried on in terms of what it costs to maintain the public sector.

But I have not seen any credible answer to the charge, which the Left makes about crooks in the private sector making off with several thousand crores of public money via the IDBI and the IFCI, not to mention the NPAs of banks, which have been paid for by you and me.

You can say pretty much the same thing about the debate on poverty and income distribution as well. Not only does it miss the wood for the trees, it is also puerile and full of acid.

People talk of different things, they talk at each other, and they think it is an informed debate.

But they don't focus on the key thing: that while poverty may be more than what the optimists say, it is certainly less than what the pessimists say. The supply of wage goods has never been better and that is very, very important.

Equally, while income distribution may be slightly worse now than it was in 1991, growth is slightly higher now than it was during 1960-90.

So instead of focusing on the detail, everyone talks in broad brush terms and puts everyone else off. This is utterly exasperating for people like me who are caught in the middle.

This sort of thing, I believe, underlines the real problem between the Left and the rest. Neither side is wholly right or wrong but both sides carry on as if they are.

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