January 19th, 1997

CPI(M) WAR WITHIN A missed opportunity

THE EMPERORS of China and I govern half the human race and yet we find time to breakfast," a British viceroy of India remarked early this century. Today there is no viceroy in India and no emperor in China. There are communists in both countries, ruling one emperor in China. There are communists in both countries, ruling one and wanting to rule the other. had eight more men voted the other way in may 1996, Jyoti Basu today could have made a remark on these lines- "The comrade in China and I..."
That certainly is the communist dream-to rule over half the human race and more. But the fact is that they rule over fewer people in the world than did ten years ago.
That sultry May afternoon, about half an hour after the CPI(M) central committee rejected the offer to rule a good share of the earth, there was a mild commontion outside the party headquarters near Delhi's Gole Market. A respectable-looking person was fuming and frothing at the corner of his mouth, hurling works that just did not befit his attire. The language was English-the good university variety-well smattered with terms of academic sociology in between a few four-letter words. "Must be some party leader," television cameramen muttered and captured the scene.
At the end of a ten-minute breathless monologue, someone asked him. "Sir, may we ask who you are?" Brought to earth from the dialectical skies, he muttered his name, flashed a visiting card and left the place. A college tutor. He had never been even a primary member of the party, but was an intellectual fello-traveller. he was raving mad at the central committee for having denied Jyothibabu the prime ministership.
There are many in India like him. Men and women who are still enamoured by the communist charm. Ideologically they have little to do with the proletariat, may never have stood in the queue with the hoi polloi at the polling booth, yet wanting to see Jyoti Basu heading and Indian cabinet.
Even anti-communists admire him for his impeccable gentlemanliness, his proven administrative capabilities, and his quiet political managerial skills. No Indian communist- not even the legendary P.C. Joshi or A.K. Gopalan or E.M.S. Namboodiripad-commanded such respect from the largely anti-communist middle class and media as he now does. To that extent, Jyoti Basu is an anachronism in a party which, by its very ideology, burns idols and demigods.

But then the communists are different. No other party could have spurned such an offer to rule India. What happened in that central committee meeting could not have happened in any other party.
Two of the most powerful men in the party-general secretary Harikishen Singh Surjeet and Basu himself-argued that the party should join the Central government and the much smaller men rejected it. In a party that is reluctantly democratic, majority ruled both in letter and spirit.
Perhaps this is something that the anti-communist admirers of Basu, who want to see him as Prime Minister, do not realise. basu may have been successfully heading a coalition for two decades in West Bengal, but that is not necessarily the only qualification needed to be a successful coalition Prime Minister.
His partners in West Bengal are creatures of parties like his own and the CPI(M) is not just the dominant partner, but the paramount partner. The arrangement may be a coalition technically, but in practice it is a one-party rule, supported by ideologically fraternal groups. All of them have influence over and draw support from the same or similar sections of society. Conflicts of interest are rare in governmental decision-making.
But does Basu still think that he could have repeated the Bengal miracle in New Delhi? His comment in a recent newspaper interview that the "CPI(M) committed a political blunder in not joining the UF government" seems to reflect just that. Basu himself explained the statement later: "Self-criticism is necessary for guiding the party to correct political lines, even if the opposition tries to use it to its advantage."

Certainly, the candid statement has embarrassed the party leadership, including Surjeet, no end. "There is no controversy," said politburo member Prakash Karat. In response to a question, he just recapitulated the events and in fact emphasised that the decision was taken by the majority. "As far as we are concerned, the issue is closed."
Admitting blunders is not characteristic of the CPI(M), though it has come to be a habit with the CPI which admitted to having blundered during the Quit India struggle in the forties, in splitting the party in the sixties and in supporting the Emergency in the seventies.
Basu himself explained that he was only recording the matter for history. There was much validity to the argument. Interestingly, the official record of the CPI(M) was persuasively invited to not only join the government but also head it.
The 'Report on Political Developments' adopted in the central committee meeting of July 27-29 recorded the events only in passing: "The central committee was of the opinion that in order to the prevent the BJP from forming the government, a broad-based non-Congress secular government should be installed which the Congress could support fom outside. The party expressed itself against any coalition government with the Congress as it would be counter to the anti-Congress verdict given by the people.
The CPI(M) on the other hand over believed in open confessions and public penitence. All debates over conduct and revisions of past lines were within the party fora whose deliberations were kept as secret as the deliberations in committee rooms of the old Kremlin.
"The central committee herefore resolved to make all efforts to rally all the nin-Congress secular parties in order to forge a broad-based combination which could stake its claim to form the government. In contributing to such efforts, the central committee decided that the party would actively participate and support the formation of such a government from the outside. The party would work to strengthen such a secular combination without joining the government."
Needless to say, the official report reflected none of the diverse strategic and tactical considerations that went into the central committee decision.
But what did Basu want history to record? In a cadre-based party where even leaders had to be authorised to speak out, Basu had clearly over-stepped. No wonder then that the reaction was immediate. Politburo member Lavu Balagangadhara Rao and central committee member Nanduri Prasada Rao, both from Andhra Pradesh, termed the remark "unfortunate", as did fellow chief minister E.K. Nayanar of Kerala. Nayanar even wanted the party leadership to consider whether Basu should have aired his views.
Basu's defenders silenced them quickly citing chapter V of the Principles of Party Organisation which says that "Marxism does not accept the idea of infallibility of leaders or committees". In fact, the chapter encouraged partymen to criticise though "not to indulge in throwing blame or settling personal grudges". Basu, said his defenders, did not violate this principle.

THE CPI(M) and the Left movement itself are going through a sort of flux ideologically, tactically and even personality-wise, which predates the United Front government. Incidentally, most communists feel that the Deve Gowda government is a 'creation' of the efforts of the CPI(M) and now the 'creature' is going astray.
True enough, it was the Left leaders who before and after the election gave the required insight to the non-Congress, non-BJP parties to look among themselves and find common factors of secular unity. But that had little to do with the Left's ideological thrusts and was more a result of the diplomatic skills of its leaders like Basu, Surjeet, the CPI's Indrajit Gupta and others.
While Jayalalitha was able to get bail in the cases relating to Meena Advertisers, Pleasant Stay Hotel and colour TV sets scam, she was denied bail in the cases relating to the import of coal and amassment of wealth. In all, Jayalalitha was the main accused in seven cases including the one on $3 lakh received as donation from abroad under the immunity scheme. The strategy was clear: if she escaped in one, trap her in another.
The Left made an alliance possible with the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav and a post-election friendship with the Telugu Desam of Chandrababu Naidu. In other words, had one club-mate or other everywhere who were brought together after the election. On the other hand, the Janata Dal, which now heads the coalition, was friendless in most states. Even the CPI(M) central committee members who voted against joining or heading the government conceded this much.
"Yes they did some good work to save the country from communal forces," said a central committee member. "That is the role expected of any leader of any responsible political party committeed to a secular India. And our leaders performed it well. That is what you could call political diplomacy. But when committing the communist party to government, there are a lot of other considerations."
He said the matter had been discussed at the 15th party congress in Chandigarh in 1995. Basu and his followers from West Bengal had moved an amendment to the party programmee, suggesting that the party keep its option open on joining a Union government. The amendment was defeated. The May 1996 defeat was the second one for the Basu-Surjeet line.
In the disciplined democracyof the CPI(M), leaders faced such defeats almost at every meeting. "You would be surprised how many times the central committee has disagreed with the leadership," said a central committee member. "But the matter was never discussed after that in public. The leaders were free to bring up the topic again before the central committee citing changed circumstances. but it was for the central committee to take the decision. The committee could be overruled only by the plenum."
That explained why there was talk of calling a plenum to discuss the Basu affair, though the leadership quickly shot down the idea.
Basu's outburst also had much to do with the Left's discontent with the United Front government. Despite the persistent efforts of Surjeet and the younger Sitaram Yechuri, the government's common minimum programme (CMP) reflected little of the CPI(M) line.

The discontent was officially recorded in the report adopted at the July 27-29 central committee meeting. "....On certain basic questions of economic policy, the CMP does not represent the views of the Left," It had noted categorically.
But there was and is little the CPI(M) could do. "The bulk of the parties in the UF government are those who wish to continue with the economic policies of the Congress ," said a central committee member.
So he is forced to fulminate in public-be it against the public sector disinvestment, the insurance reform or the decision on Tat airlines. "Jyotibabu thinks that this helplessness would not have been there had we joined the government," said a party leader.
But then Basu only has to look at the helplessness of fellow-communist Indrajit Gupta. Though he is the home minister, he was not consulted on even appointment of governors. So much so that the party's national council demanded the recall of the Manipur governor who was appointed without the home minister's consent.
The Basu line is that this helplessness is the result of the CPI(M)'s shyness to join the government. Had the CPI(M) been in the government, it would have been the second biggest bloc on the ruling benches, a dominance which would have been duly reflected in the cabinet room. And with a Jyoti Basu or a Somnath Chatterjee at his side, Indrajit Gupta would not have felt so much like a sore thumb.
Anyway, the leadership is making one more attempt. The budget is round the corner and now the two communist parties are insisting that the broad thrust of the budget be cleared by the steering committee. What if Chidambaram says "no"? The CPI(M) can then say that the only way to influence the government is to join it and steer it. Or the party could call it quits.
WHAT is certain is that the present equation will not continue after February 28. Basu supporters said that he was just queering the pitch for that.
In addition was the threat from an assertive Congress under Sitaram Kesri. What shoul the CPI(M) do if Kesri pulled the rug? Or persuaded a few partners of the United Front to join a Congress-led coalition? Could the CPI(M) afford to support such a government at least to keep the BJP at bay, given the fact that it survived on anti-Congressism in both West Bengal and Kerala? Or should it cry foul, and go back to the perennial opposition slot?
Another thinking in the party is that the threat from the communal forces has relegated it and the anti-communal forces has relegated it and the anti-communal card alone will not sell in the next round.
Coupled with these ideological and tactical problems are certain personality clashes. Ironically enough, it is the younger leadership that seems to believe that the traditional lines are fine and there is no need to review them. For instance, politburo member Prakash Karat is said to be of the view that the traditional anti-Congressism, which has worked both in West Bengal and Kerala, is fine and there must bt no deviation from the ultimate goal of proletarian rule.
On the contrary, the older leaders, especially Basu and Surjeet, who have spent a lifetime working towards the goal and found that it is farther than before, want to set a few quickly achievable goals.
One of the post-election central committee meetings apparently discussed the intensifying caste struggle, especially in the Hindi heartland, which was affecting th limited cadre that the Left had in the region.
The first indication was in the July meeting which noted: "A closer look at the political and organisational problems within the CPI(M) would reveal the growth of caste consciousness within the party ranks at different levels and erosion of the class bases of the Left. The Janata Dal in Bihar has made inroads into the Left's rural base while the BSP and other parties have affected the Left's following in UP on cast lines."
Though the CPI(M) leaders would not admit it, the fact is that they are confronted with an increasing irrelevance of class struggle in the India after Mandal and Ayodhya. Certainly, Messiah Marx ahd thought of this. He called it "Asiatic" reality.


R. PRASANNAN

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