I wrote this piece a couple of months after the Lok Sabha elections 2009. So far it was meant for internal circulation among supporters of the CPI(M). After the loss of the Left in the Civic Polls I am putting this up for a wider audience:
After getting the lowest tally in the history of Parliamentary elections in India the Left Front is certainly in a state of severe debacle today. The two biggest parties of the Left the CPI(M) and the CPI along with other Left parties are staring at losing two of the three state governments they now hold. This includes the state of West Bengal where the Left Front has held power for over three decades. In Kerala the CPI(M) is facing severe factional problems.
What a contrast this is to the situation exactly five years ago when the Left had tasted its greatest victory in the Lok Sabha elections in 2004. And two years later in the Assembly elections in Kerala and West Bengal the Left Parties had won massive verdict. What are the reasons for this diametric turn around? There is no one reason but I think a combination of factors were at work, both national and state specific.
After having received the massive verdict in Lok Sabha elections 2004 the Left went on to support the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre. In doing so it was only implementing its stated strategy i.e. to keep the BJP-RSS out of power and fight the policies of liberalisation-privatisation-globalisation. Since, 2004 the BJP has made fresh in roads into states like Karnataka and continued its grip on states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh, it has also suffered losses in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and done poorly in the Parliamentary elections in 2009. Certainly, with the BJP being kept out of power at the Centre has meant that the RSS has been unable to consolidate its inroads into the State Machinery. So we can say the Left support to the UPA has kept a check on the Hindutva forces.
While in co-ordination with the UPA the Left pressurised the Union government to implement pro-people policies like the NREGA and the Tribal Rights Bill and managed to keep away anti-people policies like the Pension Bill, Privatisation of Pubic Sector Insurance and disinvestment of navratna PSUs. But the country also had to succumb to many other anti-people decisions like the worsening situation of state finances, disinvestment of airport authorities, attacks on trade union rights, commercialisation of education and exponential price-rise among others. This was coupled with the adoption of pro-imperialist foreign policies and acceptance of the position of the junior partner of the US. In fact, it was on this last issue that the Left finally withdrew support from the UPA government.
So the question is was the strategy of supporting the UPA wrong, especially since the Congress was an adversary in the three states where the Left is the strongest? The Assembly election results of 2006 prove that supporting Congress while contesting it in the states was not a wrong strategy for the people accepted the importance of keeping the communal forces at bay. But was it counter productive? Firstly, ever since it extended support to the UPA the Left had to face unprecedented all-round attack from the media, the corporate world. There was also unholy alliances of forces in many cases against the Left and one even suspects foreign hand in the many campaigns against the Left. Secondly, though the Left was instrumental in many of the pro-people initiatives of the UPA government (in fact, the CPI(M) had set up a special research wing to aid the policy level initiatives of the party) because of the Congress being at the helm of affairs it managed to win almost all the public support for these initiatives. The support of the Left may have actually strengthened the Congress helping it consolidate its grip on power.
Another major cause of debate both within the CPI(M) and the media has been the question of withdrawal of support to the UPA on the issue of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. Let me make my stand clear on this issues: Yes, the Nuclear deal was an unequal deal; yes, the Nuclear deal is a question mark on India's sovereignty; yes, the Nuclear Deal is not merely about energy, it is more an affirmation of increasing closeness of India to US imperialist policies; yes, the Left-CPI(M) should have opposed the Nuclear deal. But.... should the Left have withdrawn support on the issue of the nuclear deal? NO. NO. It is an issue on which could not be taken to the people.... it was not easy to campaign with all the facts and figures and the 123 and the Hyde Act etc. And with the media in love with any thing to do with the US, the Left got no help from the media in its campaign against the nuclear deal. I really don't understand why the CPI(M) and the Left did not withdraw support on other issues which were aplenty, which were hurting the lives of ordinary people everyday. At the time when the Left withdrew support to the UPA the official inflation rate was almost 13%. People were reeling under prices of vegetables and essential items. An ultimatum could have been issued to the government to take a set of measures to check prices within 2-3 weeks failing which support could have been withdrawn. Or if it came to such pass, support could have been withdrawn without an ultimatum. At least the people would have understood this decision.
So at the end of the day there was nothing that could be done. The Left could not explain to the people why it withdrew support; it could not explain to the people why it supported the government in the first place – for if supporting the government was correct and it led to several achievements why was the support withdrawn – we are led back to square one!!!
There were several State-specific factors why the Left performed so poorly in Kerala and West Bengal. Certainly, one can talk of the factionalism in Kerala which has caused most of the popular initiatives of the current LDF government to be non-starters. Why has this situation occurred now? I can put it down as a series of historical accidents which has caused it to happen now. In 1995 V.S. Achhutanandan lost the elections when the LDF won. And then he won from his constituency when the LDF lost. So the confrontation between the two long quarreling factions only got delayed till now. Not being from Kerala there is not much more that I can say about what happened there.
In West Bengal, though after the defeat in the Lok Sabha elections 2009, some members of the West Bengal State Committee CPI(M), claimed that the elections were lost on national issues, it cannot be held as a credible argument. Any one who followed the election campaign in West Bengal – the wall writings, posters, television debates and speeches – could not miss that it was only, and only, state level issues – Singur and Nandigram – which were being discussed both by the Left and the Congress-Trinamool combine. The only other issue which gained some prominence was that of the conditions of the Muslims in the State.
If we look at the electoral statistics from West Bengal we will see that the poll percentages have been sharply divided with the Left never winning by a tremendous margin over the combined opposition votes. However, disunity within the opposition had handed handsome defeats in the past. So with the opposition coming together this time Left seats were bound to go down this time. However, any experience of electoral politics tells up that electoral alliances are not simple mathematics and that votes of the alliance partners are not completely transferred.
It has now become clear that Singur and Nandigram were the primary issues on which Left Front lost the elections in West Bengal. Could it have been avoided? The decision of the Left Front government to attract private investment to the state was thrown upon it by the Central policies. It had also to enter into a competition with other states to provide greater and greater incentives to the private players. The growth in agriculture had to be supplemented by industrial development for job creation. The constraints of the state exchequer meant that public investment was not possible for such industrial investment.
I think to understand the issue we need to go back to the time when in the event of the first formation of a government in state of Kerala in the 1960s (probably the Salkia plenum) the CPI(M) decided to join government at the State-level to provide relief to the people and to provide an incentive to the peoples' movements. It seems that that strategy has entered into a crisis in this age of capitalist globalisation. The ability of state governments to provide relief to the people has been severely curtailed.
This brings us to the next point about “peoples' movements”. Having been part of the Left movement we know that the Party organisation is the backbone of any peoples' movement led by the Communist party. This is not the first time that the Left Front has faced crisis in West Bengal. But the CPI(M) Party organisation has failed to respond to this crisis. As has been commented upon by others there is a lack of contact with the people at the grassroots level. Otherwise, why is it that the CPI(M) unable to gauge the level of resentment among the people in the issue of the SEZ and the Tata factory? Why was it unable to counter the lies of the opposition and the Naxalites? There is a need to return to serious Party-building.
Also, let me comment that over the last several years there has nothing resembling a “Peoples' movement” led by the Left in the State of West Bengal. Everything has been centred around the government and electoral politics. Without doubt winning elections in a Parliamentary system is paramount. But without a political movement the Party organisation rots. Which is why for a while the West Bengal government resorted to the police to clam down on opposition and later relied on armed cadre to fight back the occupiers of Nandigram. Had the understanding of stiff resentment among the people against the Salim group SEZ been known to the Party and the Party had been sympathetic to it, such situations would not have arisen in the first place. The worst for me was the situation where intellectuals belonging to the Left – who continued to be sympathetic to the Left even when a large number of intellectuals had joined the ranks of the opposition – would silently voice their reservations on the policies of the West Bengal government. They would not speak out in the open for fear of being publicly snubbed or be taken to be 'turncoats'.
Another indication of the gap that has developed between the people and the CPI(M) is the governments reaction to the cyclone Aila shortly after the declaration of the Lok Sabha results. Some of the ministers of the West Bengal government responded to the crisis by stating in the media, “ We had informed the people in advance. What can we do if the people do not listen to us?” Why don't the people listen to the West Bengal government? And is this any way to react to people in distress? The government and its officials should have been more sympathetic to the people.
If the Congress-Trinamool combine seize power in West Bengal we can expect a politics of vendetta and reversal. Undoubtedly the CPI(M) organisation will be under tremendous attack. But it would also be the time to strengthen the Party organisation. Many drifters who had walked into the part for proximity to power would go. It would be time to build up a strong peoples' movement – to protect the Left-organisation and to prevent the onslaught on people's rights and livelihood. One can go back to the same electoral statistics I had cited earlier to suggest that the Left-organisation in Bengal is still formidable. Along with a very strong democratic culture in West Bengal which is bound keep the space for the Left alive.
Certainly, the Left in West Bengal has a lot of introspection to do.
Coming back to national politics the strategy of a Third alternative to the BJP and Congress failed to gain the confidence of the people. I feel that the reason for this among others was the total loss of credibility of the various proposed and possible parties of the Third alternative as far as their role in National politics is concerned – with the many times that each of them have switched sides between the Third Front, the NDA and the UPA.
While it is true that this is a fatality of Indian politics that if a Third Space has to be sought in Parliamentary politics the Communists will have to do business with the unreliable bourgeois national parties. The Left cannot do business with the BJP. The lesson of the experience of supporting the Congress-led UPA government has shown that such support has weakened the Left. Not only has the Congress walked away with most of the positives of the tenure, the Left has had to face tremendous attacks. Yet it is undeniable that there exists a Third Space in Indian politics and that the Left should play a leading role in consolidating this space politically.
So what is the alternative? Till now I have not spoken about the Naxalites i.e. primarily the CPI(Maoists). The existing Maoist base today in India is quite formidable and is giving the Indian state some trouble. Though I do not believe that the political strategy of the Maoists can bring about any meaningful change in the political system. Yes, there are genuine people within the Maoists, but there is no credible information that the area within the control of the Maoists have seen any large-scale changes other than in pockets. Also the links between the Maoists and the other forces of terrorist activity across the globe, and with the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, lead us to doubt their intentions and integrity. In any case the current state of affairs do not suggest any possibility of a broad reunification of the various Left parties in India.
I think in the present state of debacle the CPI(M) and its partners should vigorously strengthen their organisations both structurally and ideologically. This has to be done through undertaken vigorous and militant mass movement on the issues of basic livelihood of the people. I believe the Left should strategise a Third Force in Indian politics by allying with various non-parliamentary forces like the NBA and the NPMO and even with the Dalit movement in the country. Here I would like to draw upon the experience of the recent upsurge of people's movements in Latin America, which though not led by Communist Parties draw tremendous inspiration from the Cuban movement and other Left-wing ideologies. For many year the indigenous movement in these countries have been at loggerheads with the Left, and have shared tremendous mutual distrust. Now they have been able to overcome that distrust and followed a new path of ingenuousness with anti-imperialist ideas.
We too need to think creatively, with commitment and self-critically.
After getting the lowest tally in the history of Parliamentary elections in India the Left Front is certainly in a state of severe debacle today. The two biggest parties of the Left the CPI(M) and the CPI along with other Left parties are staring at losing two of the three state governments they now hold. This includes the state of West Bengal where the Left Front has held power for over three decades. In Kerala the CPI(M) is facing severe factional problems.
What a contrast this is to the situation exactly five years ago when the Left had tasted its greatest victory in the Lok Sabha elections in 2004. And two years later in the Assembly elections in Kerala and West Bengal the Left Parties had won massive verdict. What are the reasons for this diametric turn around? There is no one reason but I think a combination of factors were at work, both national and state specific.
After having received the massive verdict in Lok Sabha elections 2004 the Left went on to support the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre. In doing so it was only implementing its stated strategy i.e. to keep the BJP-RSS out of power and fight the policies of liberalisation-privatisation-globalisation. Since, 2004 the BJP has made fresh in roads into states like Karnataka and continued its grip on states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh, it has also suffered losses in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and done poorly in the Parliamentary elections in 2009. Certainly, with the BJP being kept out of power at the Centre has meant that the RSS has been unable to consolidate its inroads into the State Machinery. So we can say the Left support to the UPA has kept a check on the Hindutva forces.
While in co-ordination with the UPA the Left pressurised the Union government to implement pro-people policies like the NREGA and the Tribal Rights Bill and managed to keep away anti-people policies like the Pension Bill, Privatisation of Pubic Sector Insurance and disinvestment of navratna PSUs. But the country also had to succumb to many other anti-people decisions like the worsening situation of state finances, disinvestment of airport authorities, attacks on trade union rights, commercialisation of education and exponential price-rise among others. This was coupled with the adoption of pro-imperialist foreign policies and acceptance of the position of the junior partner of the US. In fact, it was on this last issue that the Left finally withdrew support from the UPA government.
So the question is was the strategy of supporting the UPA wrong, especially since the Congress was an adversary in the three states where the Left is the strongest? The Assembly election results of 2006 prove that supporting Congress while contesting it in the states was not a wrong strategy for the people accepted the importance of keeping the communal forces at bay. But was it counter productive? Firstly, ever since it extended support to the UPA the Left had to face unprecedented all-round attack from the media, the corporate world. There was also unholy alliances of forces in many cases against the Left and one even suspects foreign hand in the many campaigns against the Left. Secondly, though the Left was instrumental in many of the pro-people initiatives of the UPA government (in fact, the CPI(M) had set up a special research wing to aid the policy level initiatives of the party) because of the Congress being at the helm of affairs it managed to win almost all the public support for these initiatives. The support of the Left may have actually strengthened the Congress helping it consolidate its grip on power.
Another major cause of debate both within the CPI(M) and the media has been the question of withdrawal of support to the UPA on the issue of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. Let me make my stand clear on this issues: Yes, the Nuclear deal was an unequal deal; yes, the Nuclear deal is a question mark on India's sovereignty; yes, the Nuclear Deal is not merely about energy, it is more an affirmation of increasing closeness of India to US imperialist policies; yes, the Left-CPI(M) should have opposed the Nuclear deal. But.... should the Left have withdrawn support on the issue of the nuclear deal? NO. NO. It is an issue on which could not be taken to the people.... it was not easy to campaign with all the facts and figures and the 123 and the Hyde Act etc. And with the media in love with any thing to do with the US, the Left got no help from the media in its campaign against the nuclear deal. I really don't understand why the CPI(M) and the Left did not withdraw support on other issues which were aplenty, which were hurting the lives of ordinary people everyday. At the time when the Left withdrew support to the UPA the official inflation rate was almost 13%. People were reeling under prices of vegetables and essential items. An ultimatum could have been issued to the government to take a set of measures to check prices within 2-3 weeks failing which support could have been withdrawn. Or if it came to such pass, support could have been withdrawn without an ultimatum. At least the people would have understood this decision.
So at the end of the day there was nothing that could be done. The Left could not explain to the people why it withdrew support; it could not explain to the people why it supported the government in the first place – for if supporting the government was correct and it led to several achievements why was the support withdrawn – we are led back to square one!!!
There were several State-specific factors why the Left performed so poorly in Kerala and West Bengal. Certainly, one can talk of the factionalism in Kerala which has caused most of the popular initiatives of the current LDF government to be non-starters. Why has this situation occurred now? I can put it down as a series of historical accidents which has caused it to happen now. In 1995 V.S. Achhutanandan lost the elections when the LDF won. And then he won from his constituency when the LDF lost. So the confrontation between the two long quarreling factions only got delayed till now. Not being from Kerala there is not much more that I can say about what happened there.
In West Bengal, though after the defeat in the Lok Sabha elections 2009, some members of the West Bengal State Committee CPI(M), claimed that the elections were lost on national issues, it cannot be held as a credible argument. Any one who followed the election campaign in West Bengal – the wall writings, posters, television debates and speeches – could not miss that it was only, and only, state level issues – Singur and Nandigram – which were being discussed both by the Left and the Congress-Trinamool combine. The only other issue which gained some prominence was that of the conditions of the Muslims in the State.
If we look at the electoral statistics from West Bengal we will see that the poll percentages have been sharply divided with the Left never winning by a tremendous margin over the combined opposition votes. However, disunity within the opposition had handed handsome defeats in the past. So with the opposition coming together this time Left seats were bound to go down this time. However, any experience of electoral politics tells up that electoral alliances are not simple mathematics and that votes of the alliance partners are not completely transferred.
It has now become clear that Singur and Nandigram were the primary issues on which Left Front lost the elections in West Bengal. Could it have been avoided? The decision of the Left Front government to attract private investment to the state was thrown upon it by the Central policies. It had also to enter into a competition with other states to provide greater and greater incentives to the private players. The growth in agriculture had to be supplemented by industrial development for job creation. The constraints of the state exchequer meant that public investment was not possible for such industrial investment.
I think to understand the issue we need to go back to the time when in the event of the first formation of a government in state of Kerala in the 1960s (probably the Salkia plenum) the CPI(M) decided to join government at the State-level to provide relief to the people and to provide an incentive to the peoples' movements. It seems that that strategy has entered into a crisis in this age of capitalist globalisation. The ability of state governments to provide relief to the people has been severely curtailed.
This brings us to the next point about “peoples' movements”. Having been part of the Left movement we know that the Party organisation is the backbone of any peoples' movement led by the Communist party. This is not the first time that the Left Front has faced crisis in West Bengal. But the CPI(M) Party organisation has failed to respond to this crisis. As has been commented upon by others there is a lack of contact with the people at the grassroots level. Otherwise, why is it that the CPI(M) unable to gauge the level of resentment among the people in the issue of the SEZ and the Tata factory? Why was it unable to counter the lies of the opposition and the Naxalites? There is a need to return to serious Party-building.
Also, let me comment that over the last several years there has nothing resembling a “Peoples' movement” led by the Left in the State of West Bengal. Everything has been centred around the government and electoral politics. Without doubt winning elections in a Parliamentary system is paramount. But without a political movement the Party organisation rots. Which is why for a while the West Bengal government resorted to the police to clam down on opposition and later relied on armed cadre to fight back the occupiers of Nandigram. Had the understanding of stiff resentment among the people against the Salim group SEZ been known to the Party and the Party had been sympathetic to it, such situations would not have arisen in the first place. The worst for me was the situation where intellectuals belonging to the Left – who continued to be sympathetic to the Left even when a large number of intellectuals had joined the ranks of the opposition – would silently voice their reservations on the policies of the West Bengal government. They would not speak out in the open for fear of being publicly snubbed or be taken to be 'turncoats'.
Another indication of the gap that has developed between the people and the CPI(M) is the governments reaction to the cyclone Aila shortly after the declaration of the Lok Sabha results. Some of the ministers of the West Bengal government responded to the crisis by stating in the media, “ We had informed the people in advance. What can we do if the people do not listen to us?” Why don't the people listen to the West Bengal government? And is this any way to react to people in distress? The government and its officials should have been more sympathetic to the people.
If the Congress-Trinamool combine seize power in West Bengal we can expect a politics of vendetta and reversal. Undoubtedly the CPI(M) organisation will be under tremendous attack. But it would also be the time to strengthen the Party organisation. Many drifters who had walked into the part for proximity to power would go. It would be time to build up a strong peoples' movement – to protect the Left-organisation and to prevent the onslaught on people's rights and livelihood. One can go back to the same electoral statistics I had cited earlier to suggest that the Left-organisation in Bengal is still formidable. Along with a very strong democratic culture in West Bengal which is bound keep the space for the Left alive.
Certainly, the Left in West Bengal has a lot of introspection to do.
Coming back to national politics the strategy of a Third alternative to the BJP and Congress failed to gain the confidence of the people. I feel that the reason for this among others was the total loss of credibility of the various proposed and possible parties of the Third alternative as far as their role in National politics is concerned – with the many times that each of them have switched sides between the Third Front, the NDA and the UPA.
While it is true that this is a fatality of Indian politics that if a Third Space has to be sought in Parliamentary politics the Communists will have to do business with the unreliable bourgeois national parties. The Left cannot do business with the BJP. The lesson of the experience of supporting the Congress-led UPA government has shown that such support has weakened the Left. Not only has the Congress walked away with most of the positives of the tenure, the Left has had to face tremendous attacks. Yet it is undeniable that there exists a Third Space in Indian politics and that the Left should play a leading role in consolidating this space politically.
So what is the alternative? Till now I have not spoken about the Naxalites i.e. primarily the CPI(Maoists). The existing Maoist base today in India is quite formidable and is giving the Indian state some trouble. Though I do not believe that the political strategy of the Maoists can bring about any meaningful change in the political system. Yes, there are genuine people within the Maoists, but there is no credible information that the area within the control of the Maoists have seen any large-scale changes other than in pockets. Also the links between the Maoists and the other forces of terrorist activity across the globe, and with the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, lead us to doubt their intentions and integrity. In any case the current state of affairs do not suggest any possibility of a broad reunification of the various Left parties in India.
I think in the present state of debacle the CPI(M) and its partners should vigorously strengthen their organisations both structurally and ideologically. This has to be done through undertaken vigorous and militant mass movement on the issues of basic livelihood of the people. I believe the Left should strategise a Third Force in Indian politics by allying with various non-parliamentary forces like the NBA and the NPMO and even with the Dalit movement in the country. Here I would like to draw upon the experience of the recent upsurge of people's movements in Latin America, which though not led by Communist Parties draw tremendous inspiration from the Cuban movement and other Left-wing ideologies. For many year the indigenous movement in these countries have been at loggerheads with the Left, and have shared tremendous mutual distrust. Now they have been able to overcome that distrust and followed a new path of ingenuousness with anti-imperialist ideas.
We too need to think creatively, with commitment and self-critically.
2 comments:
A whole section on issues related to CPM in West Bengal, and not even a passing mention of the overbearing presence of party cadres, armed harmads and private armies maintained by businessmen and real estate agents belonging to CPM, like Laxman Seth? How objective would be that to omit something which played such an overbearing role in people's life in Bengal for many years? Did it START with Nandigram & Singur, or things were waiting to explode, and came to the seams with these events? And just what made the opposition unite into a rainbow coalition? Was it just plain & simple political opportunism, or was something else provoked this?
And, seriously, do you really buy the bourgeois media line on CPM losing ground because of withdrawing support to UPA govt. on the nuclear deal issue? Or was it the other way round - the opportunism displayed in hanging on till it was really pushed to a corner with no other option left to save its face?
The "over bearing prensece of CPI(M)" is per say not a bad thing. There were times when such presence worked in the favour of the poor and the weaker sections of the people. It is true that there has over the years been an increase in the quality of leaders like Laxman Seth over whom the writ of the Party organisation do not seem to have any control. And this is precisely what I refer to as the reason why despite having a formidable organisation the Party has lost touch with the people in many parts of the state. The cadre needs to go through a serious recitification drive. Therefore, I do agree with Soumya that it did not begin with Nandigram and Singur but the problems began long before.
But I still hold on to my argument that there needs to be a serious relook on the issue of what are the limitations of a State government within the Republic of India and what should be the strategies of a Left-democratic force. If West Bengal had to go beyond the strides it had taken in agriculture it had to develop an industrial base. Given the current state of State government coffers, and the Centre-State relations what were the options open before the West Bengal government? What do we really expect the Trinamul Congress, the friends of the Maoists, to do - bring in a Socialist alternative model of development?
The Left's support to the UPA was anything but opportunism for such a move was absolutely crucial in the battle against the Hindutva-Fascists - a fact we all seem to have forgotten. I salute the CPI(M) and the Left for having taken the courageous step of battling it out against the fascists rather than sitting on the fence with a "holier than thou" attitude which many intellectuals seem to be suggesting in hind sight.
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