PRAGOTI

The defeat of the Left Front in West Bengal must result in serious introspection by the Left Front in general and the CPI(M) in particular. However, even before this process has formally started in the party, various voices are being heard from persons like Somnath Chatterjee, mainstream media and even well meaning leftist intellectuals who have tried to shift the responsibility of the defeat solely to the central leadership of CPI(M) and the decision of withdrawal of support to the UPA Government. These theories are completely off the mark and conceal the real reasons behind the debacle of the Left in West Bengal. Let us analyze the vacuity of the claims made by these theories.

Did the Congress wave defeat the Left?

It is being said that the Left Front was defeated in West Bengal because of the wave in favour of the Congress at the national level. Prima facie, there exist at least five problems with this view. Firstly, in the Left ruled state of Tripura, no such wave existed, where the Left Front not only won with thumping margin but also took lead in 60 out of 60 assembly constituencies. Secondly, in neighbouring states of Bihar and Orissa, Nitish Kumar and Navin Patnaik created their own waves against the Congress and swept the elections. Thirdly, in the panchayat elections held in 2008 in the state, there was substantial erosion of the Left’s seats when there was no wave for the Congress in the country. Fourthly, in politics waves are not mystical entities. It is created and defeated by the democratic assertions of the people. If the CPI(M) actually was defeated because of the Congress wave, then the question that really needs to be answered is why the CPI(M) could not resist the Congress wave. Fifthly, this is not the first time that there has been a Congress wave in the country. Even in the heydays of Congress in 1984, after the assassination of Mrs. Gandhi, the Left Front had won 26 MP seats. So, the reason lies not in the wave for Congress per se, rather on some weakness in the CPI(M).

Withdrawal of support and the Indo-US Nuclear Deal

There is an even deeper problem, with the argument with regard to the question of withdrawal of support to the Congress Government on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. It is being claimed under the rhetoric of pragmatism, that this issue was not important enough to withdraw support. This is a dangerous line of argument which has to be countered thoroughly.

It is a tribute to the Left movement of India, that it has still not been hegemonized by imperialism. It leads a strong anti-imperialist movement and provides a consistent critique of imperialist policies. This is not merely a question of theory, since for a communist party theory must burst into praxis. As Com. Lenin had mentioned long ago, “Without revolutionary theory, there cannot be a revolutionary movement”. Maintaining this tradition, the 19^th party Congress of the CPI(M), unanimously adopted a political resolution which articulates the nature of Indo-US Nuclear deal in the following words,

“The Party exposed the adverse impact for India’s independent foreign policy and strategic autonomy if the nuclear agreement locks in India to a strategic tie up with the United States. India becoming a strategic ally of the United States would be a major gain for US imperialism. The Party decided to oppose the nuclear agreement as it was the cementing factor for such an alliance.”

If this was the theoretical understanding of the party, then the praxis also had to be in accordance with this position. Therefore, the opposition to the Nuclear Deal is not because of any whims and fancies of any particular leader. Rather it is a necessary part of the political praxis of CPI(M) derived from its theoretical understanding of imperialism. If one is opposed to this opposition, then logically one should also question the political understanding on the Nuclear Deal.

A section of Left intellectuals in Bengal argue while accepting the basic theoretical formulations of the CPI(M) on the Nuclear Deal that why could not the CPI(M) support the Congress led Government while maintaining its opposition to the Nuclear Deal. This is an untenable proposition because of the following. The issue of anti-imperialism is an existential issue for any communist party. A communist party which endorses a Government going for such a strategic alliance with US imperialism, for all practical purposes, ceases to be a communist party. If it did so, then the CPI(M) would have lost the credibility of being the most consistent anti-imperialist force in the country. No amount of ‘pragmatism’ could have returned that leadership role, which to my mind is crucial for the survival of the CPI(M) and the organized left movement in the country. It was aptly put by Com. Biman Bose in his statement issued on the comments made by Com. Subhas Chakraborty,

“Support to the Congress-led government was withdrawn by the Party in July 2008 based on a unanimous decision by the central committee. Had we not withdrawn support it would have meant our acceptance of the Congress government’s surrender before US imperialism. Our Party is firmly anti-imperialist and therefore we could not accept Congress government’s surrender before US imperialism. The central committee of the Party took these decisions in keeping with the line decided by the last Party congress.” (People’s Democracy, 17^th May 2009)

The suggestions being floated in this regard of being absent during the voting on the confidence motion or restrict the mobilizations against the Nuclear Deal to the streets is basically asking the party to act opportunistically on a core political ideological issue. The BJP and the Congress can survive such crass opportunism. Not the Left and the CPI(M).

The CPI(M)’s approach to Congress

According to me, the most disturbing aspect of this entire argument is with regard to the political line that Mr. Chatterjee and others want the CPI(M) to take. Both with regard to the withdrawal of support as well as on Com. Karat’s stand of no support to Congress led Government after elections, a section of intellectuals in Bengal are extremely critical. Reading these arguments one gets the feeling that the people of West Bengal have become extremely upset with us because of our anti-Congress stand. I think that this is not only wrong but actually undermines the long history of anti-Congress politics that the CPI(M) has championed, which in turn has resulted in massive electoral successes for the party till 2004. Let me elaborate.

The CPI(M) was formed after intense debate within the CPI in 1964, one of the main point of debate being what should be the party’s line vis-à-vis the Congress. The CPI(M) broke away from the CPI deciding that it will not support the Congress or the national bourgeoisie in India. It is history that the CPI(M) by taking this line emerged as the largest communist party in India. The people, including myself, have reposed their faith on the CPI(M) because of its opposition to the class politics of the Congress. It is worthwhile to revisit the history of the party in the words of Com. Harkishan Singh Surjeet written in 1990,

“ Even in the united party from the beginning we took the  line of breaking the monopoly of power  of the Congress.  We had clearly stated that the Congress is the dominant party of the bourgeois-landlord classes, a position which it still continues to hold. When the Swatantra Party came into being in 1957, there was discussion within the united party to come to an understanding with the Congress to fight the Swatantra Party, we rejected the idea.  This did not mean that we were ignoring the emergence of the Swatantra party and the necessity of an ideological fight against it, but the Swatantra Party was not that much a force to challenge the Congress.  Similarly in 1962, in the united party, the question arose whether we should concentrate the main fire on the ruling Congress party as the principal opponent of the revolutionary movement or whether we have to concentrate the main fire on the extreme rightist forces, through collaboration with the ruling Congress.  Those who were charging us with blind anti-Congressism rallied behind the right reactionary forces in the wake of the defeat of the Congress in the assembly elections to eight states in 1967.  Whereas the CPI joined all the SVD government we refused to join any government except in West Bengal and Kerala where the Left was able to play an important role and where our Party occupied the central place in the government. (The Present Political Situation and the Evolution of Our Tactics in Perspective, Com. HKS, The Marxist, October-December 1990).

With the rise of the fascistic BJP to power, it was necessary for the Left to support the Congress led UPA Government in 2004. However, the 17^th Party Congress of the CPI(M) clearly pointed out that,

“The Congress party stands for the same economic policies that it initiated in 1991. All its state governments are implementing the same discredited policies. It is with this outlook that the Congress supported the opening up of the insurance sector and amending the Patent Act in parliament. The compulsions of acting as a opposition party makes it adopt certain positions at times, but on basic economic policies it does not have any differences with the BJP. On secularism, the Congress cannot go along with the BJP, but it displays vacillations as before. As a party of the big bourgeoisie, the Congress is hostile to a federal set up and devolving more powers to the states. In Tripura, in order to fight the CPI(M) and the Left, the Congress has allied with the front of the banned extremist organisation, the NLFT. Given its class character, the CPI(M) cannot have an alliance or united front with the Congress party. In the present situation, where the BJP is the main target, the Party should adopt tactics which will enable all the secular and democratic forces to effectively thwart the gameplan of the BJP-RSS combine.” (Political Resolution of CPI(M) 17^th Party Congress, para 2.69).

It must be remembered that even after maintaining this strong anti-Congress position on one hand, we also clearly said that we would be supporting the Congress, if required, to keep the BJP out of power. The people of West Bengal elected the CPI(M) and not the Congress even after knowing that we will support the Congress to keep the BJP out of power in 2004, precisely because of the fact that we maintained our strong position against the Congress. To argue that the CPI(M) would have been better off maintaining support to the Congress at the centre, would have betrayed the very mass base of the party. This argument on the other hand is also self-defeating. If it is the case that the best option for the CPI(M) is to tail the Congress and continue supporting it, albeit on a secular plank, then why not support the Congress directly instead of bringing in the CPI(M) as a via media.

The real question is why should we support the Congress? Yes, one reason is secularism. However, in order to strengthen secularism in the country, it is also important to defeat the forces of globalization because such globalization actually gives rise to discontent within the people which the fascists mobilize. Therefore, even with regard to secularism it is important that the Left leads the struggle against Congress policies and provide alternative policy prescriptions for the betterment of the people. This is not possible if we continued supporting the Congress after it signed the Nuclear Deal and implemented all sorts of neo-liberal policies on the people. It is extremely important to come out of this false notion that supporting the Congress is important for the party and take the initiative to launch independent struggles both against the Congress and the BJP and their policies of neo-liberalism and communalism.

Pointing towards real reasons for the Left’s defeat in West Bengal

It should be remembered that the vote share of CPI(M) in West Bengal decreased by 6%. In comparison, even after the so called wave of the Congress in the country, its vote share increased by 2% at the all India level. So, going by the percentage of votes as an indicator of wave, it is clear that there was a strong wave against the CPI(M) and Left Front in West Bengal. This signifies a discontent within the masses, particularly the rural poor and peasants against the policies of the Left Front Government, which was evident even during the Panchayat elections. Even the Left Front partners today are pointing towards the issues of Nandigram and Singur as causes for the Left debacle. Should we keep our eyes completely shut on our own mistakes? Should we not introspect as to what went wrong in our industrialization drive and land acquisition? Should we not debate the Sachar Committee report and the issue of minorities’ well being in West Bengal? Should we not ask ourselves the question as to what other significant policy initiatives have we taken apart from the industrialization drive in the 7^th Left Front government? Should we not ask as to why NREGA was not properly implemented in West Bengal? I think that it is very important to debate these issues in order to arrive at an honest understanding on the Left debacle in West Bengal. I am not suggesting that national level issues like the perceived incohesiveness of Third Front should not be debated. It is undeniable, as has been pointed out by the Politburo too, that there were some problems with the Third Front alliance at the national level. As Com. Prakash Karat says,

“It is evident that such a combination which had its relevance in the concerned states was not a credible and viable alternative at the national level. Further, the electoral combinations, which were forged state-wise, precluded any national policy platform being projected.” (http://www.vote.cpim.org/node/2054)

This and any other national issue should be debated but, to remain in a denial mode on the problems of the Left in West Bengal will take us no where. As has been rightly pointed out by the CPI(M) Politburo,

            “There should be a serious examination of the reasons for these    reverses. Both national and state specific factors are responsible for           the poor performance. A self-critical review will be conducted by the     concerned state committees and the Central Committee which should     form the basis for corrective steps. The Party will make all out efforts           to regain the support and confidence of those sections of the people    who have been alienated.”

The job of party intellectuals is to articulate the correct positions to the party, keeping in mind the objective conditions and the opinion of the people. In the name of partisanship, if the mistakes are willfully glossed over, then these intellectuals are doing a great disservice to the CPI(M). The proper approach would be to do an honest self-criticism based on objective facts. Patting each other’s back is not going to help the CPI(M).