Indian Left at a crossroads

After the triennial congresses of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM), it’s time to ask where they’re headed. The CPs’ highest decision-making bodies met at a crucial juncture, when their support to the United Progressive Alliance, premised upon the Left’s greatest-ever representation in India’s parliament, has been critical to the government’s survival; and when they’re expected to formulate strategies to move out of the political margins.

The CPI congress, at Hyderabad, and the CPM congress, at Coimbatore, debated policies in the light of the Nandigram crisis and special economic zones (SEZs), discussed internal differences, and decided on leadership succession. To their credit, the CPs maintained their tradition of open democratic debate, and discussed hundreds of amendments to their draft political resolutions. Indeed, the CPI put its draft on its website and invited comments even from non-members.

This only confirms the proposition that nearly two decades after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Indian CPs continue to be uniquely relevant as a political current of relatively high integrity, which adheres to principles, commands moral authority in excess of its numerical strength, and speaks for the underprivileged in ways that no other mainstream parties do. They exert a healthy influence on politics. If the CPs didn’t exist, we would have to invent them!

Yet, their congresses fell short of achieving a breakthrough on policy and strategy, including forging alliances, through which to stem membership erosion, draw in young cadres, and extend their influence. Both parties failed to reconcile major differences on industrialisation, acquiring land for SEZs, organised retail trade, and on formulating coherent alternatives to the UPA’s neoliberal orientation, which they rightly criticise. The CPM’s West Bengal unit in particular remains obsessed with industrialisation at any cost, on terms laid down by private capital, as in the case of the Tatas’ car factory.

The CPM has no principled quarrel with SEZs as a method of industrialisation, involving massive tax breaks and massive displacement of people, which bleeds the exchequer, and yet produces less than one-fifth the number of jobs in relation to the livelihoods destroyed. Its reservations are largely confined to the number of SEZs, and their contribution to attracting advanced technology and promoting exports. West Bengal enacted its SEZ law in 2003, two years before the Centre.

As West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee put it, citing China’s “success”, there’s a “mad rush” in India to set up 400 zones: “There should be some restriction on setting up SEZs. There should be some ceiling on allotting land…. A minimum of 50 per cent …should be earmarked for industry, another 25 percent for related infrastructure and the rest for other purposes… SEZs are not for the real estate business…”

However, an analysis of the approved SEZs shows they’re located in only 53 of India’s 600-plus districts. Just 20 urban districts account for 71 per cent of all SEZs and 82 per cent of their land area. Two-thirds of SEZs are in information technology. These are hard to distinguish from, and easily converted to, high-value real estate. Thus, most SEZs might be land scams, with their worth mainly in property rather than productive investment, which is minimal in IT.

The CPI has a far better position on SEZs. But it goes along with the CPM. This is also true of organised retail, which is proving extremely predatory upon poor hawkers, vegetable vendors and petty shopkeepers. The CPs lack an ideologically consistent policy on this. In Kerala, they oppose organised retail, irrespective of ownership. In West Bengal, they only oppose multinational retail chains, not domestically owned ones, although these too ruin the poor.

Both the CPI and CPM expressed their disillusionment with the UPA’s neoliberal policies. They’re right to demand course correction, especially measures to redress agrarian distress and control prices. But they must ask why, despite the National Common Minimum Programme, and their own leverage over the UPA, they failed to stop/reverse some policies. Again, the CPs are right to say that the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is the UPA’s only significant pro-people achievement. But they cannot claim much credit for this. Nor have they been able to hold the UPA down to its promises to unorganised workers.

How did the CPs deal with differences over Nandigram, Singur, etc? The CPM’s political-organisational report mildly reprimanded Bhattacharjee. The Left governments’ “weaknesses”, it said, have a countrywide negative impact. It admits Nandigram is an embarrassment. So “it’s important that the entire party has a unified understanding” of its state governments’ policies.

Nevertheless, the CPM’s governmental wing got the party to agree that it cannot function mainly as “a tool for people’s struggles” in the states where it rules, and that people cannot “wait indefinitely for their problems to be addressed” until radical national changes happen. Simply put, neoliberal “pragmatism” will prevail in the Left-ruled states—although nationally, the CPM will oppose US imperialism and Right-wing economic agendas.

There are other dualities too. The CPs have blocked the India-US nuclear deal. But they failed to prevent India’s drift into a “strategic partnership” with the US, or resist pressures on foreign policy. The key to the CPs’ failure, whether on economic or political-strategic issues, lies in a lack of mass mobilisation, which they’ve neglected thanks to their parliamentary preoccupations. Wherever the CPs have taken to the streets, or joined grassroots movements, they have had far greater success. But their congresses haven’t quite drawn this lesson.

The CPs rightly see communalism as the greatest danger facing India, and want to defeat the BJP. They yearn for an alternative non-Congress non-BJP Third Force. But they admit it’s nowhere in sight. They say they want to create a Third Force. To do so, they have joined hands with the regional parties of the United National Progressive Alliance in a campaign centred on rising prices.

However, the UNPA’s core is disintegrating. Barring the Telugu Desam, all its constituents are making overtures to other parties—the AIADMK is talking to the BJP, the Samajwadi Party is making friendly gestures to the Congress, the National Conference is exploring tie-ups.

In its anti-price rise campaign, then, the Left will join hands with the SP and TDP. It must consider the political costs. The SP is communally compromised. It recently cut shady deals with the BJP in UP, including continuing with its Speaker, and helping Advani in the Babri demolition suit. The TDP is tainted by its long association with the BJP.

The Left’s approach to organisational problems has turned conservative. The CPI has made very few changes in its decision-making structures, barring the induction of S Sudhakar Reddy as General Secretary AB Bardhan’s deputy. The CPM has experienced a full generational change. With the retirement of HS Surjeet and Jyoti Basu, none of the 9 founding members sits on its politburo. Its politburo has no members from the North.

The induction of three new members into the CPM politburo—Mohammed Amin, Nirupam Sen and Kodiyeri Balakrisnhnan—sends the wrong message. Although a trade unionist, Amin opposes strikes—except as a weapon of last resort. Sen, W Bengal industries minister, is staunchly neoliberal. Balakrishnan’s entry will aggravate factionalism in Kerala. None of this augurs well for the CPs.

Praful Bidwai, a fellow of the Transnational Institute, is a senior Indian journalist, political activist and widely published commentator. He is a co-author (with Achin Vanaik) of New Nukes: India, Pakistan and Global Nuclear Disarmament.