Communists at Crossroads at Century's Turn

Communists at Crossroads at Century's Turn
Praful Bidwai
Inter Press Service, 21 October 1998

NEW DELHI, Oct 21 (IPS) - India's Left-wing parties, significant political players even in the post-Cold War era, stand at a crossroads as they review their political strategies and electoral performance amidst relative stagnation and uncertain growth in the 1990s.

The two largest formations among them, the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which split from it in 1964, face critical choices: should they ally with other, centrist, parties to combat the right-wing Hindu-sectarian Bharatiya Janata Party? What should they do to strengthen each other through coordination and possible unification? How can they boost their independent radical identity?

The CPs debated these issues at their respective just-concluded triennial party congresses. Depending on which options they eventually choose, they could either get progressively marginalised and fade away, or grow into a major force that articulates the interests and concerns of India's vast majority, mostly poor people, who are badly underrepresented at the political level.

India is among the few countries of the world, along with South Africa, Brazil and Nepal, where the communist Left has not only survived the collapse of Soviet-style socialism, but in some ways grown, or at least maintained their strength in the 1990s.

Over the past three years, the CPM's membership has increased by 12 per cent nationally, although it has declined in the north and the centre. The CPI has maintained its half-million membership, although it has shrunk in parliament representation.

Today, the CPM and the CPI rule jointly in three of India's 25 states, including the large eastern state of West Bengal and Kerala in the southwest. More important, they wield moral and political influence which is is disproportionately larger than their six to eight per cent vote.

The CPs are seen as incorruptible, principled and dedicated to the poor, as well as uncompromising in their opposition to politics based on ethnic-religious identities and parochialism. The Marxist ideology that inspires them, and their broadly Left- wing social-democratic political practice, give them a high stature within the intelligentsia.

Historically, the two Indian CPs have adopted a strategy of allying themselves with 'centrist' or 'progressive bourgeois' parties to build a broad 'national' or 'people's democratic front'. Until the late seventies, the CPI entered into alliances with the Congress, India's oldest and largest party, hoping to push it leftward. The CPM has been hostile to the Congress and tended to oppose it through alliances with its rivals.

On their left lie a number of smaller groups, some of them Maoist, which reject all such alliances and some of which believe in the tactic of armed struggle or resistance.

India's diverse polity has sustained a significant space for all such currents, not least because of the gross failure of mainstream right-wing and centrist parties to address the most elementary needs of some 600 million underprivileged people.

All these currents, which split from and opposed one another, are in some ways converging at the end of the 1990s. The two CPs' congresses invited 'friendly' observers from other parties of the Left.

The CPs also tend to agree that opposing the virulently sectarian BJP is the topmost priority, but that this must not mean allying with or forming a front with the Congress, which represents a culture of decay, corruption, and compromise with Hindu-sectarian forces, and which pursues neo-liberal economic policies which are deeply unpopular in India.

'Therefore, the chances of the Left acquiring an increasingly independent profile and getting out of messy and awkward alliances have considerably brightened', says A.B. Bardhan, general secretary of the CPI. 'We have never been closer to joint action and coordination'.

However, unification, for long a slogan with the Left, remains a somewhat distant prospect. The CPM leadership is still reluctant to shed its separate identity as the largest Left party.

Today, few ideological issues and policy matters divide the Left. By and large, the CPs are unanimous in their opposition to religious sectarianism, neo-liberal economics, and patronage- based, graft-lubricated politics. They stand for transparency in governance and for greater popular
participation and political decentralisation.

Their recent completion of 20 continuous years in power in West Bengal is a tribute to their sustained popularity and stability.

They are also the staunchest defenders in the Indian political spectrum of gender equality, non-discrimination based on caste and ethnicity, human rights and, increasingly, environmental protection.

To grow into a big force that decisively influences India's political processes, the CPs will have to make substantial progress in three issues.

First, they must articulate alternative policies on a range of issues, from macro-economic management to food security, from energy to health, from intellectual property to employment generation, and from secularisation to women's empowerment. Only then can they correct the erroneous
impression that they remain wedded to Soviet-style statist policies.

Second, the CPs must relate strongly to the decade-old phenomenon of self-assertion of India's oppressed and underprivileged untouchable and 'backward' castes. This means supporting the demand for positive discrimination and affirmative action in their favour, and building bridges between occupational castes and labouring classes. Traditionally, the CPs tended to ignore caste, but are now beginning to appreciate its salience.

Third, they are unlikely to grow and gain influence unless they build a strong and enthusiastic cadre of activists. The Indian CPs are cadre-based parties whose very identity is strongly related to the existence of committed activists.

This means going back to grassroots work on issues of day-to- day popular concern, and lowering the priority accorded to parliamentary politics, including elections and tactical alliance-building.

There are indications that the CPI and CPM are both beginning to take this last issue seriously. If they plunge seriously into grassroots work, they may have to pay a price in terms of reduced legislative presence. But in the medium and long run, gains at the base level are their only
assurance of increasing their parliamentary influence and achieving greater relevance.

Whatever happens, one thing is clear. The Indian Left's relative stagnation cannot continue indefinitely. Either the Left grows substantially over the coming decade or so, or it goes into serious decline and ceases being a force to reckon with. The chances are even that either could happen.

Copyright 1998 InterPress Service