As the All India Conference (s) of leading Communist Party in India approaches, the discourse on fascism/neo fascism is picking up. The discourse has been spiced up by views of academics like Nalini Taneja, Aditya Mukherjee among others, joining in, in the debate.
The untimely demise of Sitaram Yechury, the General Secretary, CPI (M), a personable and astute leader also considered to be an ace tactician, less of a pragmatist, more of an orthodox Leninist, of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has created a huge vacuum. Yechury contributed significantly to the understanding of Hindutva politics in India.
This article is an attempt to chart out the contribution of Sitaram Yechury to comprehend the contemporary political reality in order to realise the goals of the Left in India, which is the apparent purpose of the conduct of these such a Conference.
The Political Resolution is an important document in the history of all Communist Parties which sets out their international outlook, assesses certain core ingredients of the country’s politics and sets out a road map for action.
The Political Resolution adopted by the CPI (M) at its 21st Congress is such an important document The question of resurgence of Hindutva politics was finally acknowledged by the CPI (M) only at its 21st Congress wherein the Party, in the opening remarks of the resolution observed, “The advent of the BJP government represents the consolidation of the rightward shift in Indian politics. It welds together the neo-liberal thrust and the Hindutva drive with a pro-imperialist orientation. Already, the impact can be seen in the nakedly pro-big business policies which will further deepen social inequalities and intensify the exploitation of the working people. This combined with the offensive of the Hindutva forces poses new and serious challenges to our aim of changing the correlation of class forces in favour of the working people.” Further the 21st Congress categorically declined any kind of electoral understanding with secular parties as it declared, “(Para) 2.71: The Party will give primary attention to developing and building the independent strength of the Party. At the same time, the Party will strive to develop united actions on people’s issues, defence of national sovereignty, states rights and against imperialism with other democratic forces and non-Congress secular parties. Joint platforms for mass movements and united struggles are necessary if the Party is to expand its independent strength. The united actions of the class and mass organisations will seek to draw in the masses following the Congress, the BJP and the other bourgeois parties.” (emphasis is mine)
In consonance with this finding, one would have expect the Party which developed this tactical line under the leadership of ace tactician Prakash Karat to come up with a concrete tactical approach. The tactical line adopted by the 21st Congress was detailed from Paras 2.68 to 2.72. A bare analytical reading of the same reveals the confusion within the leadership of the Party.
Going by the tactical line adopted at 21st Congress it appears that the first and foremost task of the CPI (M) is to defeat the BJP and its Hindutva politics. Accordingly it was held that, “(Para) 2.68: The Party has to fight against the BJP and Modi government’s policies. This is the main task at hand. This requires a concerted opposition to the Modi government’s economic policies and its Hindutva oriented social, educational and cultural policies. The Party has to conduct a political-ideological struggle against the BJP-RSS combine. However, the fight against communalism cannot be conducted in isolation. It has to be integrated with the struggle against (the) neo-liberal policies and in defence of people’s livelihood(s).”
The above enunciation reveals that the Party had yet to make up its mind to defeat the BJP and remove that party from the seat of power, at any cost. It was merely confined to fight against the BJP’s policies by opposing the Modi governments economic and Hindutva oriented social education and cultural policies. Though it called for a bold initiative to take on the politics of the landed (land-lord) bourgeoisie parties, nothing concrete had been chalked out at least to strengthen the historical bases of the Party such as West Bengal, the then undivided Andhra Pradesh and Assam. The strengthening of the party was primarily seen through the lens of the Party in power in West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala. Once the Party lost its core base Bengal, a question that was posed was about the very survival of Left politics in India.
Subsequent developments however and the policy orientations of the BJP lead by Modi which had bulldozed the foundations of parliamentary democracy caused a serious re-think within a section of the Party. Adhering to the call given by the 21st Congress to devise a bold initiative the then General Secretary conceptualised a broader alliance of secular forces including Congress, proposed an alliance in the wake of the collusion (unspoken alliance) between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and BJP. This strategy was agreed upon after detailed discussions and arriving at a majority within the Bengal State Committee of the Party. Accordingly there was an alliance with the Congress in terms of seat adjustments in the 2016 assembly elections. However, given electoral arithmetic (s) and mutual suspicions that developed between the core constituencies of both parties, this alliance tottered.
Surprisingly — and to the astonishment of all Indians aspiring to an alternative politics — the Polit Bureau followed by the Central Committee, both, heavily weighed down in favor of a sectarian approach, resolved that the Party in West Bengal had violated the Party’s understanding. Thereafter it was decided –by the Central Committee –to convey this (report) to CPI-M cadres across the country. With undue haste, almost a kind of one-upmanship, the Party ignored the fact that the very same leadership has scripted the Paragraph 2.288 of the Political Resolution, wherein it had been stated, that, “(Para) 2.88: The struggle for building Left and democratic unity will proceed differently in different states. Various types of Left and democratic combinations will emerge in the states and they will contribute to the building of the Left and democratic front at the all India level. The focus of all the tactics adopted by the Party should be for the realisation of a strong Left and democratic front.” Thus the Central Committee Resolution which castigated the West Bengal State Committee for its electoral understanding with the Congress, was itself, in a way, clearly against its own Political Resolution adopted at the 21st Party Congress of the CPI-M at Visakapatnam.
Despite having such a solid tactical footing, the then General Secretary, without confrontation, allowed the resolution to be passed adhering to the principle of democratic centralism. This is another instances where the top leadership of the Communist movement in India, often, does not read, its own document and adopts a less rigorous approach.
Despite such a retreat, Sitaram Yechury gradually educated his party’s Central Committee towards the need of not merely battling against Hindutva politics, but also towards a clear-cut strategy to unseat Hindutva forces from the seat of power. Towards this end, he took inspiration from the amended Party Programme. The Party Program, amended at the CPI (M)’s 2000 Special Conference categorically stated, at Para 7.14 that “(Para)7.14: Reactionary and counter-revolutionary trends have existed even after Independence. They make use of the backwardness of the people based on the immense influence of a feudal ideology. In recent decades, making use of the growing discontent against the Congress leading to its steady decline, they are making serious efforts to fill the void left by the Congress Party. The Bharatiya Janata Party is a reactionary party with a divisive and communal platform, the reactionary content of which is based on hatred against other religions, intolerance and ultra-nationalist chauvinism. The BJP is no ordinary bourgeois party as the fascistic Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh guides and dominates it. When the BJP is in power, the RSS gets access to the instruments of State power and the State machinery. (The) Hindutva ideology promotes revivalism and rejects the composite culture of India with the objective of establishing a Hindu Rashtra. The spread of such a communal outlook leads to the growth of minority fundamentalism. This has serious consequences for the secular basis of the polity and poses a serious danger to the Left and democratic movement. Besides, a substantial section of big business and landlords, imperialism headed by the USA, is lending all-out support to the BJP”. (emphasis is mine).
The portion of the paragraph emphasised here had a direct reference to the 21st Congress resolution wherein it called for, “(Para) 2.83: There has to be a bold initiative to take on the politics and ideology of the bourgeois-landlord parties and to counter them with the CPI (M)’s political line and the Left and democratic programme. The Party must intervene and take up struggles on social issues.” Finally, sectarianism won and the West Bengal committee got castigated for its alleged violations. Being a leader who follows the core organisational principle of democratic centralism which says minority has to follow the majority decision, Sitaram agreed to follow the majority decision of the 2016, sometime in August that year.
This was the time when the Party castigated its own elected General Secretary to be an ‘agent of Congress’ whereas this electoral understanding with Congress revived the Save Democracy theme which had been coined by the then Party State Secretary, Bimon Basu. The 2016 Bengal elections were a watershed as they were in 2011. The 2011 elections focused only on defeat of the Left Front government by an electoral alliance sans a goal and ideology whereas the 2016 electoral understanding of 2016 focused on the Save Democracy theme in the wake of an onslaught by the a authoritarian regime in the state supported by a more authoritarian regime in center.
(In the second Part, the author, Y Venugopal Reddy, a cultural critic and practicing as advocate at Hyderabad, will deal with the evolution of the Party’s approach towards BJP’s Hindutva politics by examining its discourse towards 22nd Conference of the Party)
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.
Part 2 and 3 can be read here