Fall of the Left and Buddhadeb

During a press briefing in May 2006, CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose made a prophetic comment. While speaking on the role of media which was then projecting chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee as the poster boy of reforms, Bose remarked bluntly: “The media has taken the Brand Buddha line. But it can spell trouble for him.” (Source) The outspoken CPI(M) state secretary was expressing his worry that the same media which is making a superhero out of him, was equally capable of abruptly changing color, chameleon-like, and start smearing the chief minister’s image. Biman Bose’s comment came at a time when the political influence and reputation of Buddhadeb was at its peak. He had just won the 2006 state assembly elections with a colossal majority and was hailed as a new-age leader, a “capitalist communist” who was expected to steer Bengal to glory. The industrial lobby, the neo-liberal media and large sections of the urban middle class was praising him animatedly for his single-point industrialization agenda. He was been credited for bringing back hope to a state marred by “despair”. Neo-liberalism advocate The Economist went gaga to extol him for his “reputation for probity,” for being “modest and engaging” on topics from agri-business to consumerism and Indian poetry. From Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Azim Premji of Wipro, many big-shots were lauding him as India’s best chief minister. Unfortunately for him, it took just a year after the famous victory for the Brand Buddha bubble to burst. Within a couple of years the monolithic edifice of the CPI(M) came tumbling down when the people of Bengal delivered a real kick in the teeth to sweep out the Left Front from thirty-four long years of uninterrupted power.

To the Comrades in Bengal

The 2011 Bengal assembly election is now over. A synthetically manufactured socio-political commotion that had embarked on a plotted journey from mid-2007 has finally arrived at its logical end. The much hyped circle of poriborton (change) is now complete. An assorted conglomerate of anti-Left elements, personified by the “magnanimous” Trinamool chieftain Mamata Banerjee have triumphed over a thirty-four years long uninterrupted Left Front rule in this eastern Indian state – the longest-serving elected communist government in the world. The euphoria over the victory in the anti-Left camp is therefore obvious. Prominent renegades, fence-sitter Leftists, drawing room revolutionaries and the awake-aware intellectuals have also joined to sing the celebration chorus. The winners and their embedded friends in the mainstream corporate media have announced with a big sigh of relief that Bengal, at last, is free. The people, we are told, is now liberated from a tyrannical and sluggish regime which has destroyed every aspect of democratic rights in the state. The Left’s terrible debacle, we are edified again and again, is therefore nothing less than historic. On the other side, a stoic silence has been observed from the losers who have gracefully accepted the people’s mandate and are presently tiring to protect their grass-root workers from the vicious attack launched against them by the victorious Trinamool goons.

Media hyperbole and Bengal assembly elections

If we go through the standard news reports, analysis, editorials and opinion pieces been published daily in the national and local mainstream media concerning the ongoing assembly elections of Bengal, there can be little doubt in our minds about whom the voters would prefer to see in the next government. According to the obvious trends and predictions reflecting in the media, the people of Bengal have already “decided” to reject the worn out Left Front and embrace the impressive Trinamool Congress (TMC)-Indian National Congress (INC) opposition alliance. Experienced pollsters have concluded that in all probability, this grand alliance under the sagacious leadership of our famed railways minister Mamata Banerjee is heading for a clean sweep. Passionate supporters of the Left might still go on arguing that a sheer anti-Left bias in the print and television coverage during any election campaign is nothing new in Bengal. The spectrum of debate that gets released on various media forums during the election season has seldom been objective. They are also trying to point out that for a long time independent media organizations in the state have been completely polarized along political lines. But not many people are listening to them. The coming Bengal election results are therefore, as one thin on top editor recently wrote, “the easiest to predict in our electoral history in a very long time.”

Lalgarh: when the saints go marching in

Swami Agnivesh and Medha Patkar, two conscientious rabble-rousers of our time have marched into Lalgarh on last Monday, grabbing the apron string of their spanking soul mate – our famous railways minister. They went to attend and address a rally organized by the Trinamool party under the “apolitical” banner of Santras Birodhi Mancha (anti-terror forum) to spread the message of peace among the people of Lalgarh and to re-establish rule of democracy in this Maoist infested land of Bengal. Both have delivered the best of their banal statements concerning adivasis and their rights, about why MNCs must be resisted from setting up factories in the adivasi land, about how democratic process had come to a halt in the area. Both have also condemned the atrocities perpetrated by the joint security forces against innocent villagers after putting a Maoist tag on them and demanded a judicial inquiry into the death of Maoist Central Committee spokesperson, Azad. Both the crusaders without a pause had heaped immense praise on the railways minister for “putting up a brave fight against the ruling regime in favor of the poor and establishing the rule of democracy.” Agnivesh has informed the sizeable crowd mobilized primarily by the notorious Maoist frontal body PCAPA that, “Only Mamata has the courage to oppose Operation Green Hunt. Only she has the courage to oppose land seizure in the name of industrialization.” The polemicist Swami went one step further. Unable to resist him from the exiting setting or maybe the scorching heat, he barked out slamming the chief minister of Bengal: “It is time for Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to go on vanwas (exile). Naya Zamana Aayega, Mamata Banerjee ka Zamana Aayega (A new era will come, the era of Mamata Banerjee)”. The rally was also blessed by top Maoist leader Kisanji. Manoj Mahato, the infantile leader of the PCAPA, has gone out of his way to ensure its success.

Jyoti Basu and his ‘respectful’ detractors

Jyoti Basu, the nonagenarian patriarch of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was seriously ill for the last few months. He was also too old. So, the news of his death initially did not arouse much shock but a profound sadness. This sadness will gradually creep dip by dip into the minds of the masses, from the poor countryside to affluent cities, those who have admired and respected the man and repeatedly brought him and the Left Front back to power. With every passing day, the reality of his absence will be felt more and more among his admirers as well as his critics. Beginning from the early 40’s till the recent times, the towering persona of this legendary leader of the Communist movement in India has marked an enduring imprint on the socio-political life of the nation in many significant ways, particularly in the collective psyche of an entire generation of post independence Bengal. However, he had strongly dismissed the view that he had played any special role from an individual capacity and affirmed that, “What I was and what I am is because of the party. The CPM leadership had assigned a role to me which I carried out with help from innumerable comrades.” (Source) He was a true Marxist committed to the ideology. Like a true communist he had tirelessly served his people symbolizing their aspirations, struggles and sacrifices for six decades till his last breath. Even after his death he continued to serve them by donating his eyes and body for the benefit of patients and medical science. He had learned from Lenin that democracy is indispensable to socialism and genuinely believed that “it is people, and people alone, who creates history”. He was the last living icon of a spectacular era. Now with his demise, the era has permanently come to its end. Comrade Jyoti Basu has become history himself.

The subject of this post is not about Comrade Basu or his legacy. This blogger is too minuscule to write anything about the impressive feats of this illustrious life. This post will only present the undulating media extravaganza which has followed from his final illness till his death. The post is arranged by eclectically picking up gems from the “respectful” media “homage” offered to this extraordinary man.

On one hand, a wide spectrum of the mighty Indian press has pursued its standard populist agenda by sensationalizing the persona of Jyoti Basu, flattering him as a colossus, a stalwart, an astute but bhadralok (gentleman) politician and what not? Did they hold a similar attitude for Jyoti Basu when he was at the helm of the government? It must be noted with some conviction that during his tenure, the dominant section of the Bengal press, Bengali as well as English, left no stone unturned to regularly disparage him, his government and his party by distorted or twisted news and views. Jyoti Basu was made the prime target of this hostile and contemptuous criticism that has many times gone beyond all limits of journalistic decorum towards plain impropriety. Before every election in Bengal, Chief Minister Basu and the Left Front were written off by these mischief-makers and an aura of ‘hope’ use to be propagated in favor of the opposition. This tendency became a commonplace phenomenon in Bengal just like the winning streak of the Left Front. To them, as Ashok Mitra has recently written, the communist party was a nuisance and Jyoti Basu was an integral part of that nuisance. Even when he had voluntarily retired from office, he was not spared and was subjected to ill-concealed acrimony.

All the praise and admiration that has been promoted after his death are therefore nothing but sheer duplicity. The way in which the tributes and honors are published displays an inherent design beneath. It is actually designed to ridicule the present Left leaders, particularly Prakash Karat. Corporate media loves to hate the CPI(M) general secretary. The intention is to show them as dwarfs by comparing them with the “pragmatic communist” who was free from the ‘muddle of ideology’. The ignominious tone of this media ‘homage’ is evident from the high pitch exposition of the so called ‘historic blunder’ when the “upstart” leaders of CPI(M) Polit Bureau and Central Committee opposed him to lead a coalition government in 1996. Though, the stateliness in which he had accepted his party’s decision is obviously downplayed. It looks as if Jyoti Basu as the Prime Minister of India was a much anticipated desire of these superficial media folks.

On the other side, a wide range of reproach has been planned through contract analysts and senior political pundits to bash the man from all possible angles, by any means. We find a hoard of elite ex-Kolkata denizens lamenting about their ex-Kolkata “paradise” that was turned into a hell – “a place time forgot” due to the politics exercised by Jyoti Basu and his party. Speaking on behalf of the “entire generations of educated middle-class Bengalis” who were “forced to seek refuge in other States or migrate to America” these detractors grieve for the genius Bengalis who became a prey of the “Stalinist rule” of Jyoti Basu regime and became “refugees from Bengal” due to “a contraction of opportunities, educational and economic, and a closing of the Bengali mind”. (Source) Besides, who are these well-wisher crooks who are purposely wheedling about their Kolkata days before the communists came to power and shedding crocodile tears for the “brainy” Kolkata middle-class diaspora from safer and cozy distance? They are essentially representatives of the Indian affluent class promoting its odious anti-Left values. They surely feel grateful, pleased and satisfied to be able to join the creamy section of Indian society. In their tapered vision, Kolkata embody the whole of Bengal.

From both the sides the intentions behind the tributes are similar. A candid statement like “the present history of Bengal is largely the story of Jyoti Basu” is fundamentally contemptuous. The comment is intended not really to glorify him but as a deliberate attempt to get nearer to the real point of attack – to ascertain that the story of Jyoti Basu is actually “a story of unmitigated disaster,” the story of Bengal’s pathetic “decline and decay” from “a hub of industrial and intellectual activity” into an “economic and professional backwater”. To validate their point, established analysts of the neo-liberal media have thus unambiguously relied on the phony findings of Bibek Debroy & Laveesh Bhandari, the “duty bound” economist duo infamous for their dubious study Transforming West Bengal – Changing the Agenda for an Agenda for Change. This bogus and ostensible “study” was commissioned and funded by Dinesh Trivedi, then Rajya Sabha MP from the Trinamul Congress. It was a purposeful effort on the eve of 2009 Lok Sabha polls to illustrate Bengal’s “pathetic decline” caused by “overall governance failure”. Putting the purpose behind the study into perspective, Economic Policy Editor Vivan Fernandes of CNBC-TV18 has uncovered that “the Business Standard and Economic Times quoted it as if it were an independent study. By tracing West Bengal’s decline from the 1960s, than from 1977, when the Left Front assumed power, by comparing it selectively with peers Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu and by ignoring achievements in agriculture, the authors seem anxious to prove that West Bengal is indeed, as they say, the most miserable state in India.” (Emphasis added) Fernandes found that the study was “deliberately provocative when it asserts the Left Front government is like Gangrene. It cannot be cured, and must be excised out.” (Source)

Like the above stated iniquitous report, Jyoti Basu’s death has brought out the savage teeth and nail of a variety of editors, commentators and experts who are principally anti-Left. Some among them are rather clever to present their contentions under a politesse veil. According to their sarcastic depiction, Jyoti Basu was just “a member of Calcutta’s privileged,” who wanted to “do something for the downtrodden”. A bhadralok who wore “glistening white” clothes and “invariably polished” shoes, who was fond of “good food and the sundowner” and whose only memorable contribution was to spearhead agitational politics that “resulted in the flight of capital, a complete erosion of work culture and irresponsible trade unionism.” (Source) Some among them have also tried to suggest how the persona of Jyoti Basu, previously committed to his party and the ideology, began to change “once he became firmly entrenched in power” and “acquiesced in the loot of state sources” along with party functionaries. (Source) There are also others, intensively raw and crude, those who have virtually crossed every limits of civility while lambasting Basu. Their calumny is decorated with abusive language and based on imaginary stories, fabricated reminisces, street gossips and unadorned lies. It also includes malicious personal attack by putting imaginary dialogues into selective mouths. (Source) Their style is fairly similar to the despicable approach popularized by the Trinamool chieftain Mamata Banerjee who while expressing her doubt upon Basu’s retirement had commented, “He will never retire till he expire.”

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. But can these so call experts be dubbed as fools when they cunningly avoid mentioning the stride in the Bengal countryside achieved under Jyoti Basu’s leadership? The pathbreaking achievements of Operation Barga – the land reforms and redistribution program initiated by the Left Front government is either completely ignored or referred in a diminutive and inconsequential way while assessing his contribution in the obituaries,. This example is sufficient to expose the precise objective of these deceitful pundits. How can they establish their points if they focus on the unmatched achievements of Jyoti Basu government’s panchayat program that has decentralized power to the grassroot and greatly empowered the rural peasantry? Since Independence, Bengal has accounted for 22.6 per cent of the total land distributed in India as a whole, and 54.5 per cent of the total number of gainers from land distribution programmes in the entire country. Land reforms and redistribution is the single most important contributor to rural poverty reduction and in this regard Bengal’s performance is the best among any state in the country. These policies occupied the centrestage of the Left Front government’s pro-people administrative initiatives and thus have significantly improved the status of the poor, giving them a sense of social dignity. Even in recent years, as V.K. Ramachandran has observed, “the extent of agricultural land distributed under land reform in West Bengal as a proportion of land distributed in the country as a whole is 22.6 per cent.” Ramachandran has also observed that “the total number of gainers from land distribution programmes in the country, more than half – a full 54.5 per cent – are from West Bengal.” (Source) But as Paranjoy Guha Thakurta has pointed out, “Historians have selective memories. Who cares today about Operation Barga or the empowerment of panchayats?” (Source)

By delicately applying their biases and prejudices, the pundits talk about Bengal’s poor growth compared to the rest of India. These pundits will never draw attention toward Bengal’s phenomenal agricultural growth which has grown at an annual rate of 2.7 per cent – double the national rate. Instead, they prefer to vociferously babble on the ‘gherao culture’ as the foundation of industrial stagnation in Bengal but never utter that Bengal’s industrial turn down was primarily caused by the central government policies of freight equalization and industrial licensing. Doesn’t it astonish us today that it took 13 years for the Congress government at the center to clear the flagship Haldia Petrochemicals project? Since the days when the license-permit raj were lifted and liberalization opened new possibilities, from 1990s Bengal was one of the fastest growing states in India. The pundits also endlessly emphasize on the worst condition of poverty and hunger in rural Bengal compared to most other states. But the planning commission figures show an entirely different picture. Percentage of persons below poverty line in rural Bengal has declined from 73.2 per cent in 1973-74 to 28.6 per cent in 2004-05 compared to the national average of 56.4 per cent in 1973-74 to 28.3 per cent in 2004-05. Urban poverty in Bengal is 14.8 per cent compared to the national average of 25.7 per cent – the performance is even better than fast-growing states like Maharashtra and Gujarat. The Eleventh Plan document has noted that Bengal is one of the five major states that have succeeded in reducing the absolute number of the poor in rural areas over the three decades from 1973 to 2004-05.

Protecting the rights and privileges of the poor, creating the possibility for a better socio-economic condition and achieving it to some reasonable extent are certainly the most significant contributions of Jyoti Basu’s rule. There are also other social sectors where Bengal has performed well. The state has registered the lowest death rate and maternal mortality rates among all the major states and has achieved notable reductions in fertility rate. It is the first state to lower the voting age to 18, first to introduce reservation for women in elected bodies. Jyoti Basu must also be credited for his firm commitment to secularism that has established an unwavering atmosphere of communal harmony and secularism in the state.

However, responding to the new aspirations and popular demands that has emerged from the successful agrarian reforms is a far more difficult and time-consuming task. It is a fact that the Left Front government’s response in this aspect was relatively slow. The government has also somewhat failed to achieve success in areas like education, infrastructural developments and the state of the economy. Long stint in power have also developed bureaucratic habits among a section of the Left Front leadership and detached them from the people. Jyoti Basu was quite aware about these shortcomings and negative developments. He had persistently spoken about the necessity of going to the people, listening to them, explaining the reasons behind the shortcomings and sincerely admitting the mistakes. Jyoti Basu himself has done it all through his life.

All his positive achievements, and there were many, is overshadowed or ignored by the bombastic and dismissive media rhetoric which is more engrossed to focus on the “egregious blemishes” of Jyoti Basu and his tenure. Viewed objectively, most of them will turn into plain deception. Jyoti Basu’s death has once more proved the myth of media objectivity and manifested an emergent trend of corporate journalism in India. A depressing trend that deceives millions of people and indoctrinates them by promoting personal bias towards the Left in the name of “balanced reporting”. It is a dangerous trend that encourages flak criticism to disgrace an exemplary politician – one of the country’s most illustrious leaders and statesmen.

Image Courtesy: aajkaal.net

The End of CPI(M)?

The distressful performance of the CPI(M) in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls has uniformly delighted the Indian corporate bosses, big media, political analysts and a large section of the ‘conditioned’ civil society. Except in the north-eastern state of Tripura, where the party was able to maintain its dominance by winning both the Lok Sabha seats, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s overall performance in the country was terrible. The party suffered a serious setback in the ‘red bastions’ of Bengal and Kerala. To some extent, the Kerala results were expected where internal strife between Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan and the state party secretary Pinarayi Vijayan has greatly affected the party’s electoral prospect. The Kerala electorates also have a tendency to switch their political preference from one election to the next. But the Bengal electorates have delivered the most startling verdict. As a result, an ecstatic mood is visible among sections of the ‘awake and aware’ Left intellectuals who have gone into raptures over the outcome and came out in open with their daggers of intellectual reproach to pounce upon the ‘utterly vindictive’ and ‘arrogant’ leadership of the CPI(M). The General Secretary of the party Mr. Prakash Karat is their primary target. Calling him the ‘Commissar’ who ‘understands nothing of India and even less of politics’, the mocking tone of their criticism is clearly determined by a longstanding contention against Mr. Karat and the party. (Source) Many of these intellectuals who furtively eulogize the Maoists and their tactical line on elections are leaving no stone unturned to bash the Marxists for their electoral debacle. To them it was ‘a resounding slap on the face of the CPM’. Moreover, the ‘joyous news’ has encouraged the celebrated anti-communists and turned them completely berserk to announce that the Left is now history! (Source) Almost immediately after the election results were out, the Anandabazar Patrika group has planted a fictitious story to establish a deep feud between the Bengal CPI(M) and the party’s Central leadership, also aiming at the party’s General Secretary. To take advantage of the situation, the media group also spread a speculative newsroom scoop about Buddhadev Bhattacharyya’s willingness to resign as Chief Minister! This entire disposition is quite comprehensible due to the fact that the Marxists had fostered end number of enemies as a result of the particular brand of politics they have practiced during the last five years.

To find out why the CPI(M) has suffered so badly, in this discussion we will attempt to probe the imperative aspects of the episode, remaining confined only to Bengal. It is just not an election debacle for the CPI(M) but a much deeper and serious crisis for the Left movement in India. The crisis is enormous, complex and multidimensional which is virtually impossible to tackle within the limited space of a blog post.

Neither the CPI(M) nor the opposition Trinamool Congress (TMC) or the Indian National Congress (INC) had ever predicted such a fantastic outcome during the poll process. However, it was almost certain that the TMC-INC combine, forged just before the elections to prevent the anti-Left vote to split, was going to perform well. This was predicted after the experience of last year’s Panchayat polls where the Left Front and the CPI(M) has lost several of their grass root strongholds. According to the inner party predictions and pre-poll surveys conducted by various media groups, the combine was expected to win near to eighteen seats. But no one could foresee the final tally where the CPI(M) was left with only 9 seats and was wiped out in ten districts out of nineteen in the state. There is no doubt that it will take quite some time for the awestruck CPI(M) state and central leadership to restore the conditions in their favor after such a magnitude of thrashing. The overall repercussions that will automatically follow will also be rather difficult to deal with in the coming days. For the honest and sincere party workers and sympathizers, it is tough to keep faith on the maxim – tomorrow is another day.

What went wrong? Why did the loyal supporters and sympathisers of 32 long years increasingly distanced them from the CPI(M)? Did the party leadership put too much weight on the 2006 assembly poll slogan ‘agriculture is our base, industrialization our future’ and closed their eyes about the discontents that was emerging from the Buddhadev Bhattacharyya government's land acquisition policy? Did the party ignore the core areas of its strength – the poor and underprivileged rural populace and failed to convince them about the seemingly pro-capital stance of the Left Front government? Is it because of the arrogant attitude of the grassroot party functionaries who have turned into present day landlords in the eyes of the people? Is it because of the corruption and nepotism practiced by a good section of the party leaders which has led to their detachment from the people? Has the CPI(M), which is generally perceived as a cohesive, dedicated, closely controlled and regimented party has actually been metamorphosed into an inefficient, dishonest and sick organization? Is it because even after identifying the rot within its different layers, the leadership was unable to take proper action from the fear of losing the image, mass character and dominance of the party? Any of these or a combination of these rudimentary causes could be the reason why this time the people have decided not to trust the party which was reelected just three years ago in 2006 by a mammoth people’s mandate. The fall of communist character within the CPI(M) is highlighted by many pundits as the core reason behind the election debacle. There are plenty of ready facts to support this argument but did these detrimental features suddenly develop within the party over the last three years? If not, then how does it explain the party’s triumphant victory in the 2006 assembly polls?

According to the initial findings, there are three major interlinked reasons behind the disaster in Bengal. The first of the reasons is the startling pro-Congress wave in the country for a stable government at the center that has entirely rejected the Left Front and the CPI(M)’s call for a third alternative. Riding on the wave, the TMC has gained considerably in south Bengal to rout the Marxists. At the all India level, the vote share of the INC has increased by 2 per cent while CPI(M)’s vote share in Bengal has decreased by 6 per cent. This statistics is a clear indication that the pro-Congress wave was not the central reason behind the poor show of the party. Secondly, as the biggest constituent of the Left Front government, the CPI(M) has failed to appropriately explain to the agricultural poor, small farmers and labourers why the government got involved in acquiring fertile land for industry. Instead of gaining their confidence, the party was caught up in direct confrontation with them. The party leaders cannot coherently explain why the industrialization drive in Bengal was different from the capitalist model of market economy. The twin episodes of Singur and Nandigram were the epicenter of the land-industry controversy. Particularly, the fateful events of Nandigram had ripped open a can of worms, of various shapes, sizes and colors, which had ultimately turned lethal against the party. The party tried hard to control the all-out attack but failed to counter it. The TMC successfully manipulated this failure to build-up grave discontent within the masses with the active assistance of various comprador agencies and their peers including some prominent intellectuals. The cunning tactics adopted by the ‘magnetic’ Trinamool chieftain to extend her sweet lap towards all anti-CPI(M) forces including the Maoists for an all-out attack was one of the key reasons behind the reinforcement of public opinion against the CPI(M). Sensing that the state government is on back foot, the Trinamool chieftain almost ran a parallel government in the state, dictating terms and conditions to every government policies and programs. During the election campaign, the party had tried to relate the opposition’s violent anti-CPI(M) agitation with the semi-fascist terror atmosphere perpetrated by the Bengal Congress against them in the seventies. But 32 years is too long a time for people to even forget the face of their real enemies. The land acquisition controversy has gravely affected the party and was directly responsible for the erosion of a traditionally loyal and sizable Muslim support base of the Left, particularly in the rural centers of Bengal. The abrupt upshot of the Rizwanur Rehman case (Source) and TMC’s bitter and aggressive campaigning following the half-truth findings of the Sachar Committee Report concerning the backwardness of the Muslims in Bengal was the other contributory factors behind the loyalty shift of the Muslims to the opposition. The third potential reason was the accumulated ‘sins’ from three decades of uninterrupted power and the disdainful behavior and fraudulent activities of a section of arrogant and overconfident party leaders who had completely lost touch with the people to feel there pulse. All the three reasons clubbed together will make clear why large number of people has lost their trust on the party and its leaders – at least for now.

Few months before the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the Left parties withdrew their support from the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government over the issue of the Indo-US Nuclear deal. The CPI(M) under Mr. Karat undertook a pivotal role to strongly opposed the deal from an ideological standpoint. There were reasonable arguments to oppose the various tricky aspects of the nuclear deal which the party leaders had credibly raised at that time. But all these remarkable efforts looked like a grave tactical blunder when the party leadership failed poorly to convey the logic behind their opposition, the subservient attitude of the Prime Minister and the American lobby within the UPA, the Congress government’s disgraceful surrender before US imperialism and the evil designs behind the deal to the general public. The whole nuclear deal debate was reduced into an intellectual squabble between pro-deal and anti-deal argumentative groups and could not accurately expose the hidden threat – the threat of a close strategic and military tie up with the US that will drastically overturn India’s independent foreign policy.

CPI(M) leaders might have anticipated that opposing the deal from an anti-imperialist ideological standpoint will largely elevate the party’s image. But nothing of that sort happened. Instead, when the INC confederates smoothly roped in the Samajwadi Party in support of the government, the Left and the CPI(M) at one shot lost its significance in national politics. They were unsuccessful to convincingly establish the point that supporting the Congress led UPA government was only a strategic compromise, keeping in mind the horrendous deeds of the former BJP led NDA government and its fascist associates. The support was not given as a blank-cheque to the Congress Party to rule the country according to their wish. It was based on a Common Minimum Program (CMP) from which the UPA was gradually but deliberately shifting away. Halfheartedly conducted propaganda by the party mass organizations was too feeble to counter the overwhelming publicity from the neo-liberal bourgeois media in support of the deal and the party lost its credibility in this extensive media war. The CPI(M) and its leaders turned into a villain in the minds of the people for destabilizing the government and ‘betraying the nation’. Moreover, the Left in general and the CPI(M) in particular had surprisingly ignored the opportunity to convert the nuclear deal debate into a major election issue. The party did not even try to explore the inherent possibilities of the topic for which it has taken such an extreme step and risked its political future. This gave chance to people like the expelled leader Mr. Somnath Chatterjee to describe the party’s central leadership as ‘narcissistic’. They had similarly failed to reap benefits from the impressive role they had played to stall the anti-people policies of the UPA government. The Congress on the contrary, had successfully twisted the Left’s positive contribution to the UPA government into their favor.

The CPI(M) has also paid a heavy price for its unrealistic overdrive to forge alliance with dubious political parties in a deviant urge to build up a non-Congress, non-BJP alternative third force. To occupy the non-Congress, non-BJP space, the party leadership had browsed for ‘progressive’ bourgeois allies and embraced almost every political party who was free floating in the uncertain pre-election political milieu. The hobnobbing of party leaders with political groups of unconvincing background, most of them former allies of the ultra-rightist BJP, has not gone down well with the masses. The leadership was unable to even convince a large section of their dedicated party workers to carry the idea of the third alternative among the electorates. The election outcomes have again proved that an opportunistic alliance based on simple electoral gains and devoid of specific programme oriented political struggles is neither creditable nor viable. CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury has rightly described it as a ‘cut-paste job’ done on the eve of the elections. But how did leaders of the stature of Mr. Karat or Mr. Yechury and the entire CPI(M) central committee got carried away by such an enthusiastic gamble? This question still remained unanswered. What was the rationale behind allying with political buccaneers like Deve Gowda and Mayawati, who within three days after the results were declared, jumped in the UPA bandwagon to offer their unconditional support? The party leaders cannot evade this pertinent question by simply stating the terrible step of tactlessness as a mistake.

Today, many of the Left Front partners are putting the entire blame for their poor show on the ‘big brother’ CPI(M) and trying to wash themselves clean in front of the public. Central leaders are blamed for ‘blindly toeing the line of Prakash Karat’ and ‘following the agenda set by CPI(M)’. During the Nandigram incident, several Left Front partners and their upstart leaders had embraced the short-cut way to fame by openly and consistently criticizing the CPI(M) leadership in harsh and offensive language and tried hard to prove how pure Leftist they are. But unknowingly or intentionally they became a pawn in the cunning game of the anti-left forces and their valued representative – the Trinamool chieftain. The Left Front as a whole lost its trustworthiness and appeared to be deeply stained during that time. Though just before the Lok Sabha elections, the dissent Left Front leaders tried to showoff their unity with the CPI(M). But how much this showoff has been conveyed and accepted in the grass root level after all the previous acts of dissent is doubtful. Even if we consider that the unity was nearly total, the wise electorates, frustrated by the attitude of the left leaders were definitely not convinced. And they were absolutely right to do so. After the election results were out, the anti-CPI(M) rhetoric erupted again from several Left Front partners. This proves that a lot of things are not hale and hearty in the Left Front. A void has developed after the demise of the pragmatic old guards and the bigheaded new generations leaders seem to be more engaged to destroy than build.

Accepting the verdict, the CPI(M) politburo in a recent statement has stated that “Both national and state specific factors are responsible for the poor performance”. The politburo has also affirmed that the party will now “seriously examine the reasons for these reverses…conduct a self-critical review to form the basis for corrective steps” and will make “all out efforts to regain the support and confidence of the people”. To what extend this ‘self-critical review’ is conducted and ‘corrective steps’ is taken will determine how the party confronts the populist politics of Mamata Banerjee and her coterie of despotic, deceitful, vicious and repulsive leaders to ‘regain the support and confidence of the people’. Instead of acting as the crisis managers of the bourgeois parties, the party leaders should concentrate on streamlining the mass fronts. For quite some time, the mass fronts have grown droopy about prolonged mass struggles and has almost drifted away from the ideology of a Marxist-Leninist party. If the CPI(M) honestly introspects, corrects their mistaken policies and tactics and effectively turn the election debacle into a watershed, it will be the ideal homage to the countless party workers who had selflessly dedicated their entire life for the party and the Left movement in the country. The task is easier said than done.

In spite of their failure to act in response to the needs of the poor, in spite of the neo-liberal, anti-people policies of economic reforms it has pursued during the last five years of their governance, the centrist Congress Party has nevertheless received a comfortable mandate to rule the country for the next five years. Due to the enormous error of political judgment committed by them, the CPI(M) and the Left could not gain a bit from the prevailing discontent among the masses. This is the biggest irony of the 2009 general elections.

Towards a secular pro-people alternative?

The emergence of a third alternative has raised some serious doubts in the mind of the Indian electorate. Theoretically, the concept of a third alternative is exciting as it has the potential to be more consensus-based and apparently is capable of reflecting the alternative opinion of the electorate in a healthier way. But in practice the idea is underlined by skeptical connotations. The main cause behind this doubt is derived from the historical experiences of similar non-Congress, non-BJP formations of the past. Whenever there was a post-election positive atmosphere generated by political conditions for an alternative force, most of the efforts had failed to deliver in accordance to the public expectations due to the diverse political objectives of the consequent political parties. For many of the constituents, the formation of a ‘Third Front’ was envisaged purely in mere electoral terms, keeping in mind their restricted political equations. These political parties, many of them with strong regional perspectives usually come together in a situation of electoral compulsions but soon enough, due to their conflicting ambitions, prefer to roll back into their respective regional agenda. The lack of common vision and objectives between the constituents quickly move towards internal differences, political and personal rivalry between the leaders sprung up in the most deplorable manner which ultimately compels the formation towards its untimely collapse. Instead of sustaining its significance as a robust force, the ‘Third Front’ formations of the past, on the contrary, have strengthened the Congress and the BJP and both the parties has immensely benefited by the ‘failed experiments’ of the formations. But in spite of this fact, one cannot deny that the experiments had its crucial significances also. Whether we like it or not, it has definitely strengthened the Indian democracy by facilitating the progress of smaller parties to grow important in national politics.

Stability of a future government is one of the prime criteria to the electorates while they cast their votes. There is a deep reservation in the mind of the Indian electorates about the third force concept as all similar non-Congress, non-BJP governments in the past have failed to complete their full term. Therefore, it is not surprising to find that the Indian electorate is not too much enthusiastic about the third alternative formation. They are asking – is the alternative capable to provide stability? Will it be possible for them to keep aside their conflicting ambitions to enforce pro-people policies and effectively keep the communal forces at bay? At a time of unprecedented global economic crisis, will it be possible for them to co-opt an effective economic policy which will protect the jobs and livelihood of millions of common people and at the same time encourage the economy to prosper? All these are pertinent questions which need to be convincingly addressed.

The Left is presently playing a key role in giving shape to another pragmatic concept of a third alternative in the 2009 General Elections. They have specified that their aim is to put up a non-Congress, non-BJP choice in front of the electorates and to provide an alternative platform for the people, who do not want to support either the Congress or the BJP. They have laid emphasis on the need for alternate pro-people social and economic reforms and an independent, non-aligned foreign policy which will be qualitatively different from the policies which the two largest national parties have a tendency to follow. According to the CPI(M) general secretary Mr. Prakash Karat, “…democratic and secular forces who can agree with the Left on pro-people economic policies, on social justice measures, and an independent foreign policy” will join hand for this proposed formation. The Left has primarily achieved some vital success during the build-up process of the third alternative. Some regional parties spread across various states of the country, smaller but important in electoral terms, have already agreed to be part of this formation. The prospect that more parties associated with both the BJP led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) and the Congress led UPA (United Progressive Alliance) are likely to join the new formation has also brightened. The Congress and BJP both has initially tried to ignore this formation but in the manner both are mocking the formation and aggressively attacking it with their selective rhetoric in various election rallies is a clear indication that they are growing more and more tensed. The prime reason behind their anxiousness is due to the lack of any major election issue this time. The possibility to win the mind of the Indian voters has therefore become dim and both the Congress and the BJP is finding great difficulty to build-up public support around themselves.

In this scenario, the regional political forces will gain momentum and will certainly play a prominent role in the national level of politics. The possibility that the Congress and the BJP might lose significant ground in the hands of their principal regional opponents in respective states is growing stronger. Also when too many parties are knocking against each other for a limited space, the situation becomes more complicated for the large national parties to deal with. The important fact that both of them have a very limited presence in some of the key big states of the country which contribute close to 50 per cent of the total seats in the Indian Parliament is hard to ignore. This is also the reason why many of the present NDA-UPA allies are keeping their intentions obscure and maintaining a fluid state to reconsider all sorts of possibilities that are likely to emerge after the polls. Even crucial regional parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) while showing interest about a non-Congress, non-BJP alternative have declined to be part of any pre-poll alliance.

The concept of a third alternative is significantly different from the concept of a ‘Third Front’. It should be noted that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) which is playing a pivotal role in giving shape to this ‘viable, credible and sustainable electoral alternative’ has never called this formation a ‘Third Front’ but mentioned it as a non-Congress, non-BJP alternative. The term Third Front is actually a misinterpretation of the media. While clarifying the concept, the party has said that it does not conceptualize this third alternative purely in electoral terms but as a force ‘forged on the basis of people’s sustained struggles and movements’. Instead of confining itself to political manoeuvring and electoral bargaining, the desired objective of the party is to contribute to a progressive shift in Indian politics through joint popular struggles on a pro-people agenda built around the two basic issues – opposition to communalism and anti-people economic policies of the Congress and the BJP. The CPI(M) also perceives that opposing anti-people economic policies also means taking a principled anti-imperialist position that will uphold the sovereignty of India in foreign policy issues. Regional secular parties, those who reflect the discontent of common people against the anti-people economic policies will be forced to join this third alternative because they will eventually feel the pressure from their own social base as the living conditions of the masses is deteriorating further and further.

There is really no significant differences in the liberalization and privatization policies of the Congress and the BJP. The successive NDA and UPA regimes both have subscribed to liberalism friendly policies and encouraged rampant privatization in significant social sectors like health and education. Low state spending and reduction of subsidies for agriculture sector has intensified the agrarian crisis and consequently led to more and more farmer suicides not only in Maharashtra but also in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. During the UPA rule, the Left ‘intrusion’ has safeguarded the banking sector from the impact of the global economic crisis, the insurance sector from foreign direct investment and helped to protect many other public sector industries from the disinvestment policy of the Government. Its continuous pressure on the Government has also forced it to approve the Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the Forest Tribal Bill. The Congress led UPA has also struck a strategic alliance with the United State through the military collaboration agreement which is an unprecedented shift from India’s sovereign foreign policy. But the manner in which the Congress led UPA went after the dubious Indo-US nuclear deal which the Left has been opposing from the beginning has greatly disillusioned them about the Congress.

The Congress led UPA has failed to address the alarming price rise of essential commodities including the price of drugs and medicines. This has severely affected the lives of the population who belongs to the lower level of the socio-economic stratum. The economic policies of UPA were targeted towards favoring big businesses and as a result have widened the social divide in the country. The urban and rural rich have reaped the maximum benefits of the so called ‘development’ and at the same time the vast majority has sunk to a greater extent into poverty and hunger. It is bizarre that in a country where 230 million people are undernourished, 40 per cent of children less than three years of age are underweight, 77 per cent of the population spends less than Rs. 20 a day and 39 per cent of adult population is illiterate – four out of the ten richest people in the world are Indians! Who are actually benefiting from the four years of ‘consecutive economic growth’ in GDP till 2008 is evident from these facts.

In the absence of any major election issue, the BJP has returned to its nucleus – pulling out the Hindutva agenda from their closet. Obviously, a leopard cannot shed its spots. By raising the Ram temple and Ram Setu issue and boasting to replicate the Gujarat model, BJP is hoping to stir up a viable and effective election wave that might pave the way for L.K. Advani to occupy the Prime Minister’s seat. In the recent years, communal forces have continued with their vicious and divisive activities under the political umbrella of the BJP. The party continues to cover nefarious elements like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal, those who has perpetrated violent attacks on Muslim and Christian minorities in Orissa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajashtan and Chhattisgarh. The recent Barun Gandhi episode is a ringing proof of this nakedly divisive politics of the BJP. It stands for the most reactionary forces of India and keeps on communalizing the terrorism issue by attributing all terrorist activities to the Muslim community of this country. The party’s hypocritical stand on the Malegaon blasts case where Hindutva extremists were arrested for perpetrating the heinous crime has brought out the diabolical disposition of the BJP in the open. The BJP is essentially a regressive force that seeks to pass off majority communalism as ‘nationalism’ and represents a ‘distilled communalism’ in all aspects of their agenda. Instead of involving the common masses to build up a powerful and unified alternative force against this communalism menace, the Congress has deliberately preferred to take a soft and safer stand in the BJP ruled states where they are the chief opposition party. In a state like Gujarat, it has even taken the path of soft Hindutva – just for electoral gains.

There are predictions that the Left will be unable to sustain its strength of 60 MPs in this election. The lack of any major national election issue possibly will also adversely affect the Left’s prospects in Bengal and Kerala. Though it is early to comment on how much the Left will loose their grounds, one thing is certain. Even if it looses ground, the loss will be replenished by the third alternative allies including the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) which will help them to remain important in national politics. This specific aspect has ringed alarm bells to the Congress and BJP. Both the parties are not only worried about their incapability to win enough seats to be in command of any future coalition, the sturdy presence of an ideology bound Left force is always viewed as a spoiler by them. In whichever form it might ultimately shape-up, the significance of the third alternative lies here.

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Indian Democracy: beyond the trust vote

The majority of the people’s representatives of India, better known as members of parliament have kept their trust on the ability and performance of the Manmohan Singh government. The outcome was broadly expected. For the last couple of days, the Prime Minister, his party, and their allies were exceedingly confident of winning the trust vote. A mysterious uncertainty around the events, created by media speculations was proved to be pointless and inaccurate. Looking at the composition of the Indian parliament before the trust vote, the number counts between the two groups were tight but surely the emissaries of the ruling coalition were much clever than their opponents.

It is now reasonably clear that the ploy of survival were planned many days in advance, long before the Left had withdrawn their support. The alliance with Amar Singh and his Samajwadi Party was also the result of a previously plotted stealthy operation. The logic given by the Congress party that they had sensed the ‘conscience’ amongst the MP’s on the nuclear deal correctly and therefore were so confident about the outcome is utter rubbish. They had cunningly played a calculated political game, with lot of undercover transactions and neatly won the trust vote. In the present appalling quality of Indian political biosphere where ‘money doesn't talk, it swears’, winning a vote inside the parliament house requires high caliber players of similar quality. The Congress party and their crooked friends are flawlessly brilliant in this aspect. Compared to them Mr. Prakash Karat and the Left leaders are greenhorns.

Yesterday was a miserable day for Indian democracy. The whole nation, glued in front of television sets viewed the hideous face of our parliamentary democracy where MP’s from the main opposition party displayed bundles of money inside the house to prove that the ruling coalition was directly offering kickbacks to abstain. We saw rowdy members shouting at each other like a bunch of street urchins. We saw senior politicians regularly disrupting the house procedures in the most indecorous manner. And the people of India have to endure this for the sake of saving a government for eight months!

Had the bright smiling face of an ‘apolitical’, spotlessly clean Prime Minister, coming out from the filthy parliament house uplifting his thumb enlighten the Indian public as if he has conquered a great battle on behalf of his fellow citizens? After the results, the craggy words coming out from the foaming lips of Amar Singh were sounding like a rogue delivering sermon. The people of this country must have forgotten the real issue after watching all these puerile disorders from our honorable men and women for two long days. Let us make them remember the issue. The issue was: should India go ahead for the Indo-US nuclear deal? Nineteen decadent votes have settled it.

Manmohan Singh has remarked in his debate speech that Mr. Karat with the other Left leaders has greatly miscalculated the situation while withdrawing their support from the government. He also spoke that he was feeling like a bonded labour under the continuous interference by the Left. Hard words indeed from a crooner! The media immediately jumped upon and persistently started to harp the words. These views are obviously in accordance to the merits of the perceiver. Where is the question of a miscalculation? Did the left really ‘calculate’ anything before taking their decision to withdraw? Honestly speaking, Left’s weakest point is behind their decision there was no calculation.

From the beginning, Left had opposed the nuclear deal from ideological and political grounds. They indisputably believed that the deal was not good for the country. Thus, they tried to resist the stubborn government as a responsible political group. They perceived it as their obligation to the people of India because the UPA government was formed as a result of their support. They tried hard to convince and caution the government not to move ahead with issues which are not included in the Common Minimum Program (CMP), the basis of their support. Was the nuclear deal included in the CMP? When all of their efforts failed, when they clearly understood the obstinate attitude of the government and it’s Prime Minister, they had no other option but to withdraw their support. If they had calculated according to the Prime Minister’s party line, things would have been different.

Was the Prime Minister expecting to strike some sort of a dubious deal with the Left and solve the issue surreptitiously as the Congress party has done with Amar Singh? The Prime Minister was also feeling suffocated like a bonded labour by the constant interference of the Left. This was indeed a truthful confession. How could someone allow such a thing to happen with him when he had long ago merrily enrolled himself as a bonded labour under the US and now resolutely planning to enroll the whole country likewise?