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Economism and Electoral Politics
When the tide of the food movement swept the entire country and the
wrath of the people was bursting out, the new party, CPI(M), tactfully
channelised people’s discontent by placing the path of forming
non-Congress governments in the states. There was no dearth of choicest
words against the right revisionists or the Congress to project the
CPI(M) as the leader of militancy. E.M.S. Namboodiripad as general
secretary of the new party issued a statement in Trivandrum on 23rd
December 1965. He appealed to all ‘Left opposition’ parties for united
action "despite their differences on questions of basic ideology."
The common denominator for such action, Nambaoodiripad declared, was
that they all believed that the Congress Government was "Championing
the interests of, and strengthening, the big landlords and monopoly
capitalists …" 26
The 4th General Election was round the corner and
so the CPI(M) Central Committee oriented its entire thrust "On the
General election." It took the resolution, pretty obviously not for
boycotting it or weakening the state. The call was: "The reduction of
the Congress party into a minority and the formation of alternative
governments wherever possible" and "adjustment with opposition
parties, so that the opposition votes may not get split and the defeat
of the Congress party may be ensured in the maximum number of
constituencies."27
It was a journey to the morass of parliamentarism that started
particularly after the withdrawal of the Telengana uprising.
Yet one will find many elements of left verbiage in the articulations of
the CPI(M). E.M.S. Namboodiripad, the centrist having already tasted
legislative power in Kerala tried to blow-up the differences with the
CPI. He announced simultaneously to put to shame the rightist CPI and
appease the leftist sections. Pointing an accusing finger to the right
CPI programme and its resolutions he stated that, "their approach to
the problem of national unity and democracy is nothing but tailism to
the bourgeoisie."28
It is the bitter course of history that followed to substantially prove
that on all fundamental questions the CPI(M), tasting the spoils of
power in West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala, shrugged off all the earlier
‘left’ vocabulary and outpaced the CPI in its right revisionist
positions. The class question, the class front and particularly the
question of the state, dependent on imperialism and feudalism, were
brushed aside. Elections and elections along with the question of
alliance with parties of the enemy classes increasingly became the main
task of this revisionist organization. For comparison and better
comprehension of this process of parliamentarism we may refer to some of
the gems from the documents of this revisionist force turned into
social-fascists.
The Election Manifesto of the CPI(M) for the 4th
general election declared about Jana Sangh and Swatantra that, "though
they thunder against Congress misrule, essentially represent the same
class interests as the Congress"29
Yet, in "Tasks of the Alternative Government: proposals by the United
Left Front Of West Bengal" such a non-Congress government was
projected as an alternative for the people, actually a safety valve
against the massive discontent assuming a volcanic eruption everywhere.
This right revisionist CPI(M) document announced: "Only such a
Government representing the united will of the people, pledged to
fulfill the urgent demands of the life of the people, can provide a way
out of the prevailing crisis, anarchy and degeneration."30
In a similar fashion Namboodiripad defined the role of the United Front
Government in Kerala.31
The monopoly power of the Congress party for the first time since 1947
met with tremendous disillusionment and opposition. And in 9 states the
Congress was dislodged from legislative power. The CPI(M) like all other
revisionist and reactionary parties with all left phrase-mongering
joined the chorus of the non-Congress ministry as the alternative model
for the people. Comrade Stalin said that a communist party "cannot be
a real party if it limits itself to registering what the masses of the
working class feel and think, if it drags at the tail of the spontaneous
movement, if it is unable to overcome the inertia and political
indifference of the spontaneous movement, if it is unable to rise above
the momentary interests of the proletariat, if it is unable to raise the
masses to the level of understanding the class interests of the
proletariat. The Party must stand at the head of the working class; it
must see farther than the working class, it must lead the proletariat,
and not drag at the tail of the spontaneous movement……."32
What we found in India was how the left phrase-mongering leaders
utilized the fight against clearly right revisionism and how the new
party, the CPI(M) basically remained within the boundaries set by
Khruchevite revisionism after the death of comrade Stalin. With the
prospect of power in legislatures, the CPI(M) Polit Bureau scaled down
further from their policies, and got ready to court all political
parties irrespective of their representation of the landlord
big-bourgeois classes. The Polit Bureau statements let out their
policies in an abominable fashion, betraying the revolutionary masses in
India. Apart from the West Bengal and Kerala United Front governments,
for all non-Congress governments the PB decision was such as under.
"We Marxists cannot but feel concerned that in some States the people in
their anti-Congress hatred have voted for alternative parties of the
same vested interests. Even in these States, we are supporting these
non-Congress Governments, so as to prevent Congress Governments being
formed and to give these sections a chance to carry out their promises
to the people, but have refused to join their Governments."33
The CPI held out the model of the Kerala Government of 1958 as the
alternative to the model established by the bold Marxist fighters of
Telengana in more than 2000 villages. The CPI(M), camouflaged as a
leftist, pursued the same model, further abandoning all questions of
class as basic to Marxism. This decay and degradation was allowed to
move further towards complete institutionalizations of a parliamentary
CPI(M). It is necessary here to state that in the late 60s India was
thrust into a varitable crisis on all fronts. The Green Revolution,
Garibi Hatao policy of Indira Gandhi and all such measures were to stem
the tide of popular discontent by addressing the issues of pent-up anger
by calculated measures through a constitutional process of
accommodation.
In 1969 the central Home Ministry diagnosed the non-delivery of promised
services and reforms, especially the failure of land redistribution, as
an underlying cause not only of the land-grab movements, but also of the
Maoist Naxalbari uprising
34
The politics of buying support with patronage and of accommodating the
conflicting demands of a large and heterogeneous interests through
bringing all such interests to fall in line with mainstream politics was
skillfully taken up by the central Government and the CPI(M) led state
governments tried their best to pursue that policy through reform
measures.
A few words are necessary to understand the temporary shift in the right
CPI policy of collaboration with the Congress. It was the massive food
movement targeting the Congress regime and the demands of Soviet foreign
policy induced the CPI to cooperate with the CPI(M). The first United
Front in West Bengal in 1967 was a hotchpotch of power-hungry political
parties with Ajoy Mukherjee, the Bangla Congress leader as Chief
Minister. It is in order to state that this Bangla Congress, a
conspicuous representative of the jotedars having polled 10.4 percent of
the votes against the CPI(M)’s 17.74% and CPI’s 6.32%, was given the
post of Chief Minister. It is a shame that the United Front in West
Bengal in 1967 was inclusive of two M.L.As, one of the Jan Sangh and the
other of the Swatantra Party. The CPI(M) Central Committee announced
that, "The UF Governments that we have now are to be treated and
understood as instruments of struggle in the hands of our people, more
than as a Government that actually possess adequate power, that can
materially and substantially give relief to the people…"35
The struggling peasants of Naxalbari witnessed how much the U.F
Governments could be the instruments of struggle when the armed police
fell on them and killed 7 peasants including women and children.
Actually speaking, it was a cogent proof of Lenin’s warning that the
socialist ministers turn into pawns of the ruling classes. With the
passage of time the CPI(M) ministries cogently proved how befittingly
those can appear as instruments of repression and checking struggles in
the name of saving such ministries. In any case, the first U.F govt.
fell within months and the "Conspiracy Theory" was propagated to
play into the minds of the electorate. It should be reiterated here that
people’s grievances found an outlet with industrial disputes rising from
99 in the last quarter of 1967 to 182 in the first quarter of 1968. The
stir among the peasants increased manifold and the CPI(M) tried to
implement the land reform measures as far as the law permitted.
There appeared a clear rapport between the United Front and the Indira
Gandhi government "based on appreciation of each other’s difficulties
and confrontation yielded place to collaboration"36
This rapprochement was facilitated by the projection of Indira
Gandhi as "progressive" against the Congress (syndicate). Jyoti
Basu shrugged off left vocabulary and encouraged private investment,
addressed the Chambers of Commerce and had a close-door meeting with
Birla, to the discontent of many left forces. While now the CPI leaders
preached to discard "the crude and mechanical anti-Congress line",
the CPI(M) could not then openly follow the pro-Congress stance. It is
to be reminded here that during the trial of strength between the Indira
Gandhi led Congress and the Syndicate Congress over the presidential
candidate it was the CPI(M)’s votes that cleared the path of Indira
Gandhi by electing her candidate V.V. Giri against Sanjiva Reddy.
Prof. Ajit Narayan Bose studied economic reviews of different years
made by West Bengal Government and was driven to the conclusion that _
In this 10-year period from 1991-92 to 2000-01 the discrepancy between
wages including food received by the agricultural labourers and the
state Government determined daily wages stands out to the tune of at
least Rs. 3.32 and at worst Rs. 8.63. The government source also
display, Prof Bose adds, that in 10-year period the loss incurred by
agricultural labourers in respect of wages is a staggering Rs. 7,052
crore.
(Ajit
Narayan Bose, Krishi o krishak, In Majhi, (a Bengali journal),
August-December, 2002, p.52)
The CPI(M) Central Committee went on record that "Under the changed
political situation since the latter half of 1969, our Party, while not
compromising the role of our party as a party of revolutionary
opposition, has been lending certain amount of support to the Central
Government run by the anti-Syndicate wing of the Congress party, in
order to defeat the determined efforts of the Syndicate Swatantra-Jana
Sangh combine and thus ward off the grave danger of this combine taking
over the Central Government."37
Saroj Chakraborty in his book written through personal experience at
the corridors of power goes on record about that situation: "The
Marxists were extending their support to Mrs. Gandhi in parliament which
was crucial for the survival of her government during that period. Both
the leaders reportedly secured a promise from the Prime Minister and
other Central leaders that the ruling Congress had no intention to seek
the displacement of the U.F Government in West Bengal."38
Notes
26. People’s
Democracy Vol, 2, No. 1. January 2, 1966.
27. People’s
Democracy, First Anniversary Number, June 26, 1966.
28. People’s
Democracy, July 10, 1966.
29. Election
Manifesto of the CPI(M), People’s Democracy, November 20, 1966.
30. People’s
Democracy, January 22, 1967.
31. People’s
Democracy, March 19, 1967.
32. J. V.
Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, In Problems of Leninism, Peking, 1976,
p.99.
33. People’s
Democracy, April 6, 1967.
34. India, Home
Ministry, Research and Policy Division. "The Causes and Nature of
Current Agrarian Tensions" New Delhi, 1969, (unpublished), Cited in
Henry C. Hart, Political Leadership in India in Atul Kohli (ed) India’s
Democracy, Orient Longman, 1991, p.32.
35. Communist
Party of India (Marxist), Central Committee Political Report, 10–16
April 1967, New Situation and Party’s Tasks, p.70.
36. Sankar Ghosh,
The Disinherited state: a Study of West Bengal 1967-70, orient Long man,
1971, p.225.
37. Communist
Party of India (Marxist), Central Committee report adopted at Calcutta,
2-7 Feb. 1970, present political situation, pp. 6.
38. Saroj Chakraborty, With West
Bengal Chief Ministers: Memoirs 1962-1977, Orient Longman, Calcutta,
1978, pp. 347-348.
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