The Praful Bidwai Column
Indian communists at a crossroads
AFTER the triennial con-gresses of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM), where are they headed? The CPs' (CP) highest decision-making bodies met at a crucial juncture, when their support to the United Progressive Alliance is critical to the government's survival, and when they're expected to formulate new strategies.
The CPI congress at Hyderabad and the CPM congress at Coimbatore debated policies in the light of Nandigram and special economic zones (SEZ), discussed internal differences, and decided on leadership succession.
They creditably maintained their tradition of open, democratic debate, and discussed hundreds of amendments to their 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 commands great moral authority, and speaks for the underprivileged in ways that no other mainstream parties do.
The CPs exert a healthy influence on politics. If they didn't exist, we'd have to invent them!
Yet, their congresses made no breakthrough on a strategy through which to stem membership erosion, draw in young cadres, and extend their influence.
The CPs failed to formulate coherent alternatives to the UPA's neo-liberal orientation. The CPM's West Bengal unit remains obsessed with industrialisation at any cost, on terms laid down by private capital, as in the case of Tata's car factory.
The CPM has no principled quarrel with SEZs as a means of industrialisation, involving massive tax-breaks and displacement, which bleeds the exchequer and yet produces very few 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, there's a "mad rush" in India to set up 400 zones: "There should be some restriction on (their number) … There should be some ceiling on allotting land ... 50 percent … should be earmarked for industry, another 25percent for related infrastructure … SEZs are not for the real estate business…"
However, the SEZs approved so far are located in only 53 of India's 600-plus districts. Just 20 urban districts account for 71percent of them, and 82% of their land-area.
Two-thirds are in information technology. These can be easily converted into high-value real estate. Thus, most SEZs might be land scams, with their worth mainly in property rather than productive investment.
The CPs also lack an ideologically consistent policy on organised retail, which is extremely predatory upon poor hawkers, vegetable vendors and petty shopkeepers. In Kerala, they oppose it, irrespective of ownership. In West Bengal, they only oppose multinational chains. But domestic ones are no less destructive.
The CPs are disillusioned with the UPA's neo-liberalism. They're right to demand course correction, especially measures to redress agrarian distress and control prices. But they must ask why, despite their leverage over the UPA, they failed to stop/reverse some policies.
Again, they're right in saying 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 held the UPA 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 Mr Bhattacharjee. The Left governments' "weaknesses," it said, have a countrywide "negative impact." So "it's important that the entire party has a unified understanding" of its state government's policies.
Nevertheless, the CPM's governmental wing got the party to agree that, in the states where it rules, people cannot "wait indefinitely" for solutions until big national-level changes happen.
This means that neo-liberal "pragmatism" will prevail in the statesalthough nationally, the CPM will oppose US imperialism and Right-wing agendas.
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 independent foreign policy.
The key to their failure, whether on economic or political-strategic issues, lies in lack of mass mobilisation, which they've subordinated to parliamentary preoccupations. Wherever the CPs have taken to the streets, or joined grassroots movements, they have had far greater success.
The CPs rightly see communalism as the greatest danger facing India. 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 it. 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 (TDP), all its constituents are making overtures to other partiesthe AIADMK to the BJP, the Samajwadi Party (SP) to the Congress.
In its anti-price rise campaign, then, the Left will effectively join hands with the SP and TDP. The SP recently cut shady deals with the BJP in UP, including helping Mr. 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 Mr. S Sudhakar Reddy as General Secretary AB Bardhan's deputy.
The CPM has experienced a full generational change. With the retirement of H.S. Surjeet and Jyoti Basu, none of the nine founding members sits on its politburo, which now has no members from the North either
The induction of three new members into the CPM politburoMohammed Amin, Nirupam Sen and Kodiyeri Balakrisnhnansends the wrong message.
Although a trade unionist, Mr. Amin opposes strikesexcept as a weapon of last resort. Mr. Sen is staunchly neo-liberal. Mr. Balakrishnan's entry will aggravate factionalism in Kerala.
None of this augurs well for the CPs.
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