An imperfect compromise

KV Prasad

Last week generated considerable excitement in national politics with tidings emanating from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) that two divergent views in the party converged in its approach towards the Indian National Congress.

For a party that split from the parent Communist Party of India 50-odd years back over differences with the former’s willingness to accommodate the Congress, the CPI (M) at Hyderabad preferred to endorse a nuanced stance of having no political alliance with the Congress without being categorical on the possibility of an understanding, with the Grand Old Party (GOP).

In the process, hardliners led by former general secretary Prakash Karat  who were advocating ‘no truck with the Congress’(the Kerala line) as opposed to the pragmatic Bengal line pursued by general secretary Sitaram Yechury, were successful in arriving at an agreed political line that remains valid till the next triennial party congress.

The denouement was a perfect compromise for the proponents of these approaches, which the majority Kerala line had effectively rejected in earlier rounds while the minority Bengal line continued to pursue tenaciously until the last. Either camp could claim victory and general secretary Yechury succinctly articulated the tightrope walk formula that unity remains preserved.

In the run-up to the Hyderabad Party Congress, the Bengal line pursuers faced a series of  reverses in party fora, starting with the Politburo and later the central committee that actually voted to reject the “understanding with the Congress’’ formulation. Determined opposition to this came mostly from  comrades in Kerala and others in the South who thought the idea bordered close to blasphemy of the Marxist ideology. After all, Kerala, one of three strongholds of the CPI (M)-led Left Democratic Front, is always in direct contest with the Congress-led United Democratic Front.

Adding punch to this argument was the miserable result from the 2017 West Bengal Assembly elections experiment, where the CPI (M) under Yechury and the Congress under Rahul Gandhi arrived at a pact; something that was unthinkable for a party that came up in the 1970s vigorously fighting the GOP in the state.

Yet, as the days progressed and as comrades began trickling in at Hyderabad, situation was altering dramatically for the hardliners what with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) uprooting the CPI (M) government in Tripura after three decades. The massive jolt in the Northeastern state now meant that there was just one citadel to defend — Kerala,  while in all other places, the Left in general and the CPI (M) in particular have lost a lot of political ground.

The options were extremely limited and the hardliners pushed into a corner. With the general election just a year away and the BJP — under the dual leadership of PM Modi and president Amit Shah — creating a pan-Indian presence, the principal opponent was clear. The question was how best to counter and mount a formidable challenge.

Pushing the idea of a third alternative comprising secular and democratic forces sans the Congress was unworkable, even though the CPI (M) saw some green shoots emerging in the form of limited success in heralding struggles, as in the case of Maharashtra farmers’ march to Mumbai, farmers’ stir in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh, tribal people in  Jharkhand, or similar mass movements elsewhere. These would require greater thrust and effort to replicate on a national scale.

Just as in the previous edition of the 21st congress, the CPI (M) recognised that the BJP under PM Modi is the central target, holding it responsible for the intensification of neo-liberal policies, pursuit of the Hindutva agenda, and erosion in the secular democratic framework of the Constitution.

Differences with the Congress remain over its pursuit of neo-liberal policies but the similarity with the BJP ends there. The CPI (M) discerns that the BJP under the RSS is frontloading the Hindutva agenda and attack on the Dalits and minorities, which must be resisted with all political might.

The task requires maximising or pooling of all secular and democratic forces to challenge the BJP-led NDA in a three-pronged manner — cooperation in Parliament on agreed issues; broad mobilisation of people against communal threat outside Parliament; and work on joint actions of all class and mass organisations, including trade unions, intellectuals, academia, artists et al.

A distilled outcome of the political resolution now reads: “Thus, the main task is to defeat the BJP and its allies by rallying all secular and democratic forces. But this has to be done without having a political alliance with the Congress party”. [In place of the now deleted sentence, “However, this has to be done without having an understanding or electoral alliance with the Congress party.”]

Now, comes the practical part of how this could play out. For one, the Left parties under the CPI (M) realise that after the rout in Agartala, the party faces an uphill task even in retaining the two Lok Sabha seats from Tripura. In West Bengal, the CPI (M) managed to win just two seats in the 2014 general election as against four by the Congress. The BJP has managed to emerge as the principal opponent to the Trinamool Congress of Mamata Banerjee, with the Left and the Congress taking the other two slots.

The real battleground for the Left will be Kerala, where it is essentially a direct contest with the Congress-led UDF. Here, the BJP, supported by the RSS, remains a distant third. In all other parts of the country, the CPI (M) fields candidates to register its presence, and promises to campaign for secular parties where it has little or no stake.

In the case of regional parties, some remain aligned with the BJP. With the others, as in the past, the CPI (M) and the Left can continue to have an understanding with the Samajwadi Party in UP, the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar and the DMK in Tamil Nadu. These regional players will be the lead parties in challenging the BJP juggernaut in the respective states.

Except presenting a broad picture of unity among the parties in the Opposition on the single agenda of taking on the BJP, the possibility of having a seat adjustment, or an open understanding with the Congress, remains a distant proposition. Of course, despite the limitations of the 2015 party line, general secretary Yechury worked out an unlikely arrangement with the GOP in Bengal, surprising many political pundits. As the 2019 general election approaches, who knows how parties team up. After all, as the saying goes, politics is the art of possibilities.