Privileged comrades on top

India's two major Communist parties held their triennial conferences within a space of a few weeks. The CPI (M), now the bigger of the two but less evenly spread, elected Sitaram Yechury and the CPI retained Sudhakar Reddy as general secretary. Their `election' -factions had already pre-decided candidates — tell the story of the stagnation in leadership and the dominance of city-bred men with a middle-class lifestyle who share nothing in common with the support base that has been hemorrhaging precisely for this reason. In contrast the mettle of the first generation of Communist leaders was tempered in the crucible of huge mass movements - Telengana, Tebhaga and Punaapra-Vayalar — and many attempts to crush their spirit by foisting Peshawar, Kanpur and Meerut conspiracy cases on charges of attempting to overthrow the state. 

They spent years underground, had their properties auctioned and were repeatedly imprisoned. Many were murdered by an array of characters — landlords in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar and UP, the underground in Manipur and Assam, militants in Punjab and J & K, mill owners in Maharashtra and Gujarat — reflecting diverse roots they had struck all over the country. Yechury and Reddy can hardly claim those years of deprivation or lives spent living with the tribals and the landless.   

The fault may be with the first generation which clung to posts for too long. Also, neither they nor the ones who followed could understand the reasons for the collapse of the Warsaw Pact countries or the Chinese double-speak. So while they lost credibility with the masses, their slogans sounded Fabian with the result that teachers, scientists and cultural activists who gave the Communist parties the intellectual ballast no longer found them attractive. The Communists represented the quest for an equitable society, an idea that never fades but mutates in various forms. With the steady decline of the Communists, it may be time for a new formation with a fresh approach to take on the mantle.