Wayanad and the Indian Left

Rajesh Ramachandran

From the turn of the 20th century, the Left was the only ideological and political entity that could run on its own idealistic steam to compete with, contest and at times even outperform the Gandhian democratic mainstream. Even when the Communist Party of India collaborated with the British to betray the 1942 Quit India movement, the party could spin a web of excuses of socialist internationalism and the global fight against fascism to awkwardly justify its gross lack of understanding of the colonial reality. The party still captured the imagination of the youth because it represented their impatience for radical change and instilled in them the spirit of the French Revolution. The Indian feudal structure, meticulously measured, organised and strengthened by the British colonial administrators, had to be broken down and now.

The Gandhian incrementalist reform was too slow for these revolutionaries of Telangana and Punnapra-Vayalar, who genuinely believed in the bloody overthrow of an oppressive feudal order. Ironically, most of the first-generation Indian communist leaders like P Sundarayya and EMS Namboodiripad were Gandhians-turned-revolutionaries. Their misplaced trust in the Russian or Chinese communist leadership apart, they were individuals who genuinely brought about transformative social change in their spheres of activity. The Telangana and the Kerala Left movements did change the lives of lakhs of people. And when in power, these first-generation communists did use the legislative process in the best traditions of parliamentary democracy to give land to tillers and rights to workers.

But their successors are in an existential crisis. They are either unable or unfit to explain their party’s raison d’être. And they stooped to the level of the worst unnamed trolls when the Malayalam mouthpiece of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in its editorial termed Rahul Gandhi ‘Pappu’. Rahul, to his credit, after filing his nomination from Wayanad in Kerala, told reporters that he would not respond to attacks from the CPM. But that did not deter the CPM state party chief or the Chief Minister from spewing venom at Rahul. Now, why is the CPM, the so-called bulwark of secularism and the vanguard in the fight against the BJP, behaving exactly like the BJP?

Well, Rahul’s candidature from Wayanad is an eye-opener. It tells us a lot about the Congress and also the Left. First of all, it means that the Congress and its leadership are the best practitioners of power politics, completely devoid of all fraternal or ideological baggage when it comes to supreme self-interest. Amethi was getting shaky and Rahul Gandhi had to seek a secure second seat and Wayanad was probably the best choice with its Christian and Muslim voters rooting for the Congress. The Left, particularly the CPI, had helped Indira Gandhi wrest power from the Syndicate during the Congress split in the 1960s. The CPI became an official ally of the Congress all through the 1970s till the Emergency excesses made the communists cringe. By then it was very late. Soon the CPI got emaciated and the CPM became the bigger Left party. But the CPM-led Left, too, helped the Congress grab power in 2004. Till the Indo-US nuclear deal did them part. 

But the unkindest cut of all was the Congress-Trinamool Congress alliance that broke the 35-year spell of the Left rule in West Bengal in 2011. The Left rulers were getting unpopular after firing at the peasants of Nandigram, protests for the Singur land and the brutal murder of a Muslim youth, Rizwanur Rahman. Yet, the Left believed that it would continue to win if the Opposition of West Bengal — that is, the Trinamool Congress and the Congress — fought separately. But sensing the mood of the people, these two came together to throw out one of the most inefficient governments in India, one that did precious little for the poor, Dalits and the minorities. The Sachar Committee had concluded earlier that the Muslims of West Bengal were the worst off among Indian Muslims. So, the Congress had taken every opportunity to decimate the Left and occupy its electoral space, comprising the poor and the minorities.

Despite his talk of tackling the BJP as his prime opponent, Rahul’s southern foray is a clear attempt to maximise the seats from a state which traditionally has a strong Congress base. The CPM had played a dubious game to push a section of the Hindu voters into the waiting laps of the saffron parivar by taking a stridently anti-devout stand on the Sabarimala issue. Even the Kerala High Court had accused the government of double standards because in a Church case, the same government had consistently refused to implement the Supreme Court order. The CPM’s attempts to polarise the Kerala society, to push the devout away from the Congress into the BJP corner and to grab minority votes seem to have got scuttled with Rahul’s entry.

In Bengal earlier, and now in Kerala, the Left has become an election-winning machinery, always eyeing the Opposition votes, splitting the Opposition and playing minority politics by leaning on the most corrupt religious elements. Otherwise, why would the Bengal state unit of the CPM blame its then general secretary Prakash Karat for the party’s loss in the state? Refusing to acknowledge all that was wrong in the state’s developmental politics, the Bengal unit bemoaned the Trinamool-Congress alliance, as if it is the Opposition’s duty to keep the ruling party afloat!

Worse is the case with the Kerala Left, which now forgets all political etiquette to call Rahul names. It is not Rahul’s job to ensure the Left’s victory in Kerala. Nor is it BJP’s role to cut the Congress votes to keep the Left in power. Manipulative politics can only go so far, after that it is a political party’s capability to transform the society which keeps it relevant. Meanwhile, a question remains unanswered: if the Left’s sole raison d’être is to keep the Congress in power in Delhi, why have a separate existence at all? Why not merge the party with the Congress? After all, the Congress will get some good musclemen in Kerala and spokesmen adept at sophistry in Delhi.