Former CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat’s thesis, that “politics is just not yes and no”, is his latest contribution to Marxist dialectics apart from being a reality check on friends and foes. Since it recalls Lord Palmerstone’s 19th century aphorism that “nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests”, Karat’s formulation underlines the similarity of proletarian and bourgeois assessments in times of stress. In the CPI(M)’s case, if there is a possibility of the “no” to an alliance with the Congress in 2008 being replaced by a “yes” now, the reason is that the miscalculations of seven years ago have become obvious. However, the folly of that rupture between the Left and the Congress because of the Indo-US nuclear deal was apparent even then.
As Nobel laureate Amartya Sen said at the time, “I wouldn’t have thought it (the nuclear deal) is a life-and-death issue… I would not have thought it is a reason for pulling a government down”. In the event, the government did not fall and even became stronger following the Congress’s success in the 2009 elections. Instead, it was the Marxists who suffered severe electoral reverses.
Hence, perhaps, their present contemplation of a U-turn to recover lost ground. But so much has changed in the last seven years that a retracing of steps may be a futile exercise. For a start, the Congress is much weaker today. If it was the leading partner in the alliance with the Left in the 2004-08 period, the shoe is now in the other foot with the Congress looking to the CPI(M) to lift it up by the bootstraps in West Bengal. However, the CPI(M) itself is weaker than it ever was in the state and at the national level. The large crowd at its last rally in Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata may have reminded the party of its hey-day. But the party cannot be unaware that if there is any increase in its acceptability, the reason is chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s inability to control her rampaging cadres.
At the same time, the Marxists also know that the lawlessness is reminiscent of the troubled times when they were in power. Indeed, the belief is that today’s Trinamool rowdy is yesterday’s CPI(M) hoodlum.There will also be doubts about the assurances of the Bengal comrades to revive the industry since it will be recalled that if Mamata Banerjee had evicted the Tatas from Singur, the Marxist hardliners, too, were not too pleased with Buddhadeb Bhattacharya’s flirtations with a “neo-liberal” economy. The CPI(M)’s defeat in 2011 was ascribed by them to Bhattacharya’s pro-market policies.
The history of the gulf between the party’s central and West Bengal leaders is a long one, going back to the “July crisis” of 1979 when the West Bengal state committee opposed the decision of the central leaders to bring down the Morarji Desai government with the Congress’s tacit help.
In a private conversation with reporters, the veteran leader, Promode Dasgupta, described the action of his party’s central leaders as the handiwork of the “Soviet lobby”. The Soviet Union was no longer in existence in 1996, but the differences between the comrades in Delhi and in Kolkata persisted with the former denying Jyoti Basu the chance to become prime minister – a decision which was subsequently described by Basu as a “historic blunder”.
Karat was the man behind the “blunder” and also the decision in 2008 to withdraw support to the Manmohan Singh government which is now being seen as an erroneous step. On both these occasions, the central and state leaders had opposing views. It is perhaps as a concession to this fact of the two not always seeing eye to eye that the CPI(M) has now decided to leave the matter of forming an alliance with the Congress – or not doing so – to the state committee.There’s many a slip, however, between the cup and the lip. Even if the West Bengal Congress is apparently eager for a tie-up with the Left, it is not known whether it will be able to resist any olive branch which a jittery Mamata Banerjee may hold out to her former ally in the state.
It is curious that virtually all the players in this game of tie-ups are in a weak position. It is not only the Congress and the CPI(M) which have seen better days, the BJP, too, is not as secure at the centre as it was after its general election victory. Of the three, the worst off is the CPI(M) whose tally of Lok Sabha seats fell to nine in 2014 from 16 in 2009 and 44 in 2004. In West Bengal, the Marxists could win only two of the 42 parliamentary seats against nine in 2009.
The vote share of the Left also dropped to 29.6 per cent in West Bengal in 2014 from 43.3 five years earlier. It is to be seen whether the expectations of a 40 per cent vote share for a Left-Congress alliance, as a West Bengal Congress leader has informed Sonia Gandhi, come true.
(IPA Service)
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