The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has perhaps passed through its darkest chapter under Prakash Karat, with its share dipping to a mere nine seats across India in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, from a peak of 43 in 2004. There could hardly have been the manifestation of a greater failure than under Karat’s decade-long stewardship of the party.
Among the three states in which it has a tangible presence, only in tiny Tripura is it now in power. In West Bengal where it held sway for 34 long years, it is a virtual non-entity, winning only two seats from the state in 2014, maintaining the trend of shrinking further with every parliamentary and assembly election. In Kerala too, it has been relegated to the status of sitting in the opposition with a lacklustre Congress in the saddle. As with any new incumbent, Sitaram Yechury, the newly-chosen general secretary of the party in succession to Prakash Karat inspires hope, but the proof of the pudding will lie in its eating.
There indeed is no dearth of challenges for Yechury but there is a silver lining in the fact that unlike Karat who was a status quoist, and not a man for challenging times, Yechury is a doer with a youthful exuberance and a fair degree of dynamism.There is no mistaking the fact that Yechury’s heart lies in modernising the party mechanism and leading it “back to the future.”
By Indian political standards, Yechury is young. He is 63, while his challenger in the final phase of decision-making for the top slot, Ramachandran Pillai, is 78. Yechury is a product of St. Stephen’s College and then Delhi’s famed Jawaharlal Nehru University and was mentored by the shrewd and wily Harkishan Singh Surjeet, who was CPI (M)’s leader during a turbulent period of political history.
While under Karat, it was the Kerala unit of the party that dominated, under Yechury, it is West Bengal that is expected to call the shots. If that effectively points to a possible revival of the West Bengal CPI (M) from the depths to which it has fallen, it would be a blessing in disguise. Under Karat the West Bengal unit was in the doldrums, the BJP took advantage of the vacuum and built itself up as a challenger to the Trinamool Congress. Now, the CPI (M) will have both the TC and the BJP to fight, thanks to the utter wastage of the Karat era. So abject has been the party’s performance that it runs the risk of losing its recognition as a national party unless two of its independent candidates from Kerala join the parliamentary party.
To top it all, the party has been besieged by factionalism and allegations of political murder, corruption and lifestyles that don’t befit Communists. The most popular CPM leader in the state, V S Achuthanandan, loses no opportunity to take potshots at the party leadership. He recently even used the central committee meeting to launch a broadside against the party leadership in the state.
Yechury can be expected to strive for making the party acceptable beyond West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura and breathe new life into it. His oratorical skills, both in English and Hindi, will stand him in good stead in his endeavour to reach out to people in the North, but it would be no mean task to rejuvenate the party after the poor state in which Karat has left its cadres.
There is indeed no escape for Yechury — first he has to try and set things in order in Kerala and West Bengal before venturing into other territories, but it will be uncharacteristic of him to refrain from putting his finger into many pies.
One of Yechury’s first statements after he took over as general secretary was that the merger of CPI (M) and CPI will certainly happen in the future, though there is no timeframe for it. The new party general secretary’s performance will be judged by how effective he proves to be in bringing the two to work in harmony and unison. A merger, however, seems a formidable task.
Replying to a query on the challenges before him, Yechury said the challenges before him are to strengthen the party, build the unity of Left forces, and bring the Left and democratic forces together. “Our priority will be on how to move forward on the basis of our struggle against the economic policies that are imposed resulting in greater burden on our people, and the communal ideology which is dividing our country and the people,” said the new CPI (M) general secretary.
Last October, a document on its political-tactical line prepared by the party politburo had exposed the ideological and personality conflicts within the party. The document, written by Prakash Karat, was vetoed mainly because of dissensions by two politburo members – Sitaram Yechury and B V Raghavulu – who had moved separate notes to amend the draft. Yechury’s target, although subtle, appeared to be Karat, when he argued that the party’s decline was not because of its tactics, but because of the failure to implement. Now, if the failure continues, Yechury will have no one to blame but himself. So the stakes are high for him, as he dons the mantle of CPI (M) general secretary.
While seeking to set his own house in order, Yechury will also be called upon to take a clear stand on the communal issue. His anti-BJP stand has been consistent, but will that push him closer to the Congress once again? Will he move closer to the Mulayam-Nitish-Lalu combine and accept playing second fiddle to them? In the ultimate analysis, the Karat era was a disaster for the CPI (M), but will the Yechury era spell revival for the beleaguered party? Only time will tell, but Yechury does have it in him to deliver, albeit moderately.
