Much to the BJP’s delight, three rabid anti-BJP, anti-RSS parties - the Congress, the CPM and the RJD - have been badly pulverised in the recent Parliament election by the unprecedented saffron avalanche. Not just electoral loss, the poll results have set off first-rate leadership crisis in the Congress and the RJD while the CPM, being a cadre-based party with strong organisational structure, has managed to maintain its sanity. Regional parties like the TMC, NCP JMM, RLD, SP, BSP, RSLP, JMM, AAP and INLD in the north and east were also decimated. But the defeat of Congress, CPM and RJD, credible and consistent fighters of communal ideology, should be worrying for the Left and Left-of-Centre forces for these parties have lost their ability to make forceful political interventions in and outside Parliament.
After the Central Committee meeting last week, that diagnosed the reasons for CPM's poll debacle, general secretary Sitaram Yechury said, “The logical corollary of an ascendant Right wing is a growing space for the Left.” Is the post-May political matrix that simple? Given the disarray in the Opposition camp, only a divine intervention can bring the Left and Left-of-Centre forces together before the next Lok Sabha polls.
The CPM has learnt to have observed that the party failed in “politicisation” of the masses. Besides the bread and butter issues, a primary component of this campaign is educating the masses about the dangers of ultra-Right propaganda based on lies, fake news and hyped jingoism that is injurious to liberal democracy. While the left, liberal, secular and democratic forces are failing to unite to take on the fundamentalists with synchronised activity, the RSS, BJP’s ideological mentor, activated thousands of its “shakhas” for political campaigning besides mobilising 300-odd groups comprising Babas, Ashrams, Mutts, wellness and yoga gurus under one common platform to muscle BJP campaign.
That parties like the CPM and Congress failed in “politicisation of masses” is evident from the poor voter response to the dismal governance record of the Modi government. Rahul Gandhi vigorously flagged many issues including Rafale jet deal but they failed to resonate with the people. The CPM was the first political entity to master the art of politicisation of masses and that had helped the party create a committed vote bank. Its grass-root level study classes imparted training and knowledge to the cadre on a wide range of issues that deepened their political understanding. While the RSS has now perfected the art of politicisation of the masses, the comrades have become victims of complacency; the study classes and political mobilisation have lost their import. The situation now is so grave that in Kerala, the party had to hire volunteers on daily wages to bolster its political campaign, lamented a Kerala comrade.
Indian politics is no longer conventional. Mind-blowing money, social media, fake news, institutional subversion and a compromised media play a critical role in the elections. Yet, the Marxist mandarins, rather than focusing on the ultra-Right, continue to target Centre of Left forces undermining the war against jingoism and communalism. The CPM wasted several decades discussing why it should not have an electoral understanding with bourgeoisie parties (read non-Left parties, socialists and Lohiaites). This flawed strategy constricted space for liberal democracy as jingoism and communalism took deep roots. Safeguarding liberal democracy, that is under attack now, is a big challenge to the CPM, Congress and all bona fide secular parties in the country today.
The Central Committee blamed Congress and other parties for disunity in the secular camp conveniently forgetting the fact that the CPM itself refused to have an electoral understanding with the Congress on the specious ground that the latter pursued the neo-liberal economic policy. Barring Tamil Nadu (thanks to the State unit), the CPM was not part of any Opposition alliance against BJP anywhere in the country.
“The Opposition parties, the Congress, in particular, failed to put in place the unity of secular opposition parties that were being projected in the run-up to the elections. A campaign to safeguard secularism as against communal offensive was not conducted. Soft Hindutva is not the answer for hardcore Hindutva. The ideological battle between Hindutva and secularism was not forcefully conducted,” said the party communique after the CC meeting. In fact, the CPM was divided on whether or not to take the Congress on board in the fight against BJP. In the last two decades, umpteen number of CC and PB meetings failed to resolve the differences over the party’s political-tactical line because of the rigid anti-Congress stand adopted by the Kerala lobby led by Prakash Karat. Perhaps for the first time, sources said, a chastened party concurred that the Central Committee and Politburo must take responsibility for the dismal electoral performance.
It is apparent that the party learned nothing from its earlier poll debacles. The 2015 Kolkata plenum had appointed three Commissions to study the required structural changes that have taken place in the urban middle class, agrarian as wells industrial sector. The Commissions had submitted their reports with recommendations that included: how to overhaul and reorient the organisational structure and how to reconnect with masses through mass contact. But no serious follow-up, the action was taken. The state units which were supposed to assess how the party’s basic classes - the working class, peasantry and the agricultural labour - voted did not do a proper job, sources said.
As of now, there is nothing to show that the Opposition hasn't understood - the enormity of the crisis in its camp or how potent the cash rich behemoth, the BJP is. Yehcury’s solace that the logical corollary of an ascendant Right wing is a growing space for the Left and his assumption that “the new polarisation will be between the Left and the Right”, will remain mere wishful thinking in the absence of equal action and opposite reaction by all the stakeholders.
-Kay Benedict
The writer is an independent journalist.
