The sorry saga of a factionalised CPM and an insecure Congress

“By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher”

The timeless tip about marriage is commonly attributed to Socrates, the Greek philosopher who had a profound influence on ancient and modern philosophy. It is a pity that Communism was unheard of in 470 BCE, so we have no way of knowing what the ancient Athenian would have made of it. But the quote mentioned above about conjugal relationship and the frequent fights that — according to Socrates — spice up marriages can just as well be applied to comrades in India who are each on the verge of turning into profound philosophers, going by the way they are found bickering at every given opportunity. And on the subject of marriages, in this domestic potboiler, the Congress has emerged as the proverbial other woman (or man, if you like) who has been sulking and throwing jealous fits at the way the triangular love affair is taking shape. [caption id=“attachment_2735000” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Well may the Left in India battle for political relevance; scratch a comrade even lightly and highfalutin theories about ‘democratic centralism’ will ooze out. The chaotic scenes that dominated the CPM’s three-day Central Committee meeting in New Delhi, however, saw neither democracy nor centralism, rather a Bollywood style fight sequence between the Sitaram Yechury and Prakash Karat camps. It is reliably learnt that comrades these days are having a hard time raising party funds. Telecasting live on prime time, the T20 match between CPM’s squabbling factions would have ensured a steady stream of revenue. As the dust settled in the meeting of CPM’s highest decision-making body that was held to assess the Assembly poll results, what emerged was that Jagmati Sangwan, women’s rights activist and a senior Central Committee member, has been expelled on grounds of “gross indiscipline”. Sangwan, a member of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), had been severely critical of the Bengal unit’s decision to tie up with the Congress ahead of West Bengal Assembly elections which resulted in a humiliating loss for the Left Front with the party finishing with just 26 of 294 seats, its worst performance in 40 years in a state in which it had ruled uninterrupted for 34 years till 2011. The Congress, with 44 seats, in effect became the senior partner. She wanted the Central Committee to take action against Bengal leaders and sought the resignation of Surjya Kanta Mishra, the secretary of CPM’s Bengal unit, on the ground that by aligning with a ’neoliberal’ party, the leaders have violated the party’s sacrosanct political-tactical line (PTL) which was adopted during the Vishakhapatnam party conclave. Sangwan found support from the Left’s leaders from Kerala, Tripura and Assam units with Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan advocating that for the CPM, both the BJP and the Congress were “equal enemies”. “I told the meeting it was a wrong decision to have the tie-up, which was a violation of the party’s political-tactical line,” Sangwan was quoted, as saying by news agency PTI. “The political-tactical line and democratic centralism are the lifeline of a communist party, which have to be maintained at all cost,” she said. But the CPM, which professes to go by the book and prides itself on its inner-party discipline, failed to take action against the Bengal leaders who transgressed the fabled PTL and went ahead to clasp the Congress in a desperate embrace. And when voices were raised against the violation, the CPM could do little beyond drawing up a resolution which mirrored the statement it had released in May after a Politburo meeting, that “the electoral tactics adopted in West Bengal was not in consonance with the decision not to have an alliance or understanding with the Congress.” It just added three more words, that this violation of the party line “should be rectified”. It was, in all purposes, a thoroughly lame attempt at ensuring party discipline, ostensibly because the Bengal leadership led by Mishra and Biman Bose defiantly argued that the alliance was a matter of survival with some leaders from the state threatening to even resign. That this blackmailing tactic worked became clear when instead of the leaders who had crossed the line, it was Sangwan who resigned in protest and was later expelled. Consider the predicament of a party which holds ‘democratic centralism’ as its guiding principle. Adopted in 1921 by the 10th Congress of the All-Russian Communist Party in the form of a resolution written by Vladimir Lenin, the code holds that free discussion within the party should be tolerated and even encouraged up to a point, but, once a vote was taken, all discussion had to end. The decision of the majority should constitute the current party “line” and be binding upon all members. In a way, the Bengal leaders can’t be faulted. The party faces a bleak future in the state. Mamata Banerjee has usurped the leftist-socialist platform and has rendered the CPM politically and ideologically irrelevant. For a party that is fighting against total erosion of base, clutching at any straws is inevitable. The tie-up with Congress did not result in electoral benefits, but at least it saved the CPM from becoming just a letterhead. The Bengal leaders are believed to have made the point in the meeting that political-tactical party line carries little sense for a party that is going through an existential crisis. Any “rectification” of this desperate measure may result in either factionalisation — the glimpse of what was witnessed in Delhi on Monday — or obliteration of the signboard. The Congress, meanwhile, has been keeping an eye on proceedings and feeling understandably nervous. If the alliance breaks in Bengal, then the Mamata juggernaut will flatten India’s Grand Old Party as well. Hence, senior Congress leader and party MP Pradip Bhattacharya, one of the architects of the alliance, said: “We can very well understand that this decision of rectifying the alliance with Congress has been driven by blind anti-Congress stance of a section of CPM leaders. I will say, if they back out of the people’s alliance and betray the hopes of masses, then it will be a historic blunder on the part of the CPM." The weird courtship of two fading forces make for a gripping, if sorry spectacle.