Collapse of Leftist Front

The election to the fifteenth Lok Sabha is a landmark in the politics of India in more than one sense. Each of its aspects is being discussed or will be discussed by political analysts. In particular, the contribution of Dr Manmohan Singh’s personality and the policies of his government, Rahul Gandhi’s role, specially in UP, weaknesses of the main Opposition, the BJP, and confusion in the Third and Fourth Fronts are being held responsible for the spectacular victory of the Congress.

What I have missed in the entire debate is the real causes of the debacle of the Left which could win only 25 seats against 61 in 2004. The CPM, which is the core of the Left, could get only 15 seats against 43 last time. Its much trumpeted ambition of installing a non-Congress and non-BJP government at the Centre was thus dashed to the ground. Against this the UPA has got an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha.

Out of the two bastions of the Left, namely, Kerala and West Bengal, the former is used to periodic changes in loyalty of the voters from the Left Democratic Front to the Congress-led United Democratic Front. But West Bengal has been a citadel of the Leftists for over three decades and a show-piece of communism in India. In this State, the Congress-Trinamul Congress alliance with 25 seats has trounced the CPM which got only nine seats while its allies CPI got two, RSP two and Forward Bloc two. The collapse of this Left citadel is a puzzle for political pundits and disap-pointment for all those who wanted a secular progressive Opposition as a pressure group for the pro-poor policies of the Central Government, at least to balance the monopoly of the Opposition by the Right.

West Bengal was supposed to be a test case for the economic policies of the Leftists. But since the initial momentum of radical land reforms exhausted, the deprivation index of the rural poor there is as bad as in the backward States of UP, Orissa and Bihar. The latest trend shows that West Bengal is gradually replacing these States in exporting manpower to States like Haryana and Punjab for manual work.

There is another angle to view the West Bengal debacle. The sentiment of Bengali patriotism had always influenced the political behaviour of the Bengalis. Jyoti Basu, above all, symbolised Bengali assertion against the Central authority. The new leadership in the State has been unable to give adequate expression to that sentiment.

The same people at one time hailed Subhas Chandra Bose as their hero. He was, of course, no less popular in the rest of the country as he led the movement of militant nationalism. But he was not owned by the national movement led by Gandhi. Moreover West Bengal is the only State where the party he founded, namely, the Forward Bloc, has remained active and is alive today. It is a part of the CPM-led coalition government. The Communists were most vociferous in condemning Bose as an agent of fascism.

In between Shyama Prasad Mukerjee, the founder President of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, became the most popular leader of West Bengal. His death in a Kashmir jail in 1953 was far more deeply mourned and protests against it were much stronger in the State than elsewhere.

It was certainly the genius of Jyoti Basu and his comrades that they could finally make Marxism as a symbol and expression of Bengali patriotism. Though it represented the mainstream of Bengali called bhadralok, it did not make adequate allowance for diversities within the State.

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Traditionally Bengali patriotism had two divergent streams. One was represented by Bankum Chandra Chatterjee who, in his works like Anand Math, which gave us the national song Bande Mataram, had a pro-Hindu and anti-Muslim bias. The other stream was represented by cosmopolitan personalities like Tagore and M.N. Roy.

Even under the Marxist regime, the Muslims nursed a feeling of neglect. They got an opportunity to register their protest in Nandigram last year. Its Muslim majority, represented by the Jamiat-e-Ulema, clashed with armed CPM cadres, whom they accused of committing excesses against local Muslims. Mamata Banerjee intervened to support them.

Soon thereafter, they staged strong protests when the dead body of a Muslim technocrat, Rizwanur Rehman, who had fallen in love with the daughter of a Hindu industrialist, was found near a railway track. The same mood got expression in demonstrations for the externment of Taslima Nasrin, a Bangledeshi writer accused in her country of sacrilege writing.

Further ammunition was provided to the agitated Muslims by the report of the Sachar Committee which highlighted the fact that Muslim representation in various fields was among the lowest in West Bengal. Dalits, Adivasis and ethnic minorities, who had also a feeling of being marginalised, too, got an opportunity to join the Opposition ranks.

Rural Bengal was another fortress of the Leftists which was so regimented that it looked impregnable. Most of the ration dealers were party workers. They mediated in family disputes and took up problems at higher levels. The Leftists had a sort of clientist relations with the rural people. The voice of the suffocated people also got an expression as the Opposition made headaway.

The Leftist leaders might do an introspection and review their ideological, political and strategic policies. They must not only make a deeper study of the ground realities but also grow with the changing global and national situation.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, most of the Communist Parties in Europe converted themselves into social democratic parties. Ironically by the same time the democratic socialist movement in India had collapsed. The Communists had the opportunity of filling the gap.

Nehru was very keen to see the Socialists grow as an Opposition party in India. He had invited Jayaprakash Narayan to be his Deputy Prime Minister and the Socialist Party to join in the coalition government, so that it gained experience and strength. But JP rejected the offer and later started a movement for a partyless system. The Socialists, who were strongest Opposition party in the Nehru era, disappeared from the political scene of India. Its reasons cannot be discussed here.

Now it is the responsibility of the Communists to build a broadbased Leftist alliance which could play the role of a secular progressive Opposition (that is so vital for the success of democracy) and represent the interests of the downtrodden and aspirations of all ethnic and regional diversities of the country. It could supplement the efforts of the Congress party in tackling the problems of the country.

The author is the Director, Institute of Jammu and Kashmir Affairs, Jammu.