March 9, 1998

The importance of being progressive

Swapan Dasgupta

Forget that they have operated as extension counters of some of the most barbaric regimes -- Stalin, Pol Pot and Nicolae Ceausescu come to mind readily. Forget that socialism has been responsible for keeping India trapped in a maze of stifling bureaucratic controls. When it comes to that nebulous commodity called respectability, there are few who can outshine India's communists. Whether it is Jyoti Basu, whose rising national stature is inversely related to the performance of the Left Front Government he heads in West Bengal or the Maoist Co-ordination Committee (MCC) in Bihar that covers its inherent criminality in the cloak of socio-economic disparities, the Left has always received the benefit of the doubt in this country. Not from the people who are rarely inclined to vote red -- witness the southward electoral graph of the two communist parties. The generosity comes from an intelligentsia that has intriguingly concluded that it is kosher to be "progressive". Even Star News feels obliged to package every thinly attended dharna of the CPI(M)'s front organisations as a momentous event.

The lustre of the Left is relative. For a tiny section that loves power without being tarred by its associations, the Left is the most aesthetic route to influence. The Congress is too shambolic and politically lascivious to warrant any direct association. The BJP is too middle-class and too obviously Hindu for avant-garde comfort.

The Left is different. It ensures standing and even power in academia and the arts, and it is the magnet for patronage. Sitaram Yechuri may never win a municipal election in Delhi -- his only known area of political activism -- but he spun rings round the two United Front governments because he had an erudition that stretched to subjects slightly beyond Sambhal and Hajipur.

This, in a nutshell, is the reason why the Left retains its importance today. When Mulayam Singh Yadav defends a "constitutional history-sheeter" like Uttar Pradesh Governor Romesh Bhandari, it carries zero credibility. On the contrary, it merely strengthens the suspicion that the abortive Jagdambika Pal coup was aimed at ensuring a favourable administration during polling in one constituency. But when CPI(M) General Secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet sheds his gloves and launches into a frontal and somewhat undignified tirade against the President of India, it cannot be ignored. Surjeet's point -- promptly endorsed by Basu in Calcutta -- is that Governor Bhandari is committed to fighting the BJP and must be supported unhesitatingly, never mind his questionable track record and non-adherence to propriety. When it comes to war -- which is how the CPI(M) sees its rivalry with the BJP -- all means are justified. To uphold what it considers true democracy, the CPI(M) is even prepared to subvert democracy as we know it.

Which is why it will be interesting to observe the CPI(M) if the BJP-led alliance fails to cross the magic 272 mark and no formation ends up with a clear majority in the Lok Sabha. Regardless of what Basu said about Sonia Gandhi being a "housewife" and what Surjeet said about never supporting the Congress, the CPI(M) seems to be on its way to becoming the "progressive" appendage of 10 Janpath. Every firm needs erudite retainers with social standing. The Nehru-Gandhis are no exception. Even Sonia's father kept a dog named Stalin.

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