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ESSAY
Biology
Vs. Ideology
Perhaps
our doddering comrades are the last residues of history's biggest ghost
story
By S.
Prasannarajan
 So
Jyoti Basu is retiring. In a party of dead certainties, the only uncertainty
is: when? We know why. It's the biology, not the ideology. Reportedly,
it's all because of a dialectical conflict between metabolism and Marxism.
A rare Marxist gesture, this desire to retreat. For, historically speaking,
intercellular disintegration has never been a communist motivation for
let-me-go-home-and-play-with-the-kids. Rather, it's the other way round:
fossilisation is a socialist pre-requisite for better service. It's always
been the Eternal Leader, protected and preserved by the holy ghosts of
revolution. The Leader retires only when he goes up (or down) to meet
Marx. And Basu, one of communism's longest-serving rulers without a first
name like Kim or Fidel, has almost looked politically immortal-till the
other day.
Is it then
Basu's Deng act? Time to play bridge? Time to leave affairs of the state
to the boys? Deng Xiaoping was the last paramount retiree in communism,
and when he went to meet Marx, he was, officially, China's most famous
bridge player. Also, he was the social capitalist who could make Marx
eat Big Mac. So he could retire, and finally depart, with a sense of contentment-despite
the Tiananmen ghosts at the funeral banquet. Deng was an exception-well,
communism with Chinese characteristics itself is still an exception. Otherwise,
there was no retirement, there was only comrade dead or comrade outcast
or comrade purged. Did Kim II Sung retire? Will Fidel Castro retire? Or,
did our own EMS retire? Actually not; the venerable Brahmin was asked
to rest. The last days of EMS were lonely days spent in decayed texts
and dogmatic delusions, days spent in rearranging the "good"
and "bad" theories in a scenario of hallucinations. But Basu
is reportedly resigning on his own, and Basu, by communist standards,
is too young to retire.
Though it's
an altogether different matter that the Indian communists have already
retired from history. They are the privileged lot, for they have nothing
at stake-no empire, no prisons, not even an Elian Gonzalez. What have
they got? Somebody else's revolution, somebody else's books, and somebody
else's slogans. Of course, Kerala and West Bengal are there-also the back
alleys of realpolitik in Delhi. Worse, in the first two soviets, new class
enemies with new salvation theologies are threatening the citadels. For
an increasing number of Bengalis today, Mamata rhymes with Marx. Still,
the idea of power keeps the comrades going-power gratis, power with minimum
functional responsibility, in spite of the biological resistance. Basu
seems to have acknowledged it. Though, it must be noted, Basu has been
retiring since ... since when? For an answer, take a brief journey through
the newsprint. His brothers in the communist parivar continue to defy
the limits of the body in a desperate bid to be relevant in the body politic.
Look at Harkishan
Singh Surjeet, the general secretary. The only thing he has in common
with Marx is the beard, the rest is not Marxism but manipulation. The
highest guru of confabulations, the senior citizen of third frontism,
Surjeet has perfected the art of postponing redundancy. He has redefined
Marxism as the science of active senescence. Really, Karl could not have
hoped for such an energetic human Kapital; he could not have hoped for
a more active servant of the proletariat, which is mostly confined to
the party offices of social injustice. If Surjeet is not enough, look
at E.K. Nayanar, the Chief Minister of Kerala. This comrade, the laughing
old man of Indian communism, has reduced the distance between ideology
and idiosyncrasy, between jest and justice, between free speech and freak
show. Samples of Nayanarspeak: "Vajpayee and Jinnah are two sides
of the same coin", "False information (about law and order)
was provided (by his office) to keep you (journalists) happy ... For the
last three months, you all have been fooled". And Nayanar thinks
it's quite funny to display the ballot paper with his choice stamped on
it for the convenience of the camera. Communism, in its most provincial
variation outside the realm of history, repeats itself in Kerala-never
as tragedy, always as unbearable farce, currently known as Nayanar.
Pg.2
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