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THE NATION:
CPI (M)
Left
With No choice
In
a belated recognition of sweeping developments both at home and abroad,
the CPI (M) grudgingly admits changes in its programme and distances itself
from past ideological tenets
By
M. G. Radhakrishnan
Some
time in the early '90s, while the communist parties of eastern Europe
were busy changing their names and policies in the wake of the collapse
of the socialist block, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, the late CPI (M) supremo,
had asserted: "Our party has no reason to change. We have grown out
organically from the soil of this country." Now, three years after
his death, the CPI (M) which is notorious for its stubborn resistance
to change has, well, decided to change. But just a wee bit. For the first
time since the party was born in 1964, it formally updated its "programme",
its blueprint for long-term strategy and policies. Its leaders strived
hard to assert that the changes were not too fundamental in nature, but
party General Secretary H.S. Surjeet admitted, "A living organisation
has to change with the changing times."
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| Delayed
Perestroika: Top party brass |
If anything,
the changes reflect the party's gradual distancing from the ideological
tenets of the past. For the first time in 36 years, the party has stamped
its approval on the country's multi-party political system, the private
sector and foreign investment in select areas of the economy. And most
surprising of all, there was even a tacit admission of the supremacy of
the market forces.
The sweeping
changes, claimed West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu during the three-day
special session in Thiruvananthapuram from October 20, were necessitated
by several factors, both external and internal. At the global level, the
collapse of the Soviet Union, while within country, it was the emergence
of the BJP as the ruling party at the Centre that triggered these changes.
Though senior leaders went to great lengths to claim that the changes
were a sequel to "realistic self-assessment", critics lambasted
the reforms, terming them the result of the leadership's eagerness to
wield power at the Centre even at the cost of ideology. "Surjeet
and Basu haven't slept since the party missed a chance to come to power
in 1996. This is their victory," said a leader, obviously far from
impressed with the proposed changes.
Reforms
are a Big Deal: Predictably, ponderous speeches marked the special
session as party leaders laboured over almost every subject they could
apply their minds on. But the attention grabber, of course, was the amendment
relating to the issue of the CPI(M) joining a coalition government at
the Centre in the future. Its ratification-it was earlier rejected at
all party fora, including the party politburo, the central committee as
also the party congress in Calcutta in 1998-is considered a major victory
for the Surjeet-Basu combine.
Says politburo
member Sitaram Yechuri who had fiercely objected in 1996 to the CPI(M)'s
forming a government: "Our decision in 1996 not to take charge was
correct as we would not have been able to deliver anything in such a weak
position. But the new amendment is an enabling provision which clears
the deck for forming a government in future." Would that mean allying
with the Congress to form a government in Delhi? Typically, the leadership
is vague on the issue. Said Surjeet: "The BJP is a rabidly communal
party, the Congress is definitely secular in its philosophy. But it is
a party which has no qualms about compromising with communalism. So we
don't trust it. Our objective is to form a third front."
The words
were like music to the ears of erstwhile third front leaders, many of
whom were in the state capital for the session. Among them, former prime
minister H.D. Deve Gowda, the RJD's Laloo Prasad Yadav, Assam Chief Minister
Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, all of whom talked about the need for a third
front. It was left to Laloo to make his hosts squirm in embarrassment
with his call to enlist the Congress as an ally in the secular front against
the BJP. Presumbly, he was not aware the BJP is virtually non-existent
in Kerala where the communists and the Congress have been at each other's
throats for over five decades.
Does all
this signal a new beginning that will soon see the CPI(M) change beyond
recognition? Its leaders are quick to emphasise that there has been no
change in the party's long-held assessment of major issues-be it the "class
character" of the Indian state, faith in socialism, mistrust of the
US and so on. M.V. Raghavan, a former CPI(M) minister who was expelled
from the party in the early '90s for demanding reforms, feels the changes
are "hogwash as the party continues its circus with shibboleths like
democratic centralism and proletarian dictatorship". Clearly, the
reforms are no big deal for people like him. But for those within, the
changes in a party like the CPI(M), once described as the world's last
Stalinist party, is definitely a major landmark.
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INDIA TODAY Deputy Editor Swapan Dasgupta voices the despair of a community that Jyoti Basu forcibly converted into a diaspora in his 23 years of zero-contribution rule. 