Dr Nsungbemo Ezung
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) had re-elected Sitaram Yechury as the party’s General Secretary for an unprecedented third successive term during its recently held 23rd Party Congress at Kannur, Kerala. The Kannur Congress of the CPI (M) came at the time when its most powerful fraternal ideological partner i.e. Communist Party of China (CPC) is preparing to hold its 20th Party Congress towards the end of this year where its paramount leader Xi Jinping too will be seeking during the Congress an unprecedented third term to remain at the top of the CPC’s power echelon, which would mean breaking the CPC’s tradition of two-terms limit for the party officials and leaders. While the CPC will hold its 20th Party Congress at the time the party keeps on consolidating its grip on power over China and the party and its ideology remain the only political force in the country, the CPI (M)’s Kannur Congress happened as India continues to witness a terminal decline of the Left-wing politics and its influence in the country. The Kannur Congress was thus more of a show of strength by the party leaders and remnant of its followers to prove to the country that the Left party and the Left politics are still a force to reckon with, and that the Left still has lots to offer to the country.
A significant political resolution adopted during the Congress, as part of its strategy to revive the party, include a call for “no alliance with the Indian National Congress (INC) at the national level”. This call for maintaining distance from the INC in the national politics is perhaps a course correction exercise from some of the historical electoral blunders committed by the party, which appears to be too little too late at this stage. It was indeed the mishandling of its relation with the INC in the recent past that had contributed significantly to its decline.
It was in 1996 after the fall of the first BJP government at the center led by Atal Behari Vajpayee, which lasted for only 13 days, the Left was given a historic opportunity to form a government under the banner of the United Front which included the INC. The Left then under the veteran communist stalwarts however decided to choose ideological commitment over political power in New Delhi, and refused the offer of power by the INC. Tragically in 2004, when the CPI (M) and its Left conglomerate secured the highest number of seats in Lok Sabha in the history of independent India, the new generation party leaders scripted the party’s decline by compromising its ideology by extending support to the INC-led UPA government just to keep BJP out of power, thereby failing the test of maintaining equidistance from both BJP and INC.
The 2004 UPA-Left misadventure, the alliance which too did not last full five years term, marked the beginning of the end of the influence of left-wing politics in the country. The party, which has a proud history of providing the first political alternative to the nation during the heydays of INC, is today reduces itself to an insignificant political party. The Left-wing political phenomenon occupied a unique place in the history of post-Independent India and India’s electoral politics as its polity represents the conscience of the nation without hitherto being part of any government at the center nor by constituting itself as a major opposition party. It was the Left during the last decades of pre-independent India and early decades of post-independent India that gave a unique political vision to India to look at politics beyond INC. This unique role of the Left in Indian politics eventually lost its significance, and the Left today has come to this point of decline because of the inability on the part of its new generation leaders to maintain equidistance from both the INC and BJP. The party never recovered from the historic blunder of 2004 where it had extended support to its ideologically opposite party INC just to keep the BJP out of power which was a tragic departure from its core ideology, and eventually losing the trust of its followers and the nation. Nearly two decades after the infamous INC-Left alliance, the Left is completely decimated from their traditional stronghold states of West Bengal and Tripura, leaving Kerala as the last political ground for the Left. If the past Left-INC alliance’s experiment had any lesson for the Left, then it is that the Left lending temporary and issue-based support for the INC did not make the Left stronger electorally nor does it prevent the inevitable rise of the BJP in India’s electoral politics. Any hope of revival of the Left party in India lies not only in its ability to fight against the saffron forces, ideologically and electorally but also in staying away from the politics of its historical and ideological rival – the INC.
If there is one reason why the Left politics, despite its decline in electoral politics, is still needed in India today, it is because the Left can still represent the conscience of the nation at this time when the politics of the country is torn apart by a bi-polar political force of BJP and INC. If the Left can no longer represent the mandate of the people it can still represent the conscience of the people and nation. Left can still represent a unique political narrative, independent from the ruling dispensation and major opposition forces.
It is also under the Left platform that the secular credentials of India can be defended and promoted in the country. Of course, Secularism, which is one of the founding principles of India, can mean two things: hostility by the government towards religion and neutrality on the part of the government towards all religions. The people of the country definitely will want the Left forces to promote the latter, and take the lead in defending the right of all the citizens of the country to practice a religion of their choice without fear and coercion.
The Left politics in India’s electoral politics may have already lost its relevance today, but it will continue to occupy a prominent place in Indian political discourse. When India’s two principal national political parties, BJP and INC, never look at politics beyond winning an election, and are permanently engaged in a relentless and dirty pursuit of power, the Left can provide a platform for its citizens to debate and discuss secularism, pluralism and diversity towards securing India and the need for giving good governance to the people of the country which is the real meaning of politics in a democracy.