The Left across the world was once hailed as the conscience-keeper of the poor but their clout is progressively reducing. In India too, they had represented the causes of the poor in the past – a reason why they got elected repeatedly in states like West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala. Today, the only green pasture for them is the tiny southern state of Kerala. It thus was in the fitness of things that the CPI-M, which leads the Left, held its national conclave or the ‘party congress’ there this time.
The party congress turned out to be nothing more than a show. If a serious discussion was expected on the reasons for the fall of the left from people’s perception, it did not happen. The two Communist parties, which had ruled Bengal for 34 years at a stretch up until 2011, have no representation in the state assembly today. The 2021 assembly poll was a total washout for them and, more shamefully, their candidates lost deposits in almost all the constituencies. The two Communist parties won just five seats in the 2019 LS polls and both have lost their national party status. The recent five-state assembly polls too showed the Left failed to get even one per cent of the votes polled and their candidates invariably ran behind NOTA. A serious rethinking on their policy failures and leadership flaws was the minimum that should have happened at the party congress. The leadership failed to do even that and instead resorted to the usual bluff and bluster.
There is merit in the view, raised by the media at a press meet with general secretary Sitaram Yechury, that the failure of the Left in India stemmed principally from its failure to adapt a Europe-born ideology to India’s specific conditions. A view was also that the Indian Left lacked a leader of high stature, someone like Chairman Mao in China. Worse, the resolutions passed at the congress were run-of-the-mill stuff, as was always the case when the reds’ meets. This led to criticism that the Left in India, with its weak leadership, is faced with a poverty of ideas. The CPI-M gave Yechury a third term at the helm as general secretary, which also led to murmurs that the party is facing a poverty of credible leaders. For, it was under Yechury that the CPI-M went further downhill in Bengal and even lost its national party status. Big talks alone cannot take the Left forward; more so, when action-packed leaders like Mamata Banerjee are around.