WITH a Congress-led government taking charge in Kerala today, the two Communist parties that led a government there for the past two terms have moved to the background. The last hope of the Left to retain its base in at least one state has been dashed with outgoing chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan leading the Left Democratic Alliance to a shameful defeat in the assembly polls. Fact is, even a steady two -term win for the Left was not in the normal scheme of state politics, where the CPIM and Congress led governments ruled alternately for the past few decades. Pinarayi Vijayan’s commissions and omissions during his second innings further dented the image of the Left. With rash actions, he alienated the Left’s traditional bases. This comes at a time when the Left has already lost its sheen, mass base and power in West Bengal and Tripura. In other states, the Left continues to have pockets of influence helping it win a seat or two, as in Tamil Nadu, where it sided with the DMK and the Congress.
The Communists had raised the expectations of the poor and the working class for many years. In post-Independence years, the Communists were the main opposition in Parliament. They also maintained a strong presence in the trade union movement through the AITUC and CITU. Both these entities have let the workers down. So did the Communist leaders of the CPI and CPIM after the split in 1964– a while after the Chinese aggression on India in 1962. Sections of the Communists had sided either with the then USSR or China, which was the main reason for the split in the original Communist party. Still, the Communists jointly ran governments for over three decades in West Bengal and repeatedly in Tripura and Kerala. The TMC came from behind and upset the Left applecart in West Bengal in 2011, after which it never recovered. Tripura followed. Now, the BJP rules both Bengal and Tripura.
Communists that led the Left in India are increasingly getting isolated. The party lacked mass-based leaders at the national level. The central leaders’ armchair styles, divorced from the aspirations of the common masses, worked to its disadvantage. The Left was thought to be a political entity to further the causes of the disadvantaged sections of the population. However, these leaders surfaced mostly in the media and failed to organise mass struggles to back such people. Appearances before TV channels gave them a boost. Even in Delhi, right under their nose, the poor were organised by activist Arvind Kejriwal, who formed the Aam Aadmi Party or the party of the ordinary people, won power and ran governments repeatedly. The Left was caught napping. It, instead, sought to occupy the secular platform to woo the minorities to its side, but these segments of the population continued to remain firm with the Congress or regional entities like the TMC, which cared for their interests. A revival for the Left is possible only with a new, energetic leadership at the national level and in states. With Kerala too gone, it would be a hard struggle reviving the Left’s fortunes.
