The Left, which was once perceived as the voice of the poor, is a tame shadow of its former self. From a grand positioning as the principal Opposition to the ruling Congress party in Parliament in the years after Independence, Communists saw their size reducing to just a few there in recent years. Yet, it boasted of holding power in three states – West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala – for several years. With Tripura and Bengal going into the hands of more resourceful political entities, the Communists’ last port of call, tiny Kerala in the south, also ousted them from power in the recent assembly polls. In state after state, the influence of the reds is dwindling while regional satraps, the BJP and the Congress proved to be smarter. A revival of the reds’ fortunes in India is, perhaps, next to impossible also for the reason that the space for pro-poor politics has been usurped by different regional entities, some of them with pronounced casteist and communal tilts. Corruption in the ranks of the Communists in states where it held power, as in Kerala, also raised questions about the integrity of the Left leadership.
A close analysis of the Left’s fall from grace would show that this movement failed to groom leaders of stature. Politics today gets oriented more with personalities in the forefront and less with ideology also because people have by now understood that ideology is just a number. Communists who came to power were no different from the others, and toed the same governance lines, seeking to “impress all”, including the bourgeoisie, so as to retain power. Problem is also that with every defeat, the Communists – split into two since the 1960s—failed to address the causes and reorient their approaches. Ditto this time, with the central committee of the CPIM skirting the real issues that hurt the party at the hustings in states like Kerala and West Bengal, and beating around the bush. So also with the Politburo, where rootless leaders confabulate and come up with whimsical justifications for the flaws that drained the party’s strengths. Even the Communists’ trade union movement, which held significant might in the past, is now yielding ground to other entities due to a lack of a strong, committed leadership.
Communists around the world are on the defensive. A nation like China refashioned its ‘ism’ by promoting the market economy, a hallmark of capitalism, and emerged as a superpower. Russia, under Vladimir Putin, followed its own path different from the days of the USSR that ended up in disintegration. North Korea and Cuba failed to impress the world. Fidel Castro once said Communism as a political ideology is a failure while Marxism as an economic theory is great. Inside India, a set of ‘educated elites’ at the helm of the two parties avoided confronting the realities that kept the poor as poor. Their attempts to instead woo the middle class failed as both the Congress and the BJP occupied that space with more energy. Attempts by Communists to raise the slogan of secularism did not help them politically as the Congress held a better reputation for this.
