Fuel for hardline fervour

Kerala CPI(M) hardliners raise their pitch against neo-liberals in the party

Jeemon Jacob Thiruvananthapuram

The Nandigram tragedy has armed CPI(M) hardliners in Kerala with a potent weapon to fight neo-liberals in the party. It has given them a “classical Marxist” opportunity to corner their political opponents within the party. The hardliners have also found a new leader, other than the Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan, in Jyoti Basu, whose outbursts on Nandigram in a recent Left Front meeting and subsequently to the media left the CPI(M) leadership red-faced. A CBI investigation report submitted to the Kolkata High Court has also exposed the involvement of CPI(M) workers in the incident.

“Nandigram will continue to boil in Kerala for many more years. It has proved that the stand taken by Achuthanandan against SEZs and Asian Development Bank loan were politically correct. The tragic incident and the stand taken by West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee have exposed the inability of the party leadership to assess and tackle a political situation,” opined Rajeswari, a political commentator. Many VS loyalists share his opinion. They believe that the party has erred in Nandigram and deviated from its ideological moorings.

“Nandigram will haunt us for a long time. How can we justify the killing of innocent villagers to develop an SEZ? For whom are we developing these zones? For the rich or the poor?” says Rajiv Madhavan, a CPI(M) party member who challenged the conspiracy theory. According to him, the West Bengal government fell in a trap set by Trinamul Congress leader Mamata Banerjee. Like Madhavan, many comrades fear that the Nandigram incident will alienate the rural masses from the party.

After the Nandigram incident, Achuthanandan has halted land acquisition for the development of a Technopark in Thiruvanantha-puram. The landowners objected to the acquisition move as the government was offering only nominal price for the land. According to an official heading fast-track projects, the fallout of Nandigram is going to affect other developmental projects in Kerala like Smart City and Infopark. He fears that politically motivated resistance will now hinder the pace of development in Kerala.

“Nandigram has taught us a bitter lesson. We have to listen to the people’s voice and form a consensus before implementing developmental projects. If people don’t want a project, why should the government insist on implementing it?” says Tony Joseph, a political activist.

The state party leadership, however, put up a brave face to defend the beleaguered Bengal CM. CPI(M) State Secretary, Pinarayi Vijayan, justified police action in Nandigram two days after the incident and found evidences of a wider conspiracy to malign the party and the West Bengal government. His weak defence and Achuthanandan’s silence draws the battle lines within the party.

Former party ideologue, Berlin Kunjhanandan Nair, who spent most of his life in East Germany before its integration with West Germany, has demanded the resignation of Buddhadeb. “Nandigram is a disgrace for the party. We had empowered poor agricultural labourers through land reforms and people’s struggle. Today, Buddhadeb is trying to acquire the land owned by marginal farmers to hand over to the Salim Group. It is a deviation from basic communism,” says the veteran Marxist while blasting the neo-liberals in the party. Kunjhanandan Nair could not find any ideological difference between the Congress-sponsored capitalism and Marxist-led neo-capitalism. “Both have common interests and agendas,” he said. He attacked the concept of creating SEZs for the privileged in the state at the expense of the poor.

Of the 237 SEZs sanctioned in the country, only 11 are in Kerala. “Political opportunism has replaced ideology in CPI (M). It is money, mafia and power that motivate many in the party. The priorities of the party may shift from the classical line of organising the poor to damning the poor. Nandigram proves this deviation and insensitivity of the party leadership,” a communist hardliner concluded.