Look how the tail wags

The CPI and other allies have lost both their self-identity and self-respect in slavishly toeing the CPM line. For how long?

Pranay Sharma Delhi

The ruling Left Front in West Bengal is somewhat like the Indian Joint Family: the brother with the fattest income purse tends to carry the big stick. The opinion and views of the other family members are either non-existent or are secondary to his. Since they survive on his dole, they rarely challenge his authority. For the past three decades, the CPM has had the privilege of carrying the big stick in the Front.

Some would say it is the Communist Party of India (CPI), the older of the two parties, that created the space for the CPM's growth, both in stature and size, by pursuing a string of wrong policies. The CPI's obsession to regard the Congress as 'national bourgeoisie' and, thus, a force with which the communists could work, split the party in 1964. It also led to its own isolation. When the Left, progressive and democratic forces all over India had launched a countrywide movement against Indira Gandhi's decision to impose Emergency, the CPI remained her main ally.

However, in 1977, when Lok Sabha elections were announced, the CPM offered the olive branch to the CPI. It wanted the CPI to contest at least 14 of the 42 seats from West Bengal for the lower house of Parliament. But the CPI decided to contest the elections - fought primarily on an anti-Indira plank — on its own. A few months later, when elections to the state assembly were held, the CPM again offered over 70 seats to the CPI, to be turned down yet again. There are many who think this to be the beginning of the CPI's decline. In a way it was also the reason why a democratic polity remained suppressed in Bengal for so long. If the CPI had accepted the CPM's offer, it could well have had much more significant presence in the state and acted as a counter-balance to the CPM in West Bengal.

The Left Front was formed with an alliance of eight parties in 1977. The CPM became the key partner and its main driving force. The Forward Bloc and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) remained partners in the second rung, while the Revolutionary Communist Party of India, Forward Bloc, West Bengal Socialist Party, Democratic Socialist Party and Biplobi Bangla Congress largely made up the 'chorus'. Three years later, on the eve of the 1980 Lok Sabha elections, the CPI officially decided to distance itself from the Congress and joined the Left Front (LF). But the RSP and Forward Bloc had by then positioned themselves in the rung behind the CPM, and the CPI could only join their ranks, although with fewer seats than either of the two parties.

The first major revolt in the LF came from the most unusual quarter. Jatin Chakroborty, RSP leader and the public works department minister, decided to rebel against the Front leadership. But he chose the worst target — CPM veteran Jyoti Basu. Till then he was considered to be close to Basu, who was not only the chief minister but also the tallest among the other leaders, especially after the death of CPM's Bengal chief Promod Dasgupta in 1982. Differences between Chakroborty and Basu had been simmering over certain issues for some months, most famously, over singer Usha Uthup.

In the mid-1980s, the state youth affairs minister, Subhas Chakraborty, another member among the CPM's second rung of leaders and a camp follower of Basu, had organised a gala cultural event in Calcutta. Among the artistes he invited to perform at the event was Uthup. The PWD minister became the self-appointed cultural guardian and fired a salvo at him by dubbing the show 'apa-shanskriti' or 'anti-culture'. His remarks sparked off a major debate within the LF and predictably, the Bengali intelligentsia got involved in debating the contentious topic — what is, or what is not, culture.

However, when asked by reporters, Basu, in his customary style, cryptically remarked that he had taken his grandchildren for the show and he did not find anything 'apa-shanskriti'.

Before the dust over the debate on culture could settle down, Jatin Chakraborty decided to fire yet another salvo. This time, it was directed against Basu. He alleged that Basu's son, Chandan, who was a junior executive with Bengal Lamp, had used the chief minister's influence to bag contracts for his company from the state government. And he implied that it was done at the behest of Jyoti Basu, the then chief minister.

While the Opposition in West Bengal demanded Basu's resignation, the LF started exerting pressure on Chakraborty to recant. But he stuck to his guns, foolishly confident that the RSP, which survived mainly from his contribution, would rally behind him. He was mistaken. The RSP leadership decided to opt for the LF and dump him. Chakraborty was forced to resign from the government and expelled from his own party.

In the subsequent years, there have been similar attempts by other LF leaders to test the limits to which they can stretch the CPM's patience and also that of the other members of the coalition. But most of them, like Kamal Guha, the Forward Bloc leader of North Bengal, realised that though his own party colleagues and other front partners might criticise the CPM's style of functioning behind closed doors, they would never revolt against it and leave the LF or the privileged trappings of the state government.

The share of the Bengal pie has grown substantially in the last 30 years. This has been a major deterrent for the other minor partners and thereby made it difficult to part ways with the CPM. Those within the front who complained about the alleged corruption of certain CPM leaders so often basically registered their disappointment over their share of the spoils. They rarely tried to stop the trend.

The dictum: "If you can't beat them, join them," works to perfection for most front partners. They often argue that since there is no alternative to the CPM, they have no option but to stick to it. This is a fact that the CPM leadership knows better than them. They are aware that once in a while there might be murmurs of protest. But if push comes to shove, the allies will just not have the courage to abandon the LF.

Look at the brazen manner in which the CPI is backing the CPM after the Nandigram killings. Not only are they saying it is a state subject (what about the Gurgaon police brutality and the Gujarat carnage?) CPI leaders D Raja and Gurudas Dasgupta joined CPM leaders Sitaram Yechury, Basudev Acharya, Brinda Karat and Mohammad Salim asking the NHRC to review its statement that equated the brutality in Nandigram with the Gujarat killings.

The CPM can claim to be benevolently generous towards its smaller allies as in the present assembly it has an absolute majority with 176 seats in a 294-member house. But that would conceal the fact that in many of the seats, the vote bank of the partners, irrespective of their size, often contributes to the CPM's large tally.

One weakness among the LF partners has been their refusal to look at the Left forces beyond the CPM. Bengal has had a Left support base that goes beyond the CPM. Many in the LF might still have a problem in forming alliances with the overground CPI-ML (Liberation), the Maoists or the far-Left parties that have been active in the state. But the state-wide protests on Nandigram has shown that the 'silent majority', many of whom were so far supporters of the CPM, are now willing to look beyond it.

It is interesting that another RSP leader, Kshiti Goswami, has now taken the initiative of reforming the LF. He had threatened to resign from his ministership and has started touring different districts and blocks to ramp up support for his cause. His colleague Debabrata Biswas has also severely rapped the CPM's use of brute violence at a meeting with intellectuals in Delhi. Many of the fence-sitters within the LF have so far limited their criticism to the brutalities in Nandigram by distancing themselves from the CPM. They could well get off the fence and start moving away from the CPM in the days to come. Kshiti Goswami could well succeed in doing what his party colleague Jatin Chakraborty had once tried, but failed to achieve. A lot would depend on how the RSP and the other partners respond.

Will they continue to fall back on the 'no other option' argument to stick shamelessly with the CPM? Or would they take this historic opportunity to abandon the Left Front that many of them feel has shifted so much to the Right in the past 30 years?