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Everybody's favourite Marxist - The Hindustan Times
Achin Vanaik
()
9 January 1997
Title : Everybody's favourite Marxist
Author : Achin Vanaik
Publication : The Hindustan Times
Date : January 9, 1997
West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu is the anti-Marxist
Establishment's favourite Marxist. This has something to do with his
individual characteristics but much more to do with the general
characteristics of those strata which make up both the actual
Establishment as well as its most important mass base, the upper ranges
of the middle (but never median) class. To be sure, Mr Basu has long
stopped frightening even the most resolute anti-Marxist industrialist,
economist or journalist. In this respect the contrast between him and a
figure like Anthony Wedgewood Benn of Britain is very illuminating.
Mr Benn truly was, and is, the more radical political personality. That
is why he was so deeply hated by the British Establishment. No other
British politician in the post-war era was subjected to such a prolonged
or vicious campaign of demonisation and vilification by the mainstream
of the national media, always exceptionally powerful in the homogeneous
polity of Britain. And with good reason. Mr Benn was the greatest Prime
Minister Britain never had. Mr Basu was merely the Prime Minister India
never had. The former also inspired adulation and fierce loyalty and
possessed a real potential for gathering a growing mass and national
appeal. This deeply frightened what Mr Benn so lucidly called "the
unaccountable centres of unacceptable power" in his country.
He promoted a genuinely radical vision of a newer and better British
society and polity. Even his enemies could deny neither his personal
integrity nor his political sincerity. No taint of nepotism nor any
shenanigans of relatives or close friends sullied his public reputation.
Mr Benn was that rarity - a political thinker and leader whose years in
high government office (the Wilson and Callaghan Labour governments)
actually moved him further to the left rather than to the right. By
contrast, Mr Basu's political trajectory has followed a more traditional
pattern. High administrative power is said to have made him more
statesman-like, more pragmatic and wise, more open to compromise and
more ideologically flexible - common codewords these for describing a
process of deradicalisation, for a foreshortening of vision and practise
from longer-term and more radical goals to more immediate administrative
ones. The need to retain and preserve governmental power becomes more
important than anything else, certainly more important than questions
concerning the purposes of wielding power, or of the corrupting impact
of sustained state governance on the radical character - its ideology
and cadre-base - of a party like the CPI-M.
It is this history of unbroken Chief Ministership since 1977 that gives
Mr Basu his national stature - nothing else. It is the Establishment's
respect for the fact rather than for the quality of prolonged rule,
respect for those who can combine the twin attributes of stability and
power i.e. show themselves capable of governing "responsibly" (without
threat to those "unaccountable centres") that explains its attitude to
the West Bengal leader. The CPI-M is a regional party still unable to
break out of its political ghetto. There are leaders in the party who
are concerned about how to carry out the dual future tasks of preserving
and deepening the radical character of the party and at the same time
make it more of a national force. Mr Basu is not one of them. He now
stands to the right within his own party. He is the powerful and
undisputed regional leader of a party still crucially dependent on its
regional base and Popularity. Moreover, this popularity has a lot to do
with Mr Basu's own personal popularity in West Bengal as one who has
somewhat transcended his party's organisation and to some extent even
its politics. Yet he remains little more than an essentially parochial
figure. It is only because ordinary Indians live in a period today when
all they are getting are parochial figures and coalition politics, that
Mr Basu can seem so much more important than he actually is.
Certainly, an acute awareness of his own irreplaceability in the West
Bengal CPI-M unit and government explains why Mr Basu should have been
willing to do such disservice to his party by flouting its disciplinary
norms by publicly ridiculing its considered and collective decision not
to join the UF government. Two questions arise here. Is Mr Basu correct
in his judgement that this was a "historic blunder"? What also is his
purpose in purveying this message in this way at this time?
What is most striking about his long interview in The Asian Age is how
feeble are its supporting arguments. He admits that by joining the
government the CPI-M would not have assured its survivability for the
full five-year term but would have ensured that its Common Minimum
Programme (CMP) was implemented because of its "experience" in
participating and leading coalition arrangements. This is in fact the
only supporting arguments he gives. But what coalition arrangements and
what experience is he talking about? Left Front rule in West Bengal
doesn't even come close to being a genuine coalition arrangement. It is
a Front overwhelmingly dominated by the CPI-M, which incidentally is the
kind of front that the CPI-M has always been most comfortable in
operating within. The only State in India where institutionalised
coalition politics and not alternating two or three party competitive
systems operate is Kerala. Here, one might as well grant kudos to the
Congress for keeping the UDF going as to the CPI-M in keeping the LDF.
In Kerala, the historical trajectory has been one where a formerly
strong Left dominance has given way to a situation in which the Left
plays a more modest role and shows no capacity to reverse this
established trend.
Equally amazing is that throughout his interview, Mr Basu never once
criticised the CMP or pointed out that it was a document drawn up by Mr
Chidambaram and company in which the Right, not the Left, scored most of
the key points. In short, that the very nature of the CMP represented a
decisive defeat for the Left Steering Committee and all. That Mr Basu's
crucial reference point for justifying what a Left-led UF government
could have achieved is this very CMP, speaks volumes about the nature of
his own political vision and practice today.
The deeper purpose behind the Chief Minister's statement lies in its
message for the future. He is telling the Congress that if it can get
its act together, if it can commit itself to a programme of even the
feeble CMP type, then there is the basis for broader coalition
arrangements at the Centre between the Congress and other regional
parties to keep the BJP out. Mr Basu is also telling the Left and his
own party that with the UF fated to fall at some time in the future well
before its full term, they should be open to the serious possibility of
an alliance and even joint rule at the Centre with the Congress (and
other non-BJP regional forces) provided adequate preconditions, as he
sees them, are in place.
A hard logic rules in politics. Neither the Left generally, nor the CPM
specifically, should aim to play a role that the actual relationship of
political forces in the country does not allow it to play. 'Re Left
still remains the only force in the country that most consistently
stands for secularism, democracy and a socially just vision of economic
development. It has still to substantially increase its weight in the
country to the point where it can exercise a decisive impact, even in a
fractured polity. It can only do this through the pursuit of principled
politics in opposition to the hesitancies and deceits of other parties
who do not share these commitments. Only within this wider framework
should it explore the paths of compromise politics. Mr Basu's siren song
will hopefully be ignored and rejected by other heads in the CPM. The
West Bengal Chief Minister implied in his interview that power without
responsibility was a foolish state of affairs to be in. But even more
foolish would be to be involved in the kind of governmental coalition in
which the Left has responsibility but little or no power.
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