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Are the Marxists fading out?

While surfing the Internet this past Sunday night, two items caught my eye on rediff. 'CPI-M now open to coalition at the Centre' read the first; the second, immediately below it was 'Hooch kills thirteen in Kerala'.

I am not sure if this was a coincidence or not, but it was certainly a hilarious juxtaposition. Adulterated alcohol in the second, and adulterated policies in the first just about sums it up. Which leads to the question: will the effects of both adulterations have equally deadly results? Is this, in other words, the last gasp of a party that is clearly slavering for power as a dipsomaniac would for his drink?

Fans of the Hindi movies of yesteryear would remember Keshto Mukherjee, a man who made the drunkard a figure of fun. But even Mukherjee at his best was never quite as hilarious as the Young Turks of the CPI-M after the party conference at Thiruvananthapuram, Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury.

In 1996, they were at the forefront of those hardliners who opposed Jyoti Basu becoming prime minister at the head of a Third Front ministry. They still insist this was the correct decision. In that case, Comrades, why is your party singing a different tune today? Why not stand up and have the guts to admit that your decision of 1996 was, in fact, the "historic blunder" of Jyoti Basu's description?

The fact is that the Marxists are completely adrift, with neither a strategy nor tactics to boast of. It has been over three-and-a-half decades since the CPI-M was carved out of the united parent party. What has it achieved since then?

The Marxists were a power in Kerala, West Bengal, and Tripura. They still are, of course, but have they succeeded in expanding their area of influence? The party's base in states such as Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Punjab have declined appreciably if anything. Appropriately, the Thiruvananthapuram conclave began under the shadow of the Election Commission's announcement that the CPI-M had lost its status as a 'national' party.

What is the solution? A Third Front ministry is no longer on the cards, so the only credible solution is an alliance with the Congress-I. But where does that leave the party units in Kerala and Tripura where the Marxists still perceive Congressmen as their chief foes? Or even, come to that, in West Bengal where Mamata Bannerjee is busy recruiting Congressmen to form a single front against the Left Front?

It is completely ridiculous to state that the CPI-M will support the Congress-I in every state but West Bengal, Kerala, and Tripura. Why would the Congress-I even bother to consider such a bargain? Congressmen know perfectly well that Marxist support in other states is almost meaningless; such an alliance would be little more than a "useless burden" as the Telugu Desam once said of the same Communists!

More seriously, it is a fraud on the voters. What is the point of saying that the Marxists shall not hesitate to join a ministry in Delhi while continuing to oppose the Congress-I in Kerala and elsewhere? One might argue, of course, that the CPI-M has not actually come out and stated that it shall enter an administration either led by the Congress-I or dominated by it. Alas, this is just another example of the Marxist habit of trying to be too clever. Take away the Congress and there is no real hope of an alternative to the current ministry.

Part of the problem is that the CPI-M Politburo is dominated by people who have such contempt for the electorate that they do not bother to contest elections. These are the Yechurys, the Karats, and the Harkishen Singh Surjeets of the world. In addition, there are the Achuthanandans who do put their name on the ballot paper -- but prove so unpopular that they cannot be elected. And it is these men, those who fail the test and those who lack the courage to stand at all, who dominate the CPI-M.

We hear a lot about how the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pulls strings behind the scenes. The manner in which the organisation has criticised the government suggests quite the contrary! But if you want to see a genuine case of puppet-masters acting from the shadows, look no farther than the CPI-M Politburo; when did a Harkishen Singh Surjeet ever seek the approval of the Indian people? But did that ever stop him from throwing his weight around, posing as the 'Chanakya' of Indian politics in the days of the United Front?

So much for the CPI-M's confused strategy. What are its tactics? The party is so short of leaders that it has no clue about who its standard-bearers shall be in the assembly polls in West Bengal and Kerala. Can the party go ahead without Jyoti Basu? Can it go ahead with Nayanar?

The Marxists try to stonewall the issue by saying this decision can wait until the MLAs themselves vote for a leader. This is the same undemocratic rubbish we have heard earlier. The people of a state have a right to know who their chief executive shall be. He certainly should not be chosen by a Politburo that has no responsibility to the people, people arrogantly confident that their party MLAs shall rubber-stamp any decision they choose to make.

The CPI-M can trace its roots almost three-quarters of a century, older than almost any party short of the Congress-I. But its current leaders are in their seventies, or older, themselves. As they wither away, shall the party follow suit?

T V R Shenoy