The comrades' new line: CPI(M) needs to bring in new faces in leadership

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M) is by far the largest of India’s communist parties but, in 2018, that isn’t saying much. From a high water mark in UPA-I, when it was the third biggest bloc in Parliament and helped determine national policy, it has been reduced to a bit player in national politics. It is out of power in its erstwhile bastion of West Bengal, where it may be reduced to the third force in the state’s politics. And its decades-long rule in Tripura has also come to an end. Thus, at one level, the CPI(M)’s just-concluded party congress at Hyderabad might seem quite unimportant. Yet, some developments at the party congress are nevertheless worth examining closely. General Secretary Sitaram Yechury was re-elected — which was by no means a foregone conclusion, with some arguing that he should be replaced by ousted Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar — and he now commands a majority in the party’s central committee.

More importantly, the party has agreed upon a strategy for its future in national politics, one that will permit “understanding” with “secular-democratic forces” that might include the Congress. In January, at a meeting of the earlier central committee, a different line — pushed by former CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat — had ruled out any co-operation, and insisted that the party remain equidistant from both the Congress and the “authoritarian” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). However, there is now a consensus in the CPI(M) that the BJP is not “authoritarian” but “fascist” — meaningless political semantics to those outside the communist movement, but one that, for dedicated party workers at least, means it can now form popular fronts with left-of-centre forces in order to defeat the “greater enemy”, the BJP. This is a victory for Mr Yechury over Mr Karat, and more generally a victory for the party’s West Bengal wing over its Kerala wing. 

The implications for national politics are not inconsiderable. The CPI(M), for all its electoral weakness, is still seen as a trusted intermediary and useful glue for “third-front” style politics. Going into the 2019 general election campaign, the effectiveness of bargaining and co-operation between the anti-BJP Opposition parties will be crucial; the CPI(M)’s new line may help in that process. However, for the CPI(M)’s own electoral revival, much more will be needed. For one, it will need to properly review its criteria for leadership. It is far too dependent for leadership either on those associated with old and discredited Left governments; or with those who have no connection to grassroots politics. It needs to correct this grievous error. 

For far too long, the Left has banked on championing the rights of industrial workers, with disastrous results. In West Bengal, the Left Front’s unruly championship of labour rights ensured the flight of capital as strikes, gheraos and cussed trade unions became the order of the day. In Parliament, despite being coalition partners twice, the Left has been unable to push through meaningful labour reforms. If the CPI(M) intends to revive its movement-based politics, it needs to focus on a peasants-first line, given its remaining support base and widespread agrarian distress. And to reinvigorate its electoral appeal in areas where it is currently a negligible force, it needs younger people in its leadership.