Communal forces cannot and should not be in govt: Sitaram Yechury

CPI (M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury talks to Aditi Phadnis on common platforms, joint fronts and the continuing influence of Left ideas but its declining electoral strength. Edited excerpts:

There is no one who has more experience of running coalitions than the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI (M)]. What makes a coalition work?

First of all, the coalition has to be on the basis of a certain programme. And what makes a coalition function is the agreement on certain policy directions. And that is what takes away the other agendas of “shopping lists” that various partners have. So it is no longer deal-making but actually delivering to the people what you’ve promised. 

Given our experience in running coalitions, we always insist on having a coalition which is on the basis of a programme. And that is what gave birth to this concept called a Common Minimum Programme (CMP). 

Secondly, it also has to do with a certain degree of honesty and credibility. 

There have been situations where coalitions in which you have participated have not had that kind of programmatic unity like after the Emergency: and the then Jana Sangh and the Left were on the same side at that time…

Not really on the same side but in the sense that that was part of the struggle for the restoration of democracy. The battle was to restore democracy. Once that had happened, you required a government that would be able to implement the restoration in legal terms. So this required the government and Parliament to pass certain legislation to ensure that this sort of experience of Emergency does not repeat. The result of that was the 44th Amendment of the Constitution and other changes after the Janata Party government came to power. To that extent, we supported. But then, the fact that the Janata Party government had as its objective, restoring democracy… Fine. But beyond that there was no policy direction. And that’s why it crumbled. And Indira Gandhi came back in 1980. 

Likewise, in 1996, if you look at the United Front coalition: That coalition had to rely on the external outside support of the Congress that was a much larger party than any of the constituents of the United Front. Congress could not be part of the government because they had lost an incumbent government. So that itself created instability. And Congress, with its whims and fancies, decided to withdraw support. Otherwise you would have had a United Front government till 2001. And the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee returning in 1998 and 1999…that wouldn’t have happened.

You had the VP Singh period in which both you and the BJP were supporting the same government…

The VP Singh government saw an inherent stability stemming from the fact that the Left and the Right were both supporting from the outside from opposite sides. The BJP would have been part of that coalition but for the fact that we said that if BJP is part of the government then we won’t support. That was the reason the BJP was kept out and the BJP’s then leadership was very upset at this. And even during the election campaign, it was the National Front and the Left Front (NF-LF). We contested the BJP in many places in the country. But after the elections, when an incumbent Congress government had lost majority, then an alternative government had to come in place. And this was the only way it could have happened. 

But then the point was: The agenda of social justice that V P Singh promoted was not an agenda that the BJP could ever agree on. So what came up as Mandal was countered by the Kamandal. The Advani Rath Yatra followed. We know the rest.

That is why we say: Coalitions can only run when there is a common policy direction

In 2004, an opposition unity initiative was taken before policy agreement — or even direction…

The issue was: Communal forces cannot and should not be in government. So we said we would form an alternative secular government — like we’re saying today, again. But we agreed that a secular government will materialise only after the elections. Once that materialised, then the CMP was worked out. The problems come when you reach a CMP and then you breach it. Nowhere in the CMP was there anything about an Indo-US nuclear deal. Nowhere in the CMP was there anything about our foreign policy being oriented towards US strategic interests. So it was that because of which the Left pulled out support. The Congress breached the CMP.

You are about to do an alliance with the Congress, maybe enter into an adjustment or understanding knowing that in the past Congress has breached the CMP? Sounds a bit like India, Pakistan and terrorism.

Number one: There is not going to be any alliance with the Congress. There would be indirect seat adjustments like it’s happening in Tamil Nadu where we were with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the DMK is with Congress. Or in Maharashtra, where we go with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the NCP goes with Congress. But the point is: At every point of time, what is the danger from which India has to be saved? That is the priority, naturally. When you had an assault on democracy then the primary objective was to restore democracy.  When secularism is under assault, like it was then under the Vajpayee regime and today, exponentially many times more, then that becomes the priority. For the sake of India, for the sake of our Constitution and for our republican order, it is necessary that these forces do not remain in control of state power. To achieve that objective, we’re saying we will work out tactics to maximise the pooling of the anti-BJP vote. 

That will vary state to state, depending on who the main players are, what the local situation is, etc. But the objective will be to bring in an alternative secular government.

If the Congress has not learnt from its own experiences in the past — the grand old party coming down to 44 seats in the Lok Sabha… we say: “if you’ve committed to a certain policy direction then stick to it”. At the time of making the commitment, let’s thrash it out — see how much can be agreed upon and how much not. But after making the commitment don’t then start breaching it, in which case, everything starts becoming unstable.

There are parties whom you will have to make your bedfellows, that have no distinguishable set of rules, that can actually make it up as they go along…

That is the problem, because except for the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Lalu Prasad, all other regional parties have, at some time or other, had something to do with the BJP. 

Trinamool Congress (TMC)?

In our experience, in the TMC, there is a flip side of the BJP in Bengal. Because they are indulging in competitive communalism in Bengal that only feeds into the majority communalism of the BJP. That in a sense is actually helping them (the BJP). And there are a lot of other issues: Saradha, Narada, these chit fund case…

Why has it all been on go-slow for the last five years? And suddenly before the elections, some drama is created…that is also suspect. 

So you support the BJP’s position of going after everybody in Saradha-Narada, no matter who they are?

Not everybody. Go after the guilty. After you investigate. And the investigation has been ordered by none other than the Supreme Court. We are against any witch-hunting by any agency against anybody. They may be our political opponents of the highest order. But witch-hunting is not part of democracy.

Given that you are opposed to many of your prospective alliance partners — like the Telugu Desam Party which has been an ally of the BJP in the past — where do you see yourself in Indian politics?

When you are talking of the strength of the CPI (M) or for that matter, the Left, there are two yardsticks of measuring. One is the electoral yardstick which is very important — I am not discounting it at all. In terms of that yardstick, yes, we have weakened. And between 2004 and 2014, in those 10 years, there’s been a very, very sharp decline in our electoral position. 

But the other yardstick of measuring the strength or influence of the Left is the capacity to influence the policy agenda of the country through popular struggles. Today every Opposition party needs to talk about agrarian distress, farmers’ rights, unemployment and the plight of our youth. These issues came to the fore because of the movements and struggles led by the Left. By that yardstick, the Left is even today, a very important, potent force. The popular struggles have to translate into electoral struggles.