An accident waiting to happen

By Amulya Ganguli The break in the Congress-Left relationship was an accident waiting to happen.

After all, they have never been natural allies.

Right from the days of the communist slogan of yeh azadi jhooti hai in1947-48, they have been adversaries.

It was only during Indira Gandhi's battles against the "reactionary" Syndicate in the Congress that the left supported her candidate, V.V.

Giri, for the president's post, preparing the ground for a Congress-CPI tie-up in 1970.

But it fell apart because of the Emergency, making the CPI return to the company of the Left in 1977-78.

In a sense, the Left's decision to support the Congress from outside in 2004 recalled the CPI's earlier ties with the Congress, which may have been under Soviet pressure.

Just as the CPI had then presumed that it was the inspiration behind Indira Gandhi's socialistic policies till the scales fell from its eyes in 1975, Prakash Karat and Co also apparently thought in 2004 that they would guide the Congress's policies along socialistic lines, especially if Sonia Gandhi became Prime Minister.

But their first shock was when Manmohan Singh assumed charge with the blessings of the Congress's first family, and this shock was compounded when the prime minister picked up the threads of his economic reforms from where he had left off in 1996.

Not only that, he also showed signs of abandoning non-alignment and moving closer to the US.

It may now seem something of a mystery, therefore, why the Left remained in the Congress's company despite its twin disappointment of the dumping of Nehruvian socialism and non-alignment marking a sea-change in the Congress's economic and foreign policies.

The nuclear deal, of course, was the last straw on the camel's back.

After its virtual acceptance by the Congress and the Manmohan Singh government, it was no longer possible for the Left to remain a partner of the UPA.

Arguably, if the government had merely pursued economic reforms and maintained some kind of a distance from the US, the Left might have still remained in the Congress's company.

Since the Buddhadev Bhattacharjee government is unabashedly pursuing a market-oriented line in West Bengal, and the chief minister himself is singing the praises of capitalism along with Jyoti Basu, it would have looked extremely odd for Karat and Co to criticise the government at the centre for its neo-liberal outlook.

But the N-deal left the communists with little option.

As it is, the CPI)M)'s embracement of capitalism has caused fissures in their ranks, especially over the land acquisition in Nandigram and Singur.

Leftist academics, writers and social activists like Sumit Sarkar, Mahashweta Devi, Arundhati Roy, Medha Patkar and others are no longer enamoured of the CPI(M).

On top of this, a handshake with the American-Israeli "axis of evil", in the Left's view, would have sounded the death-knell for the CPI(M)'s ideological claims.

The Marxists and their allies must have been hoping against hope that Sonia Gandhi would finally bail them out.

Her reluctance over forcing early elections over the deal was no secret.

Nor was the unwillingness of the UPA's constituents to face the electorate at a time of high prices.

But it was evidently Manmohan Singh's now-or-never stance which made them fall in line.

Hence, Karat's criticism of the Prime Minister's stubbornness although he himself has not been a model of flexibility.

Could the CPI(M) general secretary have been less dogmatic ? After all, Jyoti Basu and Buddhadev Bhattacharjee have not hesitated to say that the market forces, and not socialism, would guide them in reviving West Bengal's economy.

The chief minister has also blamed the militancy of Leftist trade unions in the Sixties and Seventies for the flight of capital from the state and is dead against the entry of unions in the IT sector.

In this context, could Karat have been more accommodating? Is it possible that where his party men in West Bengal have been guided by the pragmatic need to turn to the private sector because of electoral compulsions, much to the dismay of dogmatists like former finance minister Ashok Mitra, Karat's lack of experience in this field outside of university campuses has made him stiff and unbending? After all, the outcome in the near future of the rupture between the Left and the Congress will not be of benefit to the former.

For one thing, it is privately admitted by the Leftists themselves that their number of Lok Sabha seats will decline, making them much weaker than at present.

For another, the current bonhomie between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party means that the left will not have much to fall back on since the Third Front will be a non-starter.

A weakening of the CPI(M)'s position will also mean that its allies will become more assertive than before to get their own back after years of playing a subservient role before Big Brother.

A sign of this defiance is available from the RSP's initiatives with regard to a rival Left Front comprising, among others, the SUCI and the Maoists.

If, on top of all this, the Congress were to make marginal gains because of the surge of support from the middle classes over the deal, then Karat will have much explaining to do.