Will the Marxists be able to isolate the RSS-BJP? | Girish Nikam

Published on 07-04-2008 In National

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Will the Marxists be able to isolate the RSS-BJP?

So the CPI(M) is through with its another marathon Congress. It is the only political party which spends six days, every three years deliberating on policies and issues, both connected with the internal organisation matters and also on broader regional, national and international policy issues. So in a sense no other party takes these sessions more seriously than the Marxists do. Is that internal party democracy at work? It sure is compared to most other parties, as many of these sessions are in-camera, and the delegates are free to criticize and express their opinion. And unlike the approach of, what Marxists would call, Bourgeoisie parties, you would hardly find these internal discussions being leaked to the media. And since leaks are taken seriously and can even lead to suspensions from the party, the comrades are usually a hard nut to crack, for journalists.

The 19th Congress in Coimbatore was no different, though in many other sense it was. For one it was the first time that the two stalwarts and founding politburo members of the party, Jyoti Basu and Harkishan Singh Surjeet, both nonagenarians, failed to make it to the Congress, due to ill health. It was therefore truly the generation next's Congress. The torch has now passed on and it is now upto the younger generation led by Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury who will be leading and formulating strategies in the coming years.

The two older stalwarts have laid a solid foundation, especially in making the party have a national presence, through the support they offered first to the V.P.Singh Government and then the United Front and now the UPA Government at the Centre.

It is this far-sighted, but politically tricky balancing act, which they conjured with the Congress, especially after the 2004 elections, which has brought the party into the national limelight like never before in all its existence. So much so that the comrades were pretty pleasantly shocked to find the kind of media interest the Coimbatore Congress generated. It was probably the most extensive coverage media has ever given to the party Congress in its 44-year history. Obviously not all the coverage was positive, nor was it accurate. As far as the accuracy is concerned, majority of the media is still trying to understand the party and its methods, and the party's own approach to the media sometimes, also doesn't help much in the understanding.

And as far as the outcome of the Congress is concerned, it is only going to leave not just the media but even the aam aadmi pretty confused. Though there were no tectonic shifts in the party's stand on any of the major issues, its articulation of its future plans, has all the ingredients to create confusion, unless it is clearly hammered out.

The major challenge to the party, which the Coimbatore Congress endorsed and also seems to have taken up, knowing fully well the pitfalls, is its attempt to create a third alternative. At last even the media seem to have finally understood that this is not just about a electoral third front, of opportunistic motley parties trying to grab power at all cost. Having said that, do the Marxists have the wherewithal and the necessary support base as well as equally convinced allies to create such an alternative. Mind you this alternative, according to the Marxists perception is something which is ideologically apart from the communal-right wing BJP and the Centrist-increasingly neo-liberal Congress, though not necessarily the party, but certainly the Government.

The Marxists now believe or atleast fervently hope that an alternative platform which can be apart from these two above poles can be created. Now what is their catchment area for creating such a platform? The same Telugu Desam, the same Samajawadi Party, the same variants of Janata Dal or whatever is left of it, the same DMK and so on. It indeed is quite a challenge. For them to convince these parties, which while in power follow almost similar policies as either the Congress or the BJP, will take an Herculean effort.

What however is most interesting is the other challenge that the party has taken up, which though is related to the creation of third alternative, is more formidable. It is to isolate the BJP once again like it found itself, during the 13 day non-Government in 1996. The Marxists, whose major reason to join hands with Congress to form the UPA Government was no doubt the threat of communal forces, is now determined not to allow the BJP to gain anymore partners into its fold and even wean away those who are with them now.

Now in a country, where opportunism is still the key word for most political parties, and ideological commitment an inconvenient adjunct to be dusted out of its shelves occasionally, it will take some doing for the Marxists to get these parties to shun a party which can lure them with magic potion of power. BJP has by now mastered the art of seduction----look how they even seduced the Janata Dal(Secular!) sometime back--- and will leave no stone unturned given another situation for them to use those techniques.

The other problem that the Marxists will face in realizing this goal which they have set for themselves will be the natural antipathy of many regional parties, towards the Congress, just because it is their natural rival in their States. The Marxists are therefore now seen in a hunting with the hound and running with the hare, kind of a situation. This is some political trapeze act which will test all their dialectical and political skills. The danger is that in doing this act, where they can ill-afford to abandon the Congress, but at the same time keep the hopes of the naturally anti-Congress regional parties from gravitating to the BJP, it might just slip. Mind you they Karat has made it clear that they look forward to continuing their relationship with the Congress, even beyond the life of this lok Sabha, and into the next one too. So it will take some convincing of the aam aadmi, who is likely to be confused by this hunt and run approach, and to justify what could very well be seen by some sections, as being too clever by half. If this confusion is not cleared, and it is not easy to do it, the Marxists may just end up helping the same communal forces, whom they are trying to isolate, unwittingly, and also cause a lot of harm to the Congress in the bargain too.

When Surjeet and Jyoti Basu worked out those path-breaking shifts in their policies in the mid nineties and again in 2004, they had indeed laid a firm foundation for coalition politics at the national level in this country, overcoming the state-level contradictions. Now what their successors have taken up is a far tougher assignment. Whether they succeed or not, in managing the massive contradictions is a moot point, but what is clear is that the clashes between the RSS and Marxists, a straight fight between the rightists and the leftists, will now acquire a far more political and violent dimensions.

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