CPM Caught between ideology and politics

For a political party dedicated to fighting for its space in competitive politics, can there be thoughts of ideological purity divorced from thoughts of survival? For India’s premier mainstream Marxis

For a political party dedicated to fighting for its space in competitive politics, can there be thoughts of ideological purity divorced from thoughts of survival? For India’s premier mainstream Marxist party, the question attains an almost existential hue in this day and age. Should the CPM align with the Congress on the national stage? That is, join forces with what they would have once called, without irony, a bourgeois party—the distinction is harder to spot these days—so as to help defeat a rampaging BJP? It’s not a question that can be easily solved by referring to the endless volumes of Marxist theory. The party’s central committee was split down the middle on it. As expected, the ‘No’ line preferred by former general secretary Prakash Karat, an ideological purist who initiated the split from the UPA back in 2008, won by a 55-31 vote.

What does it mean for the incumbent, Sitaram Yechury? A temporary defeat for sure (he’s taking it next to the triennial national conclave in April), and maybe a lasting setback for his line. On whether or not he steps down, like his forebear P Sundarayya—the last general secretary to be defeated in the party’s apex policymaking body over 40 years ago—may hinge how India’s political battle of 2019 looks like. A pragmatist in the mould of Harkishan Singh Surjeet, the great playmaker of the 1990s who was right there at the inception of the coalition era, making it happen, Yechury too sees politics as the art of the possible. And at the larger platform in Hyderabad, he may still pull it off.

But people miss something vital here. Unlike all other political parties, the CPM has a semblance of formal debate within, and that’s a rare positive in Indian politics. In the ’90s, it even kept Jyoti Basu from accepting the offer of prime ministership. At this juncture, purism is also tactical—in Kerala, the Congress is the big rival. Anti-Congressism does run deep in the CPM. Why else would Tripura, under threat from a surging BJP, vote against the Yechury line?

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