CPI (M) needs to be in an alliance of enemies to defeat the big communal foe: Sitaram Yechury

CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury tells Richa Sharma that his differences with Prakash Karat aren’t personal, and their main task is to defeat the bigger communal offensive.

CPM General Secretary Sitaram Yechury (File photo | PTI)

Locked in a tussle with his predecessor Prakash Karat, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury says their differences are tactical rather than personal. Karat opposes any support to the Congress ahead of the 2019 election. Yechury thinks the need of the hour is a phalanx of secular forces to defeat the RSS-backed BJP. In an interview with The Sunday Standard on January 23, Yechury points to the rightward shift globally — the Trump presidency in the US, and Brexit vote in the UK — and says the march of the BJP in India has to be stopped.

Do the differences in the Central Committee (CC) mean that the CPM is split wide open?

In the document I presented in the CC, I said the main task before the party is to defeat the communal offensive led by the RSS-backed BJP government. On that there is no dispute. Both drafts (of the resolution) said the same thing. Before election time, we will work out appropriate tactics to achieve the objective of ousting this government while not entering into any electoral alliance or front with ruling class parties.

The point of dispute is about the tactics we will employ. An electoral alliance (with the Congress) is ruled out by both sides. We may go with the regional parties, and they (regional parties) may be going with the Congress. But our tactics should not come in the way of cooperation to ensure that objective.

How does the party plan to resolve these differences?

I maintain that the differences are over tactics. Since these are political differences, there are methods of resolving them. The method we employ is that the majority view prevails in the party and the minority has the right to go to the highest forum, which is the CPM party congress. But once the party decides, that is the party line.

Is this rift a personal one between you and Karat? It’s being said that you even offered to quit.

Our party has a vibrant inner-party democracy. When there is no inner party democracy, as is the case with other political parties, people tend to reduce all issues to personal ego clashes and personal preferences. But that is not the case with us. There are differences over tactics to achieve the main objective of defeating the BJP government.

The point is that once the draft I presented was not accepted in the Central Committee, I said it would be untenable for me to continue as general secretary. Then the Politbureau said unanimously that my resigning would send the wrong message at this juncture.

If the state committees support your view, can the party congress change the CC’s draft resolution?

We are constitutionally mandated to release the draft resolution two months before the party congress. This is released to the entire rank and file of the party and every single member has the right to move an amendment, which is sent to the congress. The right to move an amendment is a central right that nobody can change in the CPM. That process will unfold the moment we release the draft in February. This will be finally decided upon by the party congress, which is the ultimate authority in our party structure.

Has there been a precedent of the CPM party congress taking up something ruled out by the CC?

It has happened before but those were issues relating to events that had already happened, not events in the future. It happened on the question of whether Jyoti Basu should take up the prime minister’s post and on the question of withdrawing support to the Morarji Desai government. Therefore, how this question will be resolved is something only the party congress can say.

How does the CPM plan to stop the BJP?

We will have to strengthen left unity and expand it to include the democratic forces, which need not only be political parties but also people’s movements. We need to bring them together to forge a left and democratic alliance or a front that will offer a policy alternative to this government. Meanwhile, the offensive that is being carried out — to promote communal polarisation and Hindutva nationalism aimed at transforming our secular democratic republic into an RSS vision of Hindu Rashtra — should be combated through campaigns in concert with all secular forces.

What’s the basis for your approach?

Globally, we have come to a conclusion that there is a political rightward shift: the ascendency of Donald Trump, the Brexit vote, and the happenings in France and Germany. The political extreme right is actually asserting itself. Nearly more than a third of the MPs in the European Parliament belong to extreme right political forces. In resisting this political right and in order to stall their further advance, what are the tactics we are going to adopt? The priority right now is to ensure that this RSS-backed BJP does not control state power in the country.

How do you see things under the present regime?

They are infringing on every aspect: whether it is an aggressive pursuit of economic reforms, communal polarisation and the paradigm of Hindutva nationalism that is being forced on almost everything from education to research to everything else. Parliamentary institutions and constitutional bodies are being undermined. We have never had a situation like this before.

Take even a trivial thing like the Censor Board clearing a film (Padmaavat). Look at the assertion by various BJP state governments that they will not show the film. That is a straightforward defiance of the constitutional authority. You have also seen the questions about the Election Commission’s behaviour and the unprecedented development in the highest levels of the judiciary. All these raise many questions.

So you now have a total authoritarian onslaught, denying people their democratic rights. This is a force that needs to be defeated if you want to at least maintain India as all of us know it — a country with tremendous diversity with a pan-Indian consciousness that unites us all.

Is the Left Front confident of winning in Tripura?

We are very confident that the Left Front will form the next government in Tripura. Traditionally, the fight used to be between the Left and the Congress but the BJP is now replacing the Congress. They have already begun creating tensions between the tribal and non-tribal populations in the state. They are playing a destructive role in which the unity and integrity of our country is going to be affected. So it’s going to be a big battle.

But isn’t the BJP posing a determined challenge to you?

The objective reality is that the BJP has emerged as the axis around which all anti-Left forces are gathering. The dialectic of the BJP can be understood if we look at how they go about championing Hindutva nationalism and talking about the unity and integrity of the country, but at the same time they are aligning with extremist forces in Tripura.

Now they have cemented an alliance with the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), which was born out of a demand that Tripura be separated from India. So, what is this slogan nationalism while you are actually allying with forces that actually want to dismember the country? They are prone to doing such things out of their lust for power.