Two leading lights of the CPI(M), Sitaram Yechury and Prakash Karat, are in a slugfest to determine the ‘correct line’ of the party. Yechury has circulated an alternative political draft criticising the party leadership’s role. Those detached from either faction will find nothing concrete in either draft. The tragedy of India’s Communists is that they are too obsessed with historiographies of the (erstwhile) Soviet Communist Party and the Chinese one to self-introspect about their failures. Both drafts are marked by an absence of any concern for the proletariats. The struggle now is just for their own political relevance, not the party’s.
This isn’t new for India’s Communists, who have a history of infighting. Well-read Marxists they are, but are bookish and enjoy the politics, patronage and power play of the parties they otherwise deride as ‘bourgeoisie’.
The reason isn’t difficult to trace. Veteran Communist Namboodiripad had aptly pointed out that the party in its early years was mostly led by radical intellectuals from the ranks of the non-proletariats. In later years—something Namoodiripad couldn’t have visualised—the JNU-type seminarists acquired a stranglehold, marginalising the workers and trade union leaders of CITU. The CPI(M) sprang into existence in 1964 after a split in the CPI. Its first conference at Calcutta had 482 delegates, of which 315 were whole-timers. Their social composition reflected the dominance of the non-proletariats. There were only five workers but 12 businessmen, a preponderance of 240 per cent.
The class composition is no less interesting. The working class had 62 delegates, while landlords and rich peasants together (61) matched them. Agricultural workers and poor peasants together had only 54 delegates; middle peasants were 106, but the middle class numbered 204. Interestingly, out of the total delegates in the first conference, 146 were recruited during the Quit India movement, a period when the Communists were British allies and opposed the Gandhi-led freedom movement. P C Joshi, then General Secretary of the party, declared, “We are the Indian party of Lenin and Stalin.” The Communists were then working in tandem with a genuine rightist C Rajagopalachari who mediated between the Communists and British government. Rajaji wrote to Reginald Maxwell, home secretary of the Government of India, on July 6, 1942: “I am glad to see the Government of India making progress in the discharge of Communist detainees and prisoners and must convey my sincere thanks to you.” Rajagopalachari wrote to Bryant, private secretary of the Governor of Madras on August 1, 1942, favouring cancellation of warrants against Namboodiripad and Sundarayaa, both later general secretaries of the CPI(M). His letter said, “Their being underground prevents a lot of good work which may otherwise be done.”
Another 143 members were recruited between 1943 to 1947, a period when Communists supported the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan, and were the real soldiers of Jinnah’s two-nation ideology. During my research, I came across the interview of another veteran Communist leader Bhogendra Jha (under oral history) and an interesting revelation. Jha said, “The CPI ordered its cadres to join Muslim League in its campaign for Pakistan.” Further: “At many places Communists raised the slogan of ‘Pakistan Jinadbad’.” Thirty-six delegates joined the party when it actively supported the 1962 Chinese aggression against India.
The party could neither grow nor Indianise itself to understand India’s ethos. The Yechurys and Karats are progenies of Communist forebearers who can only debate which bourgeoisie party is good and which Communist country is ideal. Proletarianism has no place in their priorities. They swing between corruption and communalism, BJP and Congress, Mayawati and Mulayam, Nitish and Lalu, Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa. Their tactics and programmes and luxury-loving mentality are mere exercises at the cost of their foot soldiers.
Rrakeshsinha46@gmail.com
Sinha is Hony. Director of India Policy Foundation