Somnath Chatterjee’s desire to return to the CPI(M) is understandable. Having spent so many years in the party, he probably finds life outside it somewhat pointless. However, his reaction is typical of a genial Bengali bhadralok who apparently never quite imbibed the harsh Stalinist traditions of his party. Yet, if he surveys the CPI(M)’s history, he will find that the party does not find it easy to forgive and forget.
As in the case of the votaries of all revealed wisdom, the Marxists regard those who have deviated from their concept of their doctrine as scientific socialism and their party as an agent of history as renegades beyond redemption.
Among those who have been at the receiving end of the party’s ire have been a number of stalwarts. A notable instance is that of Nripen Chakraborty, a widely respected CPI(M) leader of Tripura, who was the state’s chief minister for a decade from 1978. Yet, he was expelled in 1995 and was only readmitted in 2004 a day before his death at the age of 100 years. Others, like the equally well-known K R Gowri of Kerala, who was a minister in E M S Namboodiripad’s first communist Cabinet in India in 1957, were not so lucky. Their faults of alleged anti-party activities are the most damning in the communist lexicon. Compared to Chakraborty and Gowri, Chatterjee is a lesser figure in terms of being associated with the party at the grassroots level. Since he has always been something of a drawing room politician in his starched dhoti and panjabi, the role of the Lok Sabha Speaker suited him to the hilt. However, his belief in the neutrality of his office ran counter to the Marxist notions of a regimented party. So, he had to pay the price of defiance for his refusal to toe the party line on the nuclear deal.
It is unlikely, therefore, that he will be readmitted.
In fact, the party has already ruled it out.
But Chatterjee can still put his faith in the one reconciliatory gesture which his former comrades made. This was in the case of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Although he resigned from Jyoti Basu’s Cabinet in 1993 after expressing unhappiness at the way in which the party was functioning, as articulated in his play, Dushammay (Bad Times), not only was he pardoned, he even became the chief minister. It is this example that probably encourages Chatterjee.