Communists must debate on their relevance

Unless the communists discard foreign inspiration and their failed, false political ideology and become fully Bharatiya, they will be paper tigers, disputing among themselves and perpetually debating whether they should be the tail of this party or that party in the name of tactical line

The CPI(M) is organising its plenum in Kolkata on December 27-31. It is strange that the two major communist parties CPI(M) and CPI are led by two Telugu people Sitaram Yechury and Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy respectively.

Their parties are almost zeros in the two Telugu states. In the recently held bye-election to the Lok Sabha from Warangal , nine leftist parties and their 73 mass organisations campaigned for a communist candidate. Poor man, he got 1.4% of the votes polled.

Some decades ago also, the two communist parties were led by two Telugu people - Puchalapalli Sundaraiah for the CPI(M) and Chandra Rajeswara Rao for the CPI. Is it not surprising that without any home base,

Telugu communists become the All India leaders of the two major communist parties in India? This indicates that the communist parties in India do not have any people’s following. The original communist party was split into nine parties, each claiming to be the only true Marxist, Leninist Party.

Reflecting upon the division in the communist movement, by now their mass frontal organisations among students, youth and women and even workers are split into several factions; for example: among students there are four major communist-led associations – SFI, AISF, PDSU and RSU.

Writers, artists and women are also split into several factions. How can such communists ever hope to be a party of relevance in India, except in West Bengal, Kerala and tiny Tripura? Even in West Bengal and Kerala, CPI(M) and CPI have been fighting elections not on their own, but in a front comprising various left parties, each with an inconsiderable following.

The communist parties have always been cobbling fronts like People’s Democratic Front (in the erstwhile Nizam’s Hyderabad State), Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala, United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and some other fronts in some other States. They also hang on sometimes to regional parties like TDP in AP and DMK/AIADMK in Tamil Nadu. In 1955, they took the Congress in Andhra head-on, alone and were routed.

Within the CPI(M) and CPI, there are discussions periodically as to whether the Congress party is progressive or capitalist or a lackey of Anglo–American imperialism. They would support the Congress to defeat the Jana Sangh /BJP. In 1975 when Indira Gandhi declared emergency, the CPI fully backed the emergency.

Not only that, it directed its central committee member Mohan Kumara Mangalam to quit the party and join the Congress, and from within the Congress, he implemented the communist agenda to the utmost possible extent. Nationalisation of coal mines and banks was the CPI’s achievement through its Trojan horse, Mohan Kumara Mangalam, in the Congress.

The once strong All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) was split. Noticing that the AITUC had become an instrument of the communist party, the Congress, especially urged by Sardar Patel, split it and formed the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC). When the communist party split in 1964, soon thereafter the CPI(M) split the AITUC and formed the Center of Indian Trade Unions (CITU).

Similarly, their frontal organisations among writers, artists, journalists and students were also split. The less the following among people, especially voters, the more intense is the debate as to which of these factions is truly Marxist-Leninist. Despite overtures now and then, the nine communist parties and their front al organisations in India had not been able to come as one united party.

Yet, their visibility in the country is high because they have become the “Statement Parties of India.” Not a day passes without some communist party or the other, one front or others, issuing a statement, condemning this or that act of the government and the ruling party in the states at the center. They had infiltrated very effectively the faculties of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi and through it, into almost all the central universities and many government universities in the states.

They have infiltrated into the media, too… They are in perpetual opposition, all in the name of people, democracy, human rights, civil rights, welfare of the poor and the backward, minorities and women and children and minors and farmers and workers and students and government servants.

Unfortunately none of those mentioned seems to be believing in the communists so much so that the communist parties have been losing their voters and are insignificant almost all over India, excepting in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura.

The fundamental question that they should introspect upon is this: the RSS and the Communist Party were founded in the same year, 1925. Why is it that the RSS child, BJP (formerly Jana Sangh), has been able to get people’s support to be in power in several states as well as in the Center (for the 3rd time 1998-99, 1999-2004 and since May 2014) while the communist parties remain confined to three States.

The reason appears to be simple: RSS, Jana Sangh, BJP are inspired by Bharat and the Indian society and India’s ideas and culture, whereas the communist parties, by their very description, namely communist parties of India (I, M, ML, UML...) are part of a transnational political umma, a community of Marxist- Leninist- Stalinist- Maoist political theology.

Their inspiration is from outside India. Their thought process is anti-India’s history, heritage and culture. They are anti-Hindu and afraid of Muslims, and take Muslims (and Christians, now-a-days) as allies against Hindus’ nationalism.

Periodically they go on admitting that they had been wrong in the past and thereafter assert that the current policy of theirs is correct, only to once again, after sometime, confess to be wrong. “Vanquished though, he argued still” is a famous English phrase. It could be modified in respect of communists as “rejected though , they hope to be victorious yet.”

Unless the communists discard the foreign inspiration and their failed, false political ideology and become fully Bharatiya, they will be paper tigers, disputing among themselves and perpetually debating whether they should be the tail of this party or that party in the name of tactical line.