All dressed up, two ways to go

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has been saying that what he has done by way of increase in FDI limits is what was indicated in the CMP. The Left had refused to sign the CMP, though it was closely associated with the writing of it and Sitaram Yechury worked with Jairam Ramesh on it. The FDI story might have been different had the Left parties entered the government. Sonia Gandhi was willing to let the Left parties have deputy prime ministership and six ministries. Before the elections she had wanted to forge a pre-poll platform with the Left. The CPM’s Central Committee turned down Sonia Gandhi’s offer, this time with an overwhelming majority, unlike in 1996 when Jyoti Basu lost the prime ministership narrowly.

The arguments for and against entering a government will continue to haunt the Left. It is a toss up between a need to expand and influence policy to guarding its own pockets of influence. In 1996, many party people were in favour of the CPM leading the government; this time it was the larger Left family — intellectuals, academics, liberals — which made a case for it.

The Left is caught between two stools — an ideological concern at the national level to keep the BJP at bay and a pragmatic politics at the state level which positions it against the Congress. Over the years, Marxism in India had become synonymous with anti-Congressism and in many ways the CPM came into existence opposing the pro-Congress line of the CPI.

The CPM moved on from anti-Congressism to equating the Congress and the BJP as twin enemies, to viewing the BJP as the bigger enemy, to a readiness to support the Congress. But vestiges of a visceral anti-Congress sentiment still remain and this is the mindset of many Central Committee members.

The Congress too has to fight the Left in West Bengal, Kerala, Tripura, but it had offered to support Jyoti Basu as PM in 1996. The Congress had never gone in for pre-poll alliances before. But it fashioned them in 2004 against the backdrop of new challenges.

Even the more liberal Buddhadeb Bhattacharya was opposed to joining the government because of the elections he faces in West Bengal in a couple of years’ time. The unions can carry on agitations to keep the cadres happy. But the Left is too identified with the UPA government for it to be able to take on the role of a credible opposition. Everyone knows that without the role its leaders played, the UPA’s birth would not have been so painless.

A tight rope walk is not going to be easy. For instance, it was the Left parties which had first raised the issue of tainted ministers but it is the BJP which is getting mileage out of it. Given the peculiar political configuration today, the Left parties are not able to go the whole hog in mounting an attack on the government. They could condemn Taslimuddin but have not been able to criticise Laloo Yadav by name. When the BJP managed to make it a big issue, the Left was neither able to add their voice to the criticism, nor to defend the tainted ministers, nor to take the initiative to find a way out. On the FDI controversy too, the Left’s attack has become much more understated. It is the BJP which is opposing it more forthrightly.

The idealism of the Left leaders at a personal level is inspiring. There is no other party where the members pay a percentage of their salaries to the party. Even today many of the CPI and CPM MPs walk from Parliament House to Vithal Bhai Patel House where they live, while their colleagues from other parties have moved on to acquiring swanky cars and bungalows. Their democratic temper and decentralised decision-making is evident from the fact that the Central Committee can overrule big leaders like Jyoti Basu and Harkishen Singh Surjeet.

Unwilling to enter a government it could not influence decisively shows an inclination to exercise power only on its own terms. The polity on the other hand is moving in a different direction. Coalitions are a manifestation of a democratic devolution of power.

The Left’s seeming confusion stems from its dilemma on the extent to which it should cooperate with the Congress in the new situation. By remaining outside the government, it may want to have the best of both the worlds. But it may end up having the worst of both the worlds, for that has been the experience of parties which have supported the government from outside.