Another historic blunder

The CPM has moved a little too late in the day to rectify the party's 1996 quot;historic blunderquot;, which had prevented Jyoti Basu fr...

The CPM has moved a little too late in the day to rectify the party8217;s 1996 quot;historic blunderquot;, which had prevented Jyoti Basu from becoming the prime minister in a United Front-led government. Basu was ready again in 1999, after Jayalalitha brought down the BJP government. The longest serving CM had indicated his willingness to Sonia to assume the post. But the Congress thought it could swing a government led by Sonia. The rest is history.

So great was the demand to have Basu as PM in 1996 that the CPM was compelled to review its decision, which remained unchanged. Yet, he was the ideal choice. Having run a coalition government in the state for 20 years, he was endowed with the experience and flexibility required for the job.

That the UF government would not have lasted long was clear. But then the story might have been different with Basu in the lead. The Left parties would have been inside the government, and the chances of the Congress joining it would have increased, instead of a situation where two-thirds of the MPs were outside the ministry.

The CPM lost an opportunity to take steps which might have helped it get a foothold in the Hindi heartland. As things are, the party has not moved beyond the peripheries of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura. It has also been hemmed in by its refusal to accept the social reality that caste translates as class in India. Even today the livelihood of the lower castes is dictated by their caste. Somebody who belongs to the dhobi8217; caste would be doing the work of a washerman, a nai8217; that of a barber, and so on. This may not be true of the higher castes. A Tewari or a Paithankar need not necessarily be teachers. After the Mandal revolution, the CPI had begun to acknowledge caste as a factor.

The CPM has opposed the BJP in the last 10 years but the positions it has taken has given a fillip to the saffron forces. Its anti-Congressism in the late eighties enabled the BJP to take a quantum leap forward. It attempts to instal Sonia Gandhi as prime minister in 1998, pushed many of the regional groups opposed to the Congress, like the TDP, DMK, and the Samata, further into the arms of the BJP.

The party is now talking about recreating the Third Front, outside of the BJP and the Congress. The prospects of the regional groups will improve with the downswing in the BJP8217;s fortunes and the inability of the Congress to take advantage of the situation, but the situation is moving more towards a coalitional bipolarity, rather than a third alternative.

The CPM had the potential to become the centrepiece of a Third Front, like the Janata Dal of old, but its credentials to play this role are diminishing. It has lost its national party status, as the party has not been able to broaden its base. Even though it has been in power in West Bengal for 23 years now and in Kerala many times since the fifties, it has not even been able to spill into the neighbouring states. Much, of course, will depend on the party8217;s showing in next year8217;s elections in Kerala and West Bengal, where it is under pressure. Defeat in these states will undermine its initiative to forge the third front.

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In Kerala, it is the turn of the Congress-led UDF, as the UDF and the LDF governments alternate, and a one or two percentage swing in votes makes the difference between victory and defeat. The Muslim League holds the key and the Congress has already asked Ghulam Nabi Azad, its general secretary in-charge of Kerala, to talk to the League.

The CPM hopes to gain from a division in the opposition8217;s votes in West Bengal, since the prospect of forging a Mahajot, which could bring together all the forces opposed to it, is fading. But the flip side is that Mamata is on the rampage, the Congress base vote is moving to the Trinamool Congress, and the CPM will no long have Jyoti Basu to lead the battle.

A non-BJP government in the 13th Lok Sabha, to replace a ministry that Basu has termed quot;barbaricquot;, could become possible today only if Sonia Gandhi were to give up the leadership of the Congress or if the party were to split, with the larger chunk moving away from Sonia. Both these possibilities seem highly remote, though there are exploratory moves in this direction. Or, if Sonia were to accept the leadership of someone out of the Congress, that too could lead to an alternative. Here, only Basu would fit the bill.

The irony is that when the ground is becoming fertile for a non-BJP dispensation and the CPM has expressed its readiness to participate in a coalition government at the Centre, Jyoti Basu is not going to be available.

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If Basu is unable to lead West Bengal even until the crucial elections next March, how can he be expected to lead the country? And the Left does not have other leaders of that stature and acceptability.

But then this is what political timing, or mistiming, is all about.

If Basu is unable to lead West Bengal even until the crucial elections next March, how can he be expected to lead the country?