Forced into pragmatism

The identity dilemma facing the CPM can be described as follows: the party is still trying to come to terms with what it means to be a polit...

The identity dilemma facing the CPM can be described as follows: the party is still trying to come to terms with what it means to be a political party in India. It was one of the few parties that historically had something of an orthogonal relationship to Indian nationalism and its core values, which were decried as bourgeois mystification. It was often more concerned with fidelity to a doctrine than to the realities of India. It showed more solicitude for its now defunct ideological brethren elsewhere in the world, than with the need to form coalitions within the country. The general triumph of capitalism, the looming threat from the Right, forced a kind of pragmatism upon the party. But as it transforms its identity, it is still struggling to come to terms with realities.

The party has a solid base in Kerala and West Bengal, but the unprecedented power it now enjoys at the Centre is largely a result of the peculiar mathematics of politics. But power, it is said, compels the redefinition of any identity. The CPM8217;s central politburo is having to discover what their Bengal colleagues figured out long ago: that there is a difference between a party that aspires to govern and a party that can oppose for the sake of opposing. Like the BJP, the CPM is learning to strike a balance between pragmatism and principle, between the need for coalitions and the urge to push its agenda through. It has to toe the fine line between keeping the Congress on its toes and uprooting it.

But the second dilemma it faces is this. The party8217;s political base has remained stagnant for quite some time. Like other parties, it is groping for a strategy to expand its social base; and, like them, it is coming up short. It cannot leverage its access to power into any radical programme like serious land reform. It is reluctantly acknowledging that oppression in India takes on a different hue than the rather passionless word 8220;class8221; captures. But it is in no position to play serious caste politics. Outside Bengal and Kerala, the party is beholden to a small section of organised labour to be an entirely credible arbiter of the general good. Its Chinese counterparts had the luxury of inventing socialism with Chinese characteristics. A socialism with Indian characteristics may alas also be more Indian than socialist. The CPM8217;s dilemma is that its future expansion depends upon becoming more like a normal political party. But that would also be the measure of its failure.