Historic blunder

The 19th party congress of the CPM began in Coimbatore on Saturday with clarion calls for a third alternative at the Centre. To be fair, the Left has never been less than straightforward about its first preference for a non-Congress, non-BJP government. But to the extent that a third alternative is a mechanism for meaningful political alliances to reflect the federal character of India8217;s polity, a question has to be asked. Is such theorising by the Left simply an exercise in obfuscation? Is it not a cover for the Left8217;s practice these past four years of rejecting the meaningful consensuses that an ideal third alternative coalition is expected to nurture?

This month, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said that sixty-odd MPs of the Left had exercised a veto on national policy. He perhaps had the stalling of economic reform in mind. But on the opening day of the party congress, CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat gave a measure of the veto he wields by taking credit for stopping the Indo-US nuclear agreement. The Left has also tied the government8217;s hands 8212; or the government has allowed its hands to be tied 8212; on reacting to Beijing8217;s response to the Tibetan protests. That is not an independent foreign policy. On economic reform, it is arguable what the UPA government may have achieved without the Left8217;s aggressive reservations. But the fact of the Left8217;s opposition does give UPA leaders reason to argue that they were kept from doing enough to make economic growth faster and deeper. Pressure to non-action is, after all, itself a questionable action.

Many of the parties the Left would see as part of a third alternative are political parties currently in the UPA. By keeping 8212; and being allowed to keep 8212; the centre of gravity in policy-making outside the alliance, the Left has been extraordinarily impatient with coalition consensuses. This is why the yearning for a third alternative as a way of distancing the communist parties from the UPA8217;s record of governance is extremely unconvincing.