Now comrades look for space in cowbelt

Today’s politburo meeting of the CPM took up this issue and the party’s senior policy-makers dwelt on the creation of an organisational base in the Hindi-speaking states.

This critical issue will figure in the draft organisational report which the think tank will prepare for the party congress.

In fact, a six-day series of seminars on political, economic and social subjects—of crucial significance to the Hindi heartland—began within the V P House compounds in New Delhi today.

Party general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet and senior politburo member Sitaram Yechury emphasised the need to finally grow out of Kolkata and Thiruvananthapuram and create political space in the heartland.

Ever since the CPM came back with its largest ever tally of 43 seats, it has been quite buoyant and has been talking about finally breaking into the cowbelt. The CPM has had some pockets of influence in Uttar Pradesh like Kanpur and has been fast losing the few constituencies in Bihar like Purnea where it had created some mass following with leaders like the late Ajit Sarkar.

In constrast, the CPI had some electoral support in parts of Bihar and earlier, to some extent, in Uttar Pradesh. Both Left parties refused to deviate from classical Marxism and accept the caste reality in these states. In recent years, senior politburo member, Prakash Karat has been speaking of carrying out surveys to find out how and where the party can grow in these critical states.

In fact, the importance which is being given to heartland politics is amazing. It matches the attention the policy makers are giving to the growth and sustenance of the party in the two key states of West Bengal and Kerala. As it is, the party is quite confident of winning the Assembly polls in the two states next year. The result is that it feels it is comfortable enough to build the party now in the cowbelt.

Already the draft political resolution which was circulated two years ago has the focus on caste politics. Even at the last party congress, the CPM did speak about Dalits but it appears that this time they are seriously trying to carve out its niche in the agrarian societies of UP and Bihar.

Going by the focus at the six day seminar, the CPM is looking at a gamut of issues in these states. It is looking at issues like religious diversity in these provinces and the politics of religion.

It is studying up the condition of the Dalits. So both the Yadav bosses—Mulayam or Laloo Prasad Yadav—or even Ram Vilas Paswan should be wary of the CPM’s designs. But from the look of it, it is the BSP constituency of the most backwards that the Left politics might overlap with in the beginning.

Some Left thinkers have even started saying that though ‘‘caste politics’’ will remain, ‘‘the politics of identifying with one’s own castes’’ may get considerably diluted in the years to come. Already Laloo Prasad Yadav is losing his Yadav base.

Caste alignments across the caste ladder are also getting complicated. Very interestingly, it was Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and not Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janashakti Party that returned the maximum number of Paswan nominees.