Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Here8217;s some great news for Indian politics: a section of the CPM is in ferment, factional warriors have cast aside commandments of democratic centralism. When the churning in the party8217;s Kerala unit subsides, might we just see the first signs of a new life? The CPM beginning its slow and painful transformation into a modern social democratic party? The grounds for such hope lie in what so far has been a summary removal of V.S. Achuthanandan from the front ranks of the
Kerala CPM8217;s poll campaign. Achuthanandan is the kind of orthodox Marxist that makes the CPM, despite boasting some of the sharpest intellects in Indian politics, incapable of responding to change at the national level. If the party8217;s internal tension is between the so-called Bengal pragmatists and Kerala ideologues, Achuthanandan8217;s fall from grace has the makings of a tipping point.
The party is identified at the national level with politics that refuses to recognise that while poverty and exploitation are still terrible realities, millions have broken the social mould because of greater and newer opportunities. The CPM8217;s is also politics that frames the question of social inequity in terms of industrial labour in the organised sector. Fighting for the privileges of a well-protected group doesn8217;t even pass theoretical muster 8212; 8216;economism8217; has been much sniffed at in Marxist literature. In, as they say, praxis, it makes the CPM unappealing to urban classes experiencing social mobility and irrelevant to those whom the markets do not as yet protect, workers in the unorganised sector being the prime example. Every communist party that has flourished after the Soviet project imploded has learned to respect the market while interrogating its distributive capabilities. They have recognised the value of enterprise and the nuances of exploitation. They have become smartly mainstream. So must the CPM.
