Whats Left?

There is a question staring the Left in the face,after its spectacular fall in West Bengal. Has the Left Front,and big brother CPM in particular,been humbled by defeat? The context and pretext for raising the question is Bengal,since the Left almost finished first-past-the-post in Kerala. Moreover,the inordinate influence it exercised in national politics and policy-making drew specifically from its sustained hold in Bengal. It is not just that Bengal,its partly over-analysed,partly inexplicable 34-year-long reign is past,and its chief minister lost by more than 16,000 votes. It is that the defeatism that paralysed its government for three years before the defeat finally came,framed how bereft of ideas the Left had become and how fearful it appeared to be to ask,why,how,now what?

The Left must ask itself and answer the question because it has to understand why it lost. Without that wisdom,it cannot move on. The temptation to explain the defeat away with mega historical imagery waves,tsunamis,cyclones must be avoided,because the Left in Bengal has to re-learn how to be an opposition. The Lefts predicament is complicated by the fact that for the long years that it was actually in opposition,its modus operandi were usually neither democratic nor civil. So digging into the past will not be much help,except to console itself that its been here before. A further complication is that its practically leaderless in the new assembly,given the fall of the giants of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjees government. More bad news is in the offing: the exodus of workers,defection of cadre,and some of the countless government office-holders from clerks to bureaucrats appointed by the party to stranglehold government and state will no longer be at the CPMs beck and call. When a prolonged,Stalinist-lite regime collapses,such is usually the collateral damage. Reconstructing the party from the ground up and rejoining parliamentary politics will be akin to learning how to walk again. For,Bengal was the food of Left politics across the country.

Thats why the Left Front must understand the loudest,pan-Bengal accusation against it: arrogance. After 34 years,the people of Bengal decided theyd had enough. But something must have happened over the last assemblys term that catalysed an overthrow of this magnitude. If the Left is chastened and willing to go back to the roots,not its own but those of democratic politics,it has a future. If it reverts to its old oppositional instincts or pretends it can still exercise the muscles it built in government,that future will recede.