Beyond the Ballot: CPM, Congress, and a view of national politics from Agartala

On Friday, thousands of CPM and Congress supporters organised a joint rally in the capital city of Agartala amidst seat-sharing talks between the two parties for the Assembly elections. The marchers carried the national flag — not their respective party flags — and raised slogans demanding free and fair elections. Both parties are accusing the BJP of physical violence and intimidation, alleging that even elected representatives such as former Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, have been forced to stay away from their constituencies. The CPM and Congress also want the Tipra Motha, a new party that claims to represent indigenous people, to join the alliance. Tipra Motha has replaced the IPFT (Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura) as the voice of the indigenous people and is seen as the dark horse in this election. There is also the Trinamool Congress, which may eat into the urban vote that the Congress hopes to attract. So, this is an election with the BJP in the pole position and Opposition parties trying desperately to prevent a division of Opposition votes.

Congress and CPI(M) supporters during a joint rally of Congress and CPI(M) ahead of Tripura Assembly elections, in Agartala, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023. (PTI Photo)

A senior CPM leader said the CPM-Congress understanding has been forced by the ground situation — both parties need it to survive electorally. The Bengali-speaking population and the tribal population seem to have deserted the Congress and the CPM for the BJP and parties that flag concerns of ethnic and regional identities. The NRC-CAA agitations in the Northeast hardened the politics of identity, which strengthened both the Sangh Parivar as well as parties claiming to represent the interests of indigenous communities. A young and aspirational middle class, with no memory of the tribal and working-class mobilisations by the CPM, had shifted their allegiance to the BJP. The Bengali migrants, who had fled Bangladesh in the aftermath of Partition and the 1971 liberation war, identified with the Hindu nationalist politics of the Sangh Parivar. Ironically, the CPM which dominated politics in the state for over half a century failed to recognise the churn in the grassroots and its class politics, which in the first place led to the emergence of a middle class among tribals etc, had no counter to the new paradigm.

By all accounts, the CPM was taken by surprise when the BJP tapped into the anti-incumbency in Tripura. Scholar Arkotong Longkumer in The Greater India Experiment: Hindutva and the Northeast, describes the Hindutva actions in the Northeast as unconventional and invokes the term “infrapolitics” — a coinage of political scientist James Scott — to explain the rise of the BJP. He writes: “It is through forging emotional connections with ordinary nontribal householders, teachers, bureaucrats, armed forces personnel, and professionals that their networks take on a more distributed (but not fragmented) character that makes them ‘hidden’ and infra political. It is precisely this hiddenness that allows them to be amorphous, blending according to the nature of the host.”

In a different context, the CPM and the Congress had joined hands in West Bengal in the 2016 and 2021 Assembly polls. It did not help either party as the contest was polarised between the BJP and the Trinamool. It is, of course, a different story in Kerala, where the CPM and Congress are historical rivals. Understandably, the Kerala unit of the CPM has been critical of electoral understanding with the Congress. The CPM-led Left Front trounced the Congress-led UDF in the 2016 and 2021 Assembly elections whereas the latter swept the 2019 general election, winning 19 of the 20 Lok Sabha seats.

The antipathy in the CPM to working with the Congress has a long history and can be traced to the early years of the communist movement in India. M N Roy — influential intellectual and one of the founders of the first Indian communist party in Tashkent in 1920 — was critical of the Congress and Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership. But the CPI worked closely with the Congress in the 1930s during the Congress Socialist Party phase. There was a period of constructive dialogue in the mid-1940s between Gandhiji and the then CPI secretary P C Joshi. The relations between the two parties became hostile during the Quit India movement and during the short-lived 1948 Calcutta thesis that called for armed insurrection against the Indian state. The Congress question — the class character of the party (and the Indian state) and how to engage with it — was one of the reasons behind the 1964 split in the CPI, which led to the formation of the CPM. While the CPI became an ally of the Congress under Indira Gandhi, post Emergency both the communist parties aligned with the anti-Congressism championed by the Janata parivar. The twists and turns in the international communist movement also had a bearing on how the Indian communists engaged with the Congress.

The rise of the BJP in the 1990s changed the political dynamic and brought the CPM and the Congress closer. UPA-1 saw them work together with CPM offering outside support to the Manmohan Singh government and influencing social sector policies. The US nuclear deal in 2008 led to a rupture in the relations. Post 2014, both the parties have come closer, especially in states like Tamil Nadu, where they have been part of the DMK-led alliance for some time.

The takeaway from West Bengal and now Tripura is that, like in Tamil Nadu, the two parties are likely to work out federal seat arrangements. In fact, the CPM’s tactical line foresees a string of federal alliances rather than a national coalition of Opposition parties to take on the BJP. So, the Congress and the CPM may join hands in West Bengal and Tripura and be a part of regional alliances in Tamil Nadu and Bihar, but lead opposing fronts in Kerala or be in rival coalitions, say in Telangana, and have tactical understanding in a few other states. However, whether such federal alliances can offer a challenging counter-narrative to the hyper-nationalist and unitarian Hindutva agenda is the question looming ahead for the Opposition in the run-up to the general election.

amrith.lal@expressindia.com