The Communist-led Left is one of the few currents in Indian politics that is committed to the emancipation of the poor, and is relatively untainted by corruption. It has played a major role in strengthening democracy and fighting for marginalised people’s rights. It is now in a dire crisis – especially in West Bengal, where it held power uninterruptedly for 34 years until 2011, setting a world record.
The latest blow to the Left, its fourth successive election defeat since 2009, comes from the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress’s triumph in Bengal’s municipal elections. The TMC has now established itself as Bengal’s pre-eminent party, ahead of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) – the world’s second-largest Communist party, next only to China’s.
This confronts the Left Front, including the CPM, the Communist Party of India, and other smaller parties, with a grim challenge. Unless the LF addresses its ideological deficiencies, rethinks its political strategies, undertakes honest self-criticism, admits its mistakes, revamps its state-level leaderships, and restores its relationship with the underprivileged, it cannot overcome its crisis, which is acquiring an existential character and could turn terminal.
The Left drew a blank in all five elections to municipal bodies. The TMC swept four. The Left finished third, behind the Congress, in four bodies and in many wards. This greatly dims its 2014 Lok Sabha prospects.
The TMC won 96 of the 143 wards whose results were announced – up from 28 in 2008. The Left won only eight wards. The TMC wrested the Howrah Corporation and Jhargram municipality from the Left, which ruled them for three decades. Howrah is in Kolkata’s peri-urban industrial belt. Jhargram lies in a tribal area which witnessed anti-TMC unrest recently.
True, the TMC practised coercion and captured some booths – as the Left used to do earlier, albeit on a smaller scale. But that can’t explain the spread and magnitude of the Left’s increasingly humiliating defeat in successive elections, or its steadily eroding vote-share. It fared miserably in 12 municipal elections held earlier, in which the TMC swept nine bodies. In 29 recent ward by-elections, the Left won just four, the TMC 23.
The TMC’s municipal victory comes after it swept 13 of 17 zilla parishads (district councils) in July’s rural-panchayat elections. The Left won only one parishad, but lost as many as 12. Its vote-share fell from 49.5 percent to 36 percent, well below the TMC’s 42 percent.
The Left’s most grievous losses occurred in nine southern and south-western districts, considered its bastions since 1977. One of them, Bardhaman, has witnessed Bengal’s greatest struggles on land issues and produced legendary peasant leaders Harekrishna Konar and Benoy Choudhury.
Many analysts concluded that Banerjee’s rural support-base remained strong although she had lost credibility in the cities because of her crass utterances about rape, rising crime rates, a Ponzi scheme (Saradha) scam, harassment of academics, etc – issues to which urban voters are sensitive.
The municipal elections disprove this. Banerjee remains acceptable in urban areas too – if only because the public doesn’t want the Left back. It has repeatedly sent this message since the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, which brought the LF tally down from 35 (of 42 seats) to just 16.
The 2011 assembly elections saw the Left’s rout. Its seat-tally plummeted from 235 (of 294) to just 62. Although detailed figures for the latest civic polls aren’t available, it would be a surprise if the Left’s vote hasn’t shrunk below the 36 percent clocked in panchayat polls.
This isn’t just a succession of electoral setbacks, but a general political defeat of the West Bengal Left, and a telling comment on its credibility. Today, the Left parties, known for their committed cadre-base, are unable to bring their supporters out on the street on any major issue.
Many such issues cry out for mobilisation, including the Saradha scam which burnt the savings of three to four million families, law-and-order problems, antics of TMC-connected goons, human rights violations, and urban governance issues including a bizarre ban on bicycles on 174 Kolkata roads.
The Left doesn’t take these up. It’s virtually paralysed. It conducts politics through television, leaving the real fight to factions divided between the ‘Green TMC’ (the original formation) and the ‘Red TMC’ (mainly comprising CPM defectors).
The Left complains that the TMC is a party of lumpens and goons. This is true. But it’s equally true that the Left, especially the CPM, has no strategy to counter the TMC. It’s as if its leadership were waiting for a near-miraculous, spontaneous revival of its organisation before joining battle. But the revival won’t happen unless the cadre is mobilised through mass struggles.
Defeat stares the West Bengal Left in the face, which just years ago seemed invincible. Four factors explain its decline. First, the Left lived for far too long on the credit earned from positive initiatives launched soon after 1977, including the Operation Barga tenancy reform, devolution of power to the panchayats, release of political prisoners, restoration of law-and-order, and return to coherent governance.
These measures were modest. Thus, Operation Barga registered and protected tenants, but never evolved into radical land redistribution, unlike in Kerala. Nor did the Left distribute above-ceiling surplus land among the landless. Soon, the reforms’ impact ran out.
Second, the Left Front, working under the constraints of skewed centre-state relations, adopted relatively conservative economic and social policies. Agricultural growth was accelerated but made dependent upon Green Revolution methods, including high-energy inputs. There was little skill generation. Employment opportunities dried up.
The LF neglected the social sector. West Bengal’s health, education and labour welfare indices are now among India’s lowest. Its school dropout rates are higher than Bihar’s. Its National Rural Employment Guarantee Act performance is the worst among 20 major states and its food Public Distribution System is among India’s most run-down.
Only 55 percent households in Bengal use electricity for lighting (national average, 67 percent). And only 25 percent have access to tapped drinking water (national average, 43 percent).
The Front adopted an elitist pro-Big Business industrialisation strategy. This derived from its dogmatic understanding of the ‘stages of historical development’, in which capitalist industrialisation must happen before the fight for socialism begins. This entailed aggressive land acquisition, pitting the Left against its base, leading to the Singur and Nandigram (2006-07) bloodshed.
Third, as the LF got bureaucratised and ossified, popular discontent grew against its subordination of the state, reliance on patronage, and abuse of power by cadres. By the 2006 assembly elections, the Left’s vote-base among the rural poor shrank by five percent over 2001, while that among the urban middle classes and urban rich grew by 16 and 18 percent. This pushed it further towards the Right.
Finally, the Left failed to integrate issues like caste, patriarchy and ecology into its politics. It also developed an organisational culture that outlaws dissent and prevents free internal debate.
The Left will decline further in Bengal unless it radically rethinks its politics. Its performance will probably improve in Kerala from four to 14-to-17 Lok Sabha seats. But that won’t push its national total much above the present 24 seats. That still falls short of the critical minimum needed to influence Indian politics. The Left must reform, or perish.
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