CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, in what looked like a rebuff of the anti-Congress line adopted by the Kerala unit of the CPM, has called for the “broadest possible front of all secular forces” to defeat the BJP. The CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, on the other hand, had consistently maintained that the Congress was a spent force and aggressively called for a national alliance with resurgent regional parties.
Kodiyeri's argument was that regional parties strongly opposed to the Hindutva project were gaining strength in states. He even stood vindicated after the pathetic showing of the Congress and the stupendous victory of Aam Aadmi Party in the just concluded five Assembly polls. Kodiyeri's argument had also stemmed from the realisation that only by undermining the political significance of the Congress can the Left improve its Lok Sabha tally from Kerala, the only state in the country where it is dominant.
However, while delivering the inaugural address at the delegate conference of the 23rd Party Congress in Kannur on Wednesday, Yechury made it evident that an alternative to the BJP would not be complete without the Congress party though it has shrunk to a pitiable state.
“The Congress party, along with some other regional parties, must set their houses in order and decide where they stand in this fight to safeguard the secular and democratic character of the Indian republic,” Yechury said. More than a dismissal of Congress's worth, this reprimand reflected the importance the CPM general secretary attached to the role of a strengthened Congress in the proposed Left-secular alliance. Yechury even sounded like a teacher rebuking a student squandering away his potential.
Nonetheless, Yechury was critical of what the CPM perceived as the Congress's soft-Hindutva line. “Prevarications and the compromising attitude towards communalism will only lead, as experience has shown, to exodus of its members to the communal fold. Hindutva can be fought only by championing uncompromising secularism,” Yechury said.
The Kerala unit of the CPM saw in Rahul Gandhi's Hindu-Hndutvawadi differentiation at an election rally in Jaipur last December as yet another sign of Congress's soft-Hindutva tendencies. Rahul called himself a Hindu and said that the Hindu seeks the truth (satya) and the Hindutvawadi is after state power (satta) by any means.
Many top leaders of the CPM in Kerala, including Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, had said that Rahul Gandhi had shamelessly called himself a Hindu. Other Congress leaders like Shashi Tharoor, Jairam Ramesh and P Chidambaram, in an attempt to isolate Hindutva from the idea of Hindu spirituality, had at various stages called themselves Hindus as opposed to Hindutvawadis.
The CPM feels that such a posturing will play into the hands of Hindutva forces. “This constant harping that they are Hindus sounds like defeat, as if these Nehruvian socialists have been forced to acknowledge their Hindu identity by the BJP,” a top CPM leader said.
On the other hand, it is also a fact that the CPM has also shed its absolute indifference to anything related to religion. It was only recently that the Tamil Nadu unit of the CPM had decided to be more active in temple festivals to counter the growing Sangh Parivar influence in Tamil society. In fact, in Kerala the CPM's active participation in festival activities had begun at least five years ago.
While the most suitable tactic to take on the BJP is still elusive, Yechury has appealed to the Congress to be part of the Left-Secular alliance unmindful of the apprehensions of Kerala comrades. “All political parties that proclaim secularism should rise to the occasion to discharge this patriotic duty,” he said.
It is now a foregone conclusion that the 23rd Party Congress will witness a deep polarisation on the Congress issue. Four major questions will be put before delegates for debate during the five-day Congress.
One, how to substantially increase the independent strength of the CPM and its political intervention capacities. Two, how to strengthen the unity of Left forces and sharpen class and mass struggles. Three, how to force the unity of left and democratic forces on the basis of an alternative programme. Four, how to forge the broadest possible front of all secular forces in order to defeat the Hindutva design.
