After six decades, the CPI in Kerala seems to have hit upon just the right issue to gain the ideological upper hand in the vastly unequal and long-drawn-out battle with the CPM for popular appeal among Left voters.
ADGP Ajith Kumar's report on the disruption of this year's 'Thrissur pooram' and his secret talks with top RSS leaders could do for the CPI what the letters of apology supposedly written by S A Dange from jail to the British and his faction’s Congress slant did in 1964 for a small aggressive ‘leftist’ group within the CPI.
In 1924, Dange along with other CPI leaders like M N Roy and Muzaffar Ahmad were put in jail in what is now known as the Kanpur Bolshevik Conspiracy Case. They were charged with conspiracy to use violence against the British.
Four letters that were unearthed from the National Archives of India in 1964 seemed to suggest that Dange was apologetic and had struck a deal with the British for his release. The 'leftists' wanted a probe into these letters and the CPI national council led by Dange summarily rejected the demand calling them a "forgery".
In retaliation, a small group - of ‘leftists’ like A K Gopalan, Basavapunniah, P Sundarayya and Harkishen Singh Surjeet and ‘centrists’ like E M S Namboodirippad and Jyothi Basu - broke out of the CPI led by Dange and formed the CPM.
In the elections (Lok Sabha and Assembly) held after the 1964 split, in 1967, the CPM emerged the single biggest party. Soon, the splinter group blossomed into the most important Left party in the country. The mother party, CPI, gradually became splinter-sized.
Khrushchev-Lenin factor
Then, the CPI 'leftists', who later became the CPM, had accused the dominant faction led by Dange of 'rightist' tendencies. By 'rightist' they meant stifling of inner-party democracy, and an eagerness to cooperate with the ruling Congress party.
Long before the 'Dange letters' came before the CPI National Council in April 1964, various international developments have pulled the two factions farther away from each other. First there was the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1956, during which Soviet general secretary Nikita Khrushchev made a speech that vilified and denounced the excesses of his predecessor Joseph Stalin's era.
While the moderate voices in the CPI, the 'rightists' with an affinity towards the Congress Party, were secretly appreciative of Khrushchev, the militant 'leftists' were not happy that Khrushchev had refused to give Stalin credit for transforming Soviet Union into an industrial powerhouse and for his role in defeating nazism and fascism. The 'leftists' felt empowered when China, too, was critical of Khrushchev's speech.
EMS and the Sino-Indian War
Then came the Sino-Indian War in 1962. The 'rightists' led by Dange, who were dominant in the CPI then, adopted a nationalist belligerent stand against China and threw their weight behind Nehru. The 'leftists', who at that point had not yet abandoned armed rebellion as a means to achieve total revolution even though it had in 1950 accepted the path of parliamentary democracy, voted against the anti-China resolution of the CPI.
Centrists like EMS, though he called for a peaceful resolution of the border conflict, made insulting remarks against India. "If one takes into account certain offensive military moves, it is a fact that India's behaviour was not as peaceful as this country claims," EMS had written. He even termed as "notorious" Prime Minister Nehru's "drive the Chinese out" proclamation of October 12, 1962.
In short, by the time the Dange letters were discovered, the two sides were clearly beyond reconciliation. But once separated, it was easy for both parties to find common ground and had functioned as close allies, except between 1970 and 1979 when the CPI was part of the Aikya Munnani led by the Indian National Congress.
CPI vs CPM: Change of roles
Now, it is the CPM, the original 'leftists', that has been accused of right-wing tendencies. If, in 1964, the Dange-led CPI was charged with a pro-Congress bias, the Pinarayi-led CPM is said to be under the spell of the Sangh Parivar.
The CPM has refused to remove this perception. The party had already lost the ideological battle when it insisted that it did not matter that its top police officer had met RSS leaders. For the CPM, what mattered was why.
The CPI, on the other hand, argues that the very fact that the ADGP had met the leaders of the Left's most despised adversary is enough to boot him out to an insignificant post. The CPI considers any further investigation unnecessary, as the CM insists on conducting. "If you see a man slapping his mother, will you want to know why? The act is the sin," a top CPI leader said.
CPI’s daredevilry
The CPI wants to offer itself as a contrast to what a top CPI leader called the CPM's "negotiable communism". "We cannot allow a perception to gain ground that the Left is bartering away its ideology for personal and political gains," the leader said.
The alleged RSS-CPM pact comes on top of a succession of ideological predicaments faced by the Left front. The CPI could hold its head high at least in one case, in the corruption case against former minister Thomas Chandy. The CPI ministers, in a shocking and unprecedented move, boycotted the Cabinet meeting on November 2017 against the Chief Minister's decision to retain Chandy who was found guilty of illegal encroachment. The CM, though shaken by the CPI move, was forced to act.
Law and order failures
In other instances when the Left's commitment to principles were tested, the CPI did voice its protest but it seemed too feeble to force a course correction from the CPM. One was when the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) was slapped on two students, Alan Shuaib and Thwaha Fasal, in November 2019. And then, there were the encounter killings of Maoist members by the Kerala police. The CPI kept dissenting but it was as if the CPM couldn't care less.
But this time, the CPI seems as ambitious as it was during the Thomas Chandy saga; it wants to be seen as the party that prevented the Left from straying right. The CM seems to have effectively defused the political bomb that P V Anvar had transformed himself into. But the only way Pinarayi could neutralise the CPI gameplan, political observers Onmanorama talked to say, is to order the ADGP out of law and order.
