BJP Loses Assembly Elections

Sitaram Yechury

It may, indeed, appear ironic to the cynical who had sealed the future of socialism with the close of the 20th century, that the present situation in India should offer tremendous opportunities for the Left to advance.

The massive erosion of the BJP’s popular support, as seen in the recent assembly elections, reflects the growing discontentment amongst the people. No other government in independent India had lost people’s goodwill so enormously in so short a time. The Congress benefitted essentially from a negative vote.

It is this disillusionment with the BJP and disenchantment with the Congress which accumulated over the last decade or so, that provides the opportunities for the Left which consistently fa¬voured a third alternative. But this alternative cannot be merely an electoral arrangement but one based on an alternative set of policies. What India needs and the people expect is a vision distinct from that of the BJP or the Congress which can take the country into the 21st century as a modern nation.

The Congress forfeited its vision of building a modern secular democratic self-reliant India during the course of the last decade when it adopted policies that undermined India’s economic sovereignty and compromised with the communal forces. The BJP vision, on the other hand, is one that not only negates the very foundations of a modern secular democratic polity, but is one that is inward looking and regressive. A vision that completely fails to address the people’s needs and problems in a multi- lingual, multi-cultural and multi-religious society. On the contrary, it compounds the problems of divisiveness breeding insecurity amongst millions of people.

If the necessity is for the emergence of an alternative vision, it may legitimately be asked as to why the Left is not able to advance towards this objective in a more rapid manner. After all, with the record of the CPI(M)-led government in West Bengal for over two decades; the fact that the Communists being in the government in Kerala had laid the foundations of a society with¬out illiteracy whose human development indicators exceed those of many developed European countries; with its record of combating anti-national terrorism in Tripura while maintaining social harmony between the tribals and the non-tribals, why is it that the CPI(M) and the Left have not been able to make significant advances in other parts of the country?

This is a question that the recently concluded 16th Congress of the CPI(M) examined in some detail. It should be at the outset recognised that the organisational growth and the popular strug¬gles launched by the CPI(M) and the Left do not automatically get reflected in electoral terms. The mounting popular discontent against the Congress was unfortunately channelised by the commu¬nal forces through emotive appeals to the people. Appeals based on religion or caste have swayed the people temporarily. But, by now it is clear that by merely appealing to emotions without addressing the basic problems affecting the people and the coun¬try, such support can only be momentary and volatile.

What is required today is a set of policies that strengthen our secular democratic foundations; that strengthen federalism by properly restructuring Centre-State relations; that reverse the merciless attacks on people’s livelihood through price rise and unemployment; that strengthen the self-reliant basis of the Indian economy by ensuring favourable terms for integration with the global market; that seek balanced economic development remov¬ing regional inequalities which foment divisive movements; that expand the domestic market through land reforms and massive anti- poverty programmes; that increases the Central government’s role in strengthening the economic and social infrastructure through public investment; and importantly, ensuring economic and social justice to the oppressed sections. It is only the CPI(M) and the Left, given both their credibility and sincerity of committment to advance people’s interest, that can put in motion such an agenda before the country. This is necessary for another import¬ant reason, that is, to arrest both the growing degeneration of political morality and corruption that is eating into the vitals of our system.

In order to do so, however, the CPI(M) and the Left, apart from overcoming many organisational weaknesses already identified, would have to address an important issue. The tremendous social oppression against the dalits and other backward castes that continues to take place, even today, needs to be integrated with the growing people’s struggles against the economic policies and other miseries being mounted by the present set of policies. The vast majority of the oppressed castes are part of the exploited classes in our society. It is this integration of struggles against social oppression and the struggles against exploitation that need to be strengthend by the Left, taking up both these aspects simultaneously. The dangers of not achieving such an integration are caste fragmentation leading to tensions and strife, which India can least afford.

It is on the basis of such growing struggles of the people, in cooperation with all those who today stand opposed to communal politics, that endangers the unity and integrity of India, and economic policies that mortgage our country while heaping miser¬ies on the working people that the CPI(M) visualises not only the advance of the Left but also that of India and its people.