At the 2005-Karat crossroads

The baton was passed in a typically low-key fashion with the new general secretary’s name announced, along with the new members to the central committee and the politburo, even as Karat continued to sit in the second row on the dais. But the CPM’s new star, in the words of a wag, has been beaming like a bridegroom.

The generational change in the CPM is, however, confined to the top and the average age of the central committee or the politburo has gone down only marginally.

Karat takes over at a time when the CPM finds itself playing a pivotal role in New Delhi. In a position to bring down the government, it is changing the terms of national discourse — whether on the issue of FDI or on the question of patents or on the US role in Iraq. Suddenly people are interested in finding out what the party stands for. Of course, this is a two-way process. The party now looks at issues of caste and nationalism in a different way.

The CPM peaked in ’04 with 44 MPs (Left parties together account for 61 MPs) — although they are confined largely to three states. The party knows it will have to widen its catchment area to remain relevant the next time around. Much was made of the need to make inroads into the Hindi heartland at the party’s recent 18th Congress. But this is easier said than done. Although the party has identified its weakness in the Gangetic plain as its failure to reach out to the “socially oppressed” (read caste), as much as the economically exploited, it is going to be an uphill struggle.

One index of how far it has to go is the composition of the new politburo which does not have even one member from the heartland. What is more, the CPM has political alliances with the regional parties already entrenched in Bihar and UP. They will not relish the idea of the CPM gaining at their expense.

The Karat-led team will have to negotiate through the minefield of coalition politics and yet retain — and expand — its base. For all its reservations about the Congress agenda of economic reform, it knows that it has never had it so good. Its dilemma is similar to the one faced by the RSS during Vajpayee’s premiership. The Sangh did not have its way on many things but could not afford to topple the government because it was aware that the next government might not be as friendly towards it. But the process diluted its ideological identity. The CPM has decided to back the Congress-led UPA, but hopes that resorting to “mass struggles” might help it circumvent the problems that are bound to arise.

It is ironical that Prakash Karat — the hardliner steeped in Marxian ideology; a purist who was opposed to Jyoti Basu becoming prime minister in ’96 and the CPM joining the UPA government in ’04; the man who only a few weeks ago articulated the need for the revival of a Third Front — should be the one chosen to steer the party at a time when it has really gone soft on the Congress. The CPM has made it plain that it will keep the UPA government going. With that decision, the idea of a Third Front has become a non-starter for the time being. However, just because he is seen as a hardliner, Karat is more likely to implement the latest party line even more scrupulously.

Though he is known to be a professional in approach and a stickler for detail, Karat is the quintessential ideologue. Unlike Surjeet, or for that matter, Sitaram Yechury — who have had an easy relationship with Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and maverick state leaders (Surjeet had dealt with them since the formation of the National Front in ’89, the United Front in 1996, and the UPA in ’04), Karat does not enjoy a comfortable relationship with non-Communist leaders in quite the same way.

A test of his leadership will lie in the extent to which he and Sitaram Yechury can act in concert. The two of them came into the politburo together and complemented each other, with Yechury cast in the Surjeet mould — flexible, affable, moderate, at home in dealing with other parties. After all, the success of the party in the past has stemmed from the fact that there was a Promode Das Gupta standing with Jyoti Basu in West Bengal and an A.K. Gopalan with an E.M.S. Namboodiripad in Kerala. It has never been a solo play in the Communist movement in India, which has not had anyone like Mao. As Prakash Karat himself has emphasised, the CPM was not a personality-oriented party. And, yet, he is the one called to lead the party’s difficult but exciting endeavour to redefine the CPM’s — and the Left’s — position and politics in the coming years.