CPM sheds some baggage, wakes up to ‘world realities’

Leaders of the CPI(M) have spoken along these lines in the past but for the party congress to decide that there could be no scope of ‘‘wishful’’ thinking and these ‘‘realities’’ would have to be faced amounts to a paradigm shift. The CPI(M) is finally doing what the Chinese Communist Party had done years ago.

Interestingly, despite the consensus of this policy shift, the party congress did not accept the second part of the political organization document which dealt with these crucial questions on globalisation last night. It was this document which generated the most heated, but at the same time most exciting, of the discussions.

It was agreed that these were issues which needed much wider debate. The delegates felt that the document had been circulated late and it needed time to seriously go into the subject. The agreement was that the new Central Committee would dissect the document and bring out a policy paper. The entire debate implies that the CPI(M) is finally moving into a position from where it has begun to accept reality.

As was widely anticipated, Prakash Karat was ‘‘unanimously’’ chosen the general secretary of the party. Karat, himself, explained later how intent both outgoing general secretary, Surjeet and Jyoti Basu were to be relieved from their jobs. He said that the party after much deliberations only agreed not to give them too much burden but they would remain politburo members.

Karat’s leadership takeover has suddenly brought down the average age of the politburo members. Suddenly in an executive body accused of encouraging gerontocracy, a majority of the members in their fifties. Of the four new politburo members, B.V. Raghavulu and Brinda Karat are also in their fifties. Chittabrata Mazumdar and K Varadarajan are not much older. Varadarajan comes from the agrarian movement and will also underline the party’s recent emphasis on agriculture. This party congress did adopt a strong resolution on agriculture and the party is aware that if it wants to grow in the Hindi heartland, it has to look at the larger questions involving a predominantly agricultural economy.

CITU leader Chittabrata Mazumdar’s induction is also significant at a time when elections are due in West Bengal and a changing CPI(M) has to deal with the troublesome question of handling the workers’ issues.

Brinda Karat’s elevation to the politburo was long expected because in its 41-year-old history, the CPI(M) had remained a male bastion and had never accommodated a woman.

Of political significance also is the exit of E. Balanandan due to “failing health”. But it does help the party in a significant way in Kerala where Balanandan had been taking sides with the recalcitrant V S Achuthanandan, who had been waving the flag of dissidence alone in the southern state.

But there were party sources, who felt, that Balanandan’s departure would not solve matters. There were still quite a few MPs, not just MLAs, who remained sympathetic to Achuthanandan’s cause.