Poll outcome gives CPI(M) some hard lessons

By C. Gouridasan Nair

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, MAY 25. Will the CPI(M) take a hard look at itself in the light of the setback it has suffered in the Assembly election? The party can trot up ever so many reasons for its failure for public consumption, but can allow itself to be carried away by these arguments only at a heavy cost. True, the hardening of communal votes in favour of the UDF tricked it and the LDF out of reckoning in the polls. True also that the slump in farm prices added to the latent anti-Government mood of the electorate. But is that all?

When the State CPI(M) leadership gets down to the business of evaluating its poll performance at the State committee meeting on May 27 and 28 and later places its findings for the consideration of the party central committee which is scheduled to meet on May 31 and June 1, it would do well to be a bit more candid about its present state of health and the reasons how it has come to be seen as a party out of touch with the times.

It goes without saying that when evaluating the reasons for wins and loss, care must be taken to separate the ephemeral from the enduring. The problem with the CPI(M) in Kerala seems to be that in its haste to find scapegoats for poll debacles, be in individual constituencies or in the State as a whole, it fails to separate the real from the imagined. Those holding the reins of the party in Kerala may not find it palatable, but the fact of the matter is that the organisational phalanx of the CPI(M) in the State has developed serious defects. It is a weak party organisation that went into the polls and the outcome is there for all to see.

Despite the veil of secrecy that shrouded the entire party organisation resulting in quiet witch-hunts and impositions from above, the CPI(M) brand of internal democracy had its merits for the party organisation. Fearless expression of opinion in party committees, which was the hallmark of this sort of internal democracy, is a thing of the past today thanks to the advent of factionalism, bureaucratisation and resultant sycophancy. The party began experimenting with democracy of the kind that other political parties are familiar with by opting for open elections at the local level. It did so knowing fully well that the new practice would bring with it ills such as factionalism that have come to dog social democratic parties. That was thought to be a small price to be paid for democracy.

It was a welcome change. But the ills soon caught up with the gains and overtook them and hardboiled Marxists now swear that there is bureaucratisation and sycophancy and no democracy in the party. When nobody dares to tell the truth, the party cannot but go out of touch with the ground reality. The estimation of the CPI(M) State secretariat that the LDF would secure between 75 to 85 seats after the May 10 polling is attributed to this grave shortcoming.

The party's inability to convince the people about the real reasons for the fall in the prices of farm produces also seems to have had a lot to do with the same failing. Due to its inability to mobilise class and mass organisations in major struggles on the question of import liberalization and its impact on farm prices, the party failed to demarcate the roles of the State and Central Governments in the tragedy on the farm front and, naturally, the people placed the entire blame for the crisis at the door of the visible authority, the State Government.

A close look at the CPI(M)s campaign effort would show that the mass organisations did not also participate in the poll effort with the same gusto as in the past and in many places persons who could mobilise public opinion in favour of the party were either lukewarm to the entire exercise or altogether silent. The CPI(M) district committees have completed their review of the poll results and only the State committees review remains to be taken up now. The party can either go in for convenient answers to the questions thrown up by the poll outcome or for another round of witch-hunt, but neither would benefit it in the long run.

While it might be convenient with a certain amount of truth in it to think that transfer of votes by the RSS to the UDF did the LDF in, the party would do well to study how the different communities got alienated from it. The case of the Ezhava community is particularly relevant here. The leadership of the community may have been pro-Congress, but a large section of the community has all along been supportive of the CPI(M) and the Left. What should worry the party is the way the ordinary Ezhava, including many cadres and sympathisers of the CPI(M), voted against it. When the SNDP Yogam general secretary, Mr. Vellappally Natesan, takes credit for the LDFs rout, there is a fair amount of truth in it.

Through several circulars to the local SNDP Yogam leaders, many of who are again CPI(M) cadres or sympathisers, Mr. Natesan sent across the message that the CPI(M) and LDF had discriminated against the community. For instance, he told them how the CPI(M) and the LDF Government swung into action to settle the SFI- sponsored strike over allegations of sexual exploitation of a student by a priest at the Nirmalagiri College in north Kerala and how nobody in the CPI(M) was willing to even lift the little finger when the SFI-sponsored strike at the S.N. College, Kollam, dragged on for weeks.

He had several other grouses to share with them, including those relating to sanctioning of Plus Two courses and professional colleges and all these were sufficient to turn the community in general against the CPI(M) and the LDF. If the CPI(M) cadres belonging to these communities also got carried away by such arguments, it could only be due to the business-like relations they now have with the party. Communal considerations have always been present in the party's electoral calculations. But, this time round, communal organisations appear to have taken it by surprise by claiming their cadres for themselves.

The alienation of the Muslim vote also must present a serious challenge for the party. The CPI(M) and the LDF could not fare well in north Kerala, despite its alliance with the Indian National League (INL), mainly because of the heavy erosion in Muslim votes. Even in a constituency like Thalassery, the CPI(M)'s margin of victory has fallen from 18,350 votes in 1996 to 7,043 votes this time and the message cannot be lost on the CPI(M) leadership.

While the Nadapuram incidents did certainly play a role in the poll outcome, the Muslim masses appear to have had the feeling that Mr. V.S. Achuthanandan, whom the party had put forth as its Chief Minister candidate, is anti-Muslim. If it were so, it could have been the result of both the Nadapuram violence and Mr. Achuthanandans strident opposition to any tie-up with communal parties. How the CPI(M) resolves this issue would depend on how it cracks the question as to what attitude it should take towards parties such as the Muslim League and INL and for what reasons.

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Section  : State Elections