New Delhi: The principled opposition to religion may be one of the core aspects of Communist ideology, but the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is willing to make an exception. There is a need to engage with believers and bring them into the party fold given the increasing religiosity in society, the CPI(M) has said in its draft political resolution prepared ahead of the 24th Party Congress to be held next year.
Further, at a time when there is much talk about the Congress’ obsessive and sometimes self-damaging fondness for the Left, the CPI(M) has said that it needs to be clear about the Congress party’s “class character” and should make it a point to differentiate itself from the party on its neoliberal policies and any “compromising stand” on Hindutva that it may take.
The stand, which concedes the need to engage with “believers” as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has been able to tap into and exploit this new burst of religiosity, especially among women, gains significance given that it is the first statement of the party’s political-tactical line after the death of its former general secretary Sitaram Yechury in September.
“We have to have an approach on how to reach out to believers and make them understand the difference between practicing their faith and their faith being misused to target other religious faiths,” the resolution argues. “We have to concretely work out how to draw religious believers towards secular politics and against communalism.”
Distance from Congress’ ‘neoliberalism’
The draft resolution, which repeatedly emphasises the need for distancing from “bourgeois parties”, states: “We should counter any tendency to substitute the independent role and activities of the Party with the INDIA bloc.”
“We must also be clear about the class character of the main party in the INDIA bloc—the Congress,” it adds. “We should demarcate from the Congress on elements of neo-liberal policies which they advocate in their national economic policies or which are being pursued by its state governments.”
The party also needs to be “critical of any compromising stand it takes on Hindutva communal issues”, the draft resolution adds.
It calls for a similar approach towards regional parties like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and others, which they need to ally with in order to consolidate the anti-BJP votes.
“While we cooperate with these parties on the electoral front, it is also necessary that our Party’s independent political positions are taken to the people.”
It refers here specifically to the DMK with which the party is in alliance in Tamil Nadu. “We should take a position of supporting policies which are in the interest of the people and demarcating from and, if necessary, opposing policies which are anti-working class or against the people’s interests,” it states. “Any blurring of our distinctive policies and identity will be detrimental to the growth of the Party.”
This clarification gains significance in the light of the protests by Samsung workers near Chennai, who have been fully backed by the workers of the CPI(M)-affiliated Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU).
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Focus on socialism, Left unity
To differentiate itself from other non-BJP parties, draft resolution states that it’s imperative that the CPI(M) go back to emphasising socialism as an ideological goal.
“At present, in our tactical line, our focus has been on the “defence of the Constitution, democracy, secularism and federalism”, which all the secular bourgeois parties also talk about, it states. “We cannot demarcate our identity unless we talk of the real alternative.”
“Without projecting socialism in tune with Indian conditions, we cannot establish our identity as a Communist party, one which is working to end the exploitative socio-economic order,” it adds.
The draft resolution also underscores the importance of building Left unity by ensuring that the Left parties do not focus exclusively on the INDIA bloc.
In the last few years, the only time there was a joint call by Left parties was on the issue of the Israeli “genocidal war” on Gaza, it says. This, the resolution notes, was primarily due to “disinterest of the CPI and the CPI(ML) for a joint Left platform ever since the moves for a wider opposition unity began”. Despite efforts by the CPI(M) to call for joint meetings, both the parties were more keen on the INDIA bloc “with an eye to the Lok Sabha elections,” it adds.
These measures, the document notes, are important because despite the significant improvement in the Opposition’s performance in the general elections, the party’s own performance continued to be on a downward spiral. In most of its winning seats, it was on the basis of the support from the INDIA bloc, the resolution concedes.
“Despite repeated emphasis given in the successive political-tactical lines of the last three Party Congresses on increasing our independent strength, the decline of the Party’s mass base and influence continues,” it reads.
It identifies the party’s inability to develop class and mass struggles, especially in rural areas, and the inability to adopt new tactics and slogans as some of the key reasons behind its decline.
Too much focus on “parliamentarism”, which it explains as “neglecting the task of building struggles, movements and organisation and reducing all political work to electoral activities,” is cited as another major flaw in the party approach. “We must examine whether this emphasis on electoral work and parliamentarism leads us to a compromising attitude to the dominant rural rich nexus in the countryside.”
Given that the “bourgeois parties”, which include regional parties, are the representatives of the nexus of the rural rich, the paper says, it becomes tricky for the CPI(M) to oppose them when it has to ally for elections. “In the process, the orientation to struggle against these dominant classes is given the go by.” The tendency is affecting the very character of the Party and is a degenerating influence on Party cadres, it adds.
Countering Sangh
As for the influence of the BJP and the RSS, it states that the party needs to self-critically concede that it has been unable to carry out the necessary ideological work.
“It must be self-critically noted that the Polit Bureau has not given sufficient guidance to the state committees to concretise how to conduct the anti-communal campaign integrated with our overall political campaign,” it states. “We are still lagging in integrating the fight on economic and livelihood issues with the struggle against the divisive and reactionary role of Hindutva communalism.”
The BJP, it argues, has been able to make advances at the CPI(M)’s expense in at least three states where the party is strong—Tripura, West Bengal, and Kerala.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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