CPI-M: When revolution walks into the sunset

The politburo of assassins was the title of a poem written by Tariq Ali when the Tiananmen Square massacre took place in the summer of ‘89. The brutal assassination of T.P. Chandrasekharan, leader of the Revolutionary Marxist Party, on the midnight of May 4 brings to mind the chilling imagery of the Trotskyite-turned leftist writer.

Kerala’s ‘local committee of assassins’. Out of the 16 arrested in connection with the murder, 7 are members of local CPI-M committees. Their denials fly in the face of the probe by the Special Investigation Team.

The history of political killings in the state, especially in Kannur involving the CPI-M and other political parties, will show clearly that most of them were planned and executed with precision at the local level. Denials, a ‘holier than thou’ attitude have been the familiar narratives. But this murder, unlike assassinations past has brought the simmering factional feud hanging over the party for more than two decades to the fore.

The discontent in the party came into the open with V.S. Achuthanandan launching a campaign against the leadership headed by the state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan in the run up to the 18th state conference at Malappuram in 2005. Although VS with the full support of a section of intellectuals closely linked with the CPI-M launched a vigorous campaign against Pinarayi, the latter triumphed, defeating all candidates. The 20th Congress in Kozhikode saw VS denied a seat in the politburo.

In the latest tussle in the long drawn fight, VS is waging a last ditch attempt to move ahead as he has nothing to gain by staying in the CPI-M. Once again, VS has managed to be on the right side of the popular sentiment in the state. But it’s a move, fraught with consequences. Will VS walk out? If he does, will it do more damage than TP?

Critics say that the main weakness of VS and his supporters is that they limit the criticism to Pinarayi and his acolytes, when even before Pinarayi, the party’s connections with the local elites was a fact of life. Critics like Berlin Kunjananthan Nair blame the corrosion on Pinarayi. But this may not stand the scrutiny of history.

The dilemma facing the CPI-M is fundamental to communist politics structured in a tradition of no tolerance to opposition, says K. Venu, former Maoist ideologue. The issue must be viewed against the backdrop of a CPI-M that’s no longer a political party engaged in revolutionary transformation of society.

It is a party which enjoys state power every five years, says M.N. Ravunni, general convener of the pro-Maoist Porattam, in power in more than 50 per cent of civic bodies from panchayat to municipalities and corporations.

No surprise that such a party will be interested in preserving its power base, he added. The response of the official leadership of the party? Dismiss all criticism as anti-communist propaganda.

TP widow: They killed him, but not his spirit

“Man can be destroyed, but not defeated” — Ernest Hemingway.

The courage and fortitude shown by the family of T.P. Chandrasekharan at the moment of great tragedy is likely to remain etched in the memory of the people for a long time to come. When the body of Chandasekharan mutilated beyond recognition, laid low by 51 cuts, reached his home, his widow K.K. Rema remained unbowed. “They could only kill you. Not defeat you”, she said.

Rema and their son Abhinandu are now preparing for a life dedicated to the cause held dear by Chandrasekharan.
Rema’s family are staunch CPM supporters; her father Madhavan, a member of the Balussery local committee of the party, although after the killing, Madhavan is all set to resign.

Rema herself was a member of the state committee of SFI, the student wing of the CPM as was her older sister, committed to the Marxist cause. But for the last four years, every day has been spent in fear. Ever since Chandrasekharan led majority of the party workers in revolt against the CPI-M leadership and floated Revolutionary Marxist Party four years ago, death was stalking Chandrsekharan.

And when the grim reaper did come knocking, they came in the form of the very people he had once called his comrades. Just as Rema had always known it would.

Karat reign: Will it be exit Marxists?

Sanjay Basak

“What’s common between L.K. Advani and Prakash Karat?” a senior BJP leader, while sipping his tea, asked. “They just refuse to go,” the saffron man started laughing. Despite repeated political misadventures, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat has refused to quit. Despite his failure to lead the party to electoral victory, 89-year-old L.K. Advani refuses to give up.

Under Karat, the Marxists are on the verge of losing their significance in the national political scenario. If the red star rose across the country during the regime of the then party general secretary, Harkishen Singh Surjeet, today the Marxists are confined to only one state, Tripura. They have also been wiped out from Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and Karnataka.

After Karat’s 'historic blunder' of snapping ties with the UPA-I in 2008, the 2009 general elections brought down the CPI(M) tally from 44 MPs in 2004 to only 16 MPs. A historic low. After 37 years of uninterrupted rule, the CPI(M)-led Left Front lost West Bengal. Yet Karat did not resign.

This 65-year-old Marxist boss is in no mood call it quits. Speculation is rife that he is working on a gameplan to make his wife and politburo member, 66-year-old Brinda Karat, the next party chief.
In a bid to make his wife take over, Burma-born Karat and his loyalists have been desperately trying to sideline 59-year-old Sitaram Yechury.

Incidentally, three years from now, as Karat’s term gets over, Brinda will be 69. The other Karat loyalist, S.R. Pillai, will turn 79 in 2015. “Yechury remains the main threat for the Karat couple,” a party functionary said. Incidentally, Brinda, who was dropped from the central committee by Surjeet and veteran marxist Jyoti Basu, managed to get into the party’s highest policy-making body, the politburo, in 2005, the year Karat took over as the CPI(M) boss.

A CC member revealed, “Karat knows he does not command respect as a leader anymore. Therefore, he has been trying to manipulate the central committee and the state secretaries for his survival.”

In a wily move to secure his position, Karat and his supporters in CC assured that the state secretaries too can get a maximum tenure of nine years. Karat also made it clear that the move to limit terms will have no ‘’retrospective effect’’. The move benefited Karat loyalist, Kerala’s CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, charge-sheeted by the CBI in a multicrore scam.

In the party, Karat is often compared to the Roman emperor Nero, who fiddled as Rome burnt. Fingers were pointed at the Marxist couple for “holidaying abroad” at a time when the party was losing one election after another.

As the party continued its downhill slide, Karat continued to blame others. If it was Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in West Bengal, it is V.S. Achuthanandan in Kerala. In the recently concluded party congress in Kozhikode, Karat, who had filled the central committee with his own men, went unscathed for the party’s debacle in West Bengal and Kerala. With the help of his coterie, he got himself re-elected as party general secretary.

The recent war of words between Pinarayi Vijayan and Achuthanandan also brought into the open a symptom of a greater malaise that is eating away at the Communists not just in Kerala, but across the country.

It all started in 2008, when Karat decided to expel a party stalwart and a loyalist, Somnath Chatterjee. He refused to pay heed to the veteran Marxist, Jyoti Basu’s warning that the move to expel Chatterjee could prove costly. Karat, often accused by his detractors of “arrogance” and “political immaturity”, went ahead and sacked the former Speaker, Chatterjee.

Also, Karat’s differences with the former West Bengal chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, is an open secret. Buddhadeb not merely skipped politburo meets, but was also conspicuous by his absence in the recently held Kozhikode party congress.

With West Bengal gone, reports of rape and intimidation are pouring in from the reds’ last bastion, Tripura. The opposition Congress had released a video of rape victims and their family levelling these serious charges against Choudhury. Though the CPI(M) is believed to deeply entrenched among the tribals in Tripura, an anti-CPI(M) movement is now brewing in the state.

Tripura’s electoral politics is influenced by Bengal. If it loses this last island, Karat will complete the cycle of systematically wiping out the party from all states where the Marxists once ruled.

Moditva shadows BJP poll plan

With the main opposition BJP clearly at a crossroads, the perceptible rift in its leadership as demonstrated in Mumbai has highlighted the party’s inability to get its act together, and raises questions on whether it will be able to move in for the kill at a time when the ruling Congress-led UPA is weakening.

In a prescient comment, sasoned saffron campaigner L.K. Advani exhorted party men in his concluding remarks at the BJP’s National Executive meet in Mumbai thus: “The people are fed up and dejected by the UPA government, but when I hear words like, is the BJP ready, it is a caution for us”. Clearly, it is far from ready.

Unease in the BJP was visible even before the party executive began in Mumbai, with Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi forcing the resignation of former general secretary (Organisation), Sanjay Joshi, who had recently been roped in by BJP president Nitin Gadkari to work for the party.

But in securing Mr Joshi’s resignation, it opened another front for Gadkari, as Mr Advani and leader of opposition Sushma Swaraj, demonsrated their unease by skipping the party’s rally in Mumbai to mark the conclusion of the event.

The opportunity to offer the nation an alternative to the tottering UPA was lost. Mr Advani is reportedly unhappy with the way Mr Gadkari has been given a second term. Ms Swaraj is learnt to have a problem with the way Mr Modi dictated the terms of his attendance.

The new found bonhomie between Mr Modi and Mr Gadkari has unsettled many in the party hierarchy and the stage seems set for another round of confrontation with leaders re-positioning themselves.

Angry and sulking BJP strong man of Karnataka B.S. Yeddyurappa has already set the tone by lending his support to Mr Modi’s projection as the party’s Prime Ministerial candidate for the 2014 elections. His rejection of L.K. Advani is centred on his anger at Advani’s protege Ananth Kumar’s clout in the party.

If Gadkari takes Modi’s return to its logical conclusion and accommodates the Gujarat chief minister in the decision making process at the Centre and into the party’s Parliamentary Board, the highest decision making body, quite a few equations in the party will be upset.

With general elections one and half years away, this would be the time for the BJP to consolidate. Instead, the churning wihin the BJP, gives the impression of a splintered party with “a president, a super president and many hyper presidents”. If the BJP does not want its swansong to be the 2014 elections, it must not squander this opportunity.