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Mainstream, VOL XLIX, No 37, September 3, 2011

Don’t Goof-up on Hazare, Comrades!

Tuesday 6 September 2011, by M K Bhadrakumar

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The statement following the meeting of the State Committee of the Communist Part of India- Marxist in Kolkata taking exception to the agitational methods of Anna Hazare gives a sickening feeling that the party’s State leadership remembers nothing about its debacle in its 30-year old citadel just a few months ago. The CPM should have been the first to know that debunking Mamata Banerjee’s agitation took it nowhere and landed it in a cul-de-sac. The heart of the matter is that laws will be made on the maidans in today’s India where the political class has repeatedly failed the nation and the choice of indulging in bourgeois politics in the rarefied vistas of central Delhi no longer exists. The Left has two options: it either connects
with the tsunami of popular opinion disgusted with the state of affairs in the country, or, alternatively, it might choose to become the dinosaurs of Indian politics and settle down as nice-looking museum pieces. That is the stark truth.

The West Bengal comrades ought to consult V.S. Achuthanandan as to what accounted for the CPM’s astounding, thrilling comeback in Kerala politics after all that the party did by way of self-immolation during the five years in power and discrediting itself and disillusioning the Left’s sympathisers and fellow-travellers time and again. Such statements as the one on Hazare exposes the ideological confusion that is gripping the party in West Bengal. The only explanation could be that the comrades are probably pandering to the bhadralok. (I shudder to think it is indulging in ‘deviationism’.)

Alas, they have lost touch with the people and seem to be getting afraid of agitational politics. But then, what is Marxism-Leninism without agitational politics? Is agitation only required in the run-up to elections? Vladimir Lenin will be turning in his casket in the vaults of the Kremlin mausoleum.

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