Times they're a changin' for Left in Bengal

The year 2016 has given the Bengal unit of the CPI(M) a heartbreak: the "very dear friend", Congress, is no longer dear.

Rahul Gandhi was recently seen cosying up to West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and vice-versa. However, eight months ago the picture was entirely different. Rahul and veteran CPI(M) leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee were seen sharing the dais and even the garland.

The relation, no matter how disparate, divergent and doubtful it appeared, did project a unified picture of Opposition politics where the common goal of the two parties with different ideology was to defeat the Trinamool Congress. But that was in May 2016, prior to the Assembly election results, when both the Left and the Congress thought the alliance would be beneficial electorally.

Now with the Congress un-friending the Left and preferring the Trinamool as a prospective suitor for the big event in 2019, the Left, especially the CPI(M), is practically in the lurch.

It has long lost strength and numbers in taking on the Trinamool in Bengal, and now with Mamata acting as a fulcrum of an "Oust Modi-Save Country" front, it doesn’t know where to go.

When Mamata called up CPI(M) chief Sitaram Yechury and requested him to participate in a joint movement against the Modi government on the demonetisation issue, the veteran Marxist was almost about to agree when the state unit cautioned against it.

“If we are seen to be sharing the podium along with the Trinamool Congress, which had killed our 200 odd comrades over the last six years, then it will be the time to write the obit,” said a senior CPI(M) leader.

Post the electoral debacle in May 2016, when the alliance experiment failed miserably, fangs were out to dissect what went wrong. The southern lobby of the CPI(M), which strongly opposed the coming together of two ideologically dissimilar parties (partly because they had locked horns in Kerala), was quick to call it an “unholy” alliance and a political blunder.

But neither the Bengal unit of the CPI(M) nor the Congress was ready to call it quits. The two were crying on each other’s shoulders and blaming the ruling party, its men and machinery for the debacle. After all, 2.15 crore voters had voted in favour of the alliance, or the political parties, which dared to throw a challenge to the party in power.

But to the party leadership this was hardly logic to be given indulgence. Word got around that the Congress had not been fair in transferring its votes to the Left kitty where the Marxists were coalition candidates.

The Central Committee and the Politburo ruled out any electoral understanding with the Congress in future. Leaders such as Sujan Chakrabarty, who continued their truck with the Congress were censured.

“Mass line is the mantra of our party and we have asked our party members to connect with the masses in whatever way they could. Civil society, clubs and even the adda corners can be our starting point. No theoretical discussion from the dais, speaking the language we use in our everyday life, interaction in an open friendly note,” said Asok Bhattacharya, a senior CPI(M) leader.

Religion is the opium of the masses, so said Karl Marx and so believed the Marxist. However, such sayings are being shelved as of now. In the changed scenario, the Marxists are latching onto religious occasions and congregation as a huge opportunity to rub shoulders with the masses.

They may not organise pujas or directly participate in the rituals and inaugurate the festival, unlike their Trinamool Congress counterparts. However, there is no harm in giving voluntary service on festival days such as crowd management, setting up water camps or showing their faces outside the glum and grim looking book stalls.

In 2016 Durga Puja, many CPI(M) leaders dropped in at the pandals. This Christmas, CPI(M) state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra wished everyone on social media. Comrades were seen jostling for space for a stall in the crowded Park Street area to soak in the Yuletide and Christmas spirit.

This was the same party that had censured veteran leader Subhas Chakrabarty for visiting Tarapith and offering pujas. But as Dylan would have it, “The times, they are a changin'.”

CPI(M) state secretary Surjya Mishra, known for being not quite musical, WhatsApped — “How many roads must a man walk down/ Before you call him a man” — the day Dylan won the Nobel for literature. Soon his social media site got flooded with 10,000 likes.

May you stay forever young, comrades, as Dylan would sing it.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)

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