Confusing strike

Last Thursday's strike by the Left parties and the trade unions controlled by them has left most people confused. The official Left version, articulated by the CPI(M), is that it was to protest against the government's policy of airport privatisation.

Apparently, the government has refused to discus the draft modernisation plan drawn up by the employees of the National Airports Authority. The Left says if this plan can be implemented, there need be no privatisation. But if this was all there was to it, critics have asked, where was the need to call a nation-wide bandh?

The Left's reply has not been very convincing, especially since striking workers have a charter of demands that affects them vis-à-vis their employer. But it sees this strike (or, more properly, bandh) as a protest against the UPA government's policies.

However, since the Left is supporting the government, albeit from "outside", the confusion has been compounded. The bandh also raises the question as to whether the country might be on the verge of re-entering a phase of militant trade unionism.

No one wants that to happen when the economy seems to be on a sustained growth path. Certainly, more flexing of the unions' muscles will act as a dampener on the investment climate, which has improved after the prolonged drought of 1997-2003.

Sometimes, however, mysteries of this sort can be solved by rephrasing the question about the motives. At one level, there is always the ideology thing. In the neverending battle between Faith and Reason, reason often loses, at least in the short run.

The Left refuses to accept that globalisation of capital flows is a fact and that if it is to be leveraged to India's advantage, certain prior adjustments have to be made. Such adjustments do harm vested interests, whether capital or labour, who fight back. The Left's vested interest is the petit bourgeoisie of the public sector, which it wants to defend.

But the mystery deepens when one finds the Left Front government in West Bengal, with a CPI(M) chief minister heading it, is doing exactly what the Left is opposing outside West Bengal. This double standard leads to the speculation that what we are seeing are the outward symptoms of a power-cum-ideological struggle within the CPI(M).

The recently anointed general secretary of the CPI(M), Prakash Karat, like all new boys in power, may well be seeking to demonstrate that he is the boss. Others before him, in different countries and different parties, have done the same thing to put the old guard on notice.

In this case, by an amazing inversion of roles, it is the old guard which wants to accept change and the new boy who is resisting it. Strikes are meant to hurt and the one who will be most hurt is Mr Bhattacharya in Kolkata.

In fact, although Mrs Karat, now a Rajya Sabha MP, has said that the strike had Mr Bhattacharya's approval. This despite the fact that he attended office, and even sent his wife out to work as usual. He was signalling something and it is not hard to figure out what that was.