The Left organisations forgot to remain committed to their causes, says All India Forward Bloc General Secretary Debabrata Biswas in an interview with SAUBHADRO CHATTERJI
The Left parties have suffered another electoral blow in West Bengal. What are the lessons learnt from the debacle in the municipal elections?
It is true that during the past few years the Left is suffering electoral setbacks in West Bengal — its bastion for more than 33 years. We lost ground in the panchayat polls, then came the Lok Sabha elections, then a few assembly by-elections and now the municipal polls. But, it doesn't mean that we will concede defeat and sit back. This is the time for introspection and a review of our policies and programmes. After the Lok Sabha elections, the leadership of the four Left parties — CPI(M), CPI, Forward Bloc and RSP — met and decided to conduct introspection in each organisation separately. The work started and each party pointed out areas that needed to be addressed, both in terms of the party's own organisation and the Left Front government in the state. But the latest results show there is a need for a more intense self-review to check this trend. We have to take up the challenge.
Being in power for such a long time has its own weaknesses. There is a tendency of many leaders to take things for granted and try to adjust within the system. This is not going to work.
We also need to understand there is a much larger conspiracy against the Leftist forces in the state. Big money power, corporate India, even powerful media houses want to see the Left out of West Bengal. Tell me, which other state's civic body polls have generated so much interest in the media? There were civic polls in Maharashtra recently, but how many papers carried the stories on front pages? We are fighting a complex battle.
You had analysed your faults almost a year ago. But the results show that you are still unable to correct your course...
That's what I am saying, We need to introspect more. We need to have a deeper look both at the organisational level and the work of our government. And, most importantly, we need to have much more struggles. The Left parties, over the years, seem to have shown a reluctance to go for long struggles. But these political struggles gave us our support base, which made workers and farmers rally behind the Left.
I was stunned to see that in the erstwhile industrial belt on the two sides of the Hoogly, the Trinamool Congress is winning elections. These industrial belts — the jute and the manufacturing industries — have been a bastion of the Left. Today, workers have shunned it. This is just unbelievable. It shows that we have not been able to cater to the working class properly. There has been complacency in our government, which is ruling the state for 33 years now. We have even lost touch with the working class movements. Our government has been raising slogans of industrialisation. Of course, we need industries to develop. But, the government and our organisations have failed to integrate the industrialisation with the working class movements. This is a major drawback. Our flags are still red, but there is a dilution in our attitude.
Why has this happened?
Being in power has its own perils. We were too busy enjoying the power in the state, but forgot to remain committed to our causes. The organisations bowed down before the government when there was a need for struggle. I always maintain that the government and the organisational struggles have their own space, own areas. We, the four left parties, called all-India strikes on the issue of price rise. What happened in West Bengal? Our government imposed many restrictions. We couldn't conduct the strike on a large scale. This was not correct. The causes and the issues we espoused at the national level were not properly reflected at the state level. People got confused. They couldn't relate to the Left's policies with what was being practised in West Bengal.
We have enjoyed power for 33 years in the state. But, in every election, there were almost 45 per cent voters who continuously voted against the Left. Earlier, these voters cast their votes in favour of the Congress, but after Trinamool Congress came to the fore, the vote split between the two. They never came to us. Did we do our best to bring these voters back to our fold? Why couldn't we bring this large chunk in our favour?
More From This Section
Many CPI(M) leaders in West Bengal have suggested that withdrawing support from the Congress-led first UPA government was a blunder. That move alienated the Left and brought the Trinamool and the Congress together. Do you regret withdrawing support from the first UPA government over the Indo-US nuclear deal?
Not at all! I strongly believe and insist that the withdrawal of support from the UPA government was a correct decision. How can a Left party allow the government to cater to the agenda of the imperialist US? Were we supposed to sit like puppets while Manmohan Singh and company fulfilled the agenda of their masters? Does it mean the Left would shun its core values, principles and ideology just for an electoral agenda? If there is no Leftism left, what will the Left parties stand for?
But you couldn't stop the government from signing the Indo-US nuclear deal...
That's a different issue. Yes, I admit that we failed to make people understand our contributions in the first UPA government. We couldn't campaign well on how we forced the Congress to adopt a pro-people agenda. Congress, somehow, managed to take away the credit. But, those who propagate this theory must explain how the Left did badly in these civic body elections? This time, the Trinamool and the Congress fought against each other. Still, we lost. It's a bogus theory that the withdrawal of support to the Congress at the Centre has led to this disaster. The problems lie within our own organisations and the government. We have to look inside, not outside.
The Left parties have also lost another major section of the society — the cultural and the intellectual sections. Once upon a time, there was a strong cultural movement within the Left. Today, we have failed to give this movement enough fodder. This is again a peril of being in power and running the establishment for such a long time. And the intellectuals and the cultural community are running away to reactionary forces. In the recent past, can one tell us how many major cultural movements have been initiated by the Left? None. There was a need for an anti-status quo movement. Could we produce another Salil Chowdhury or Hemnaga Biswas?
The Left organisations have failed to prove to the people that we are not a stepney to the government.