Where did the Left movement in India falter? Manoranjan Mohanty, one of the world's best-known scholars on the Indian Left tells Aditi Phadnis that issues of caste, gender, race and ecology need more attention.
A review of the Left movement in India, after the Left-Congress alliance failed to become an alternative in West Bengal in the 2016 Assembly elections, says the Left in India survived a major crisis because it critiqued globalisation; consistently respected and upheld democracy; and joined alliances to meet specific challenges. Do you agree?
My feeling is a bit different. The crisis in the Left is because it did not critique globalisation enough; it did not embrace democracy enough; and especially democracy within the party and pursuit of democratic rights was not enough. I would add a fourth issue: it practised opportunistic alliances and did not really unite with different people's movements going on all over the country: for example, against globalisation and anti-people industrialisation. The residual Comintern (Communist International) mindset still persists.
Where did the Left Front go wrong in Bengal?
I believe it was wrong for the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) to align with the Congress in West Bengal. The CPI-M was the main Opposition to the Congress, especially in Bengal before Mamata Banerjee came on the scene. If it was the Congress versus the CPI-M then it was on the basis of certain premises: that Congress symbolised neo-liberal global capitalism. The government led by the CPI-M itself was desperately trying to go the Chinese way of economic growth - get foreign capital, promote industrialisation… So what happened to the Left vision of an alternative industrial development; setting up industry in backward areas; creating jobs that would employ women, Dalits and adivasis; that would be environmentally sustainable; cause minimum displacement? It created a widespread sense of disappointment among the masses. The same mistakes that the Soviet Union made were made by the Left Front government in Bengal. After the 2011 and 2014 debacles, you would have thought the CPI-M would contemplate what it had become: another election-oriented party with lumpen cadres who didn't believe in Communism; known for authoritarian management of society and institutions; wanting to control every village, mohalla, every ward. This showed the party's internal weakness that became more and more conspicuous and faith in democracy was hardly demonstrated.
Hence the absence of an alternative economic model and lack of practice of democracy were quite evident.
I was aghast when I heard the CPI-M was going for an informal understanding; nobody was fooled - it was an alliance and they don't seem to regret it!
And outside Bengal, why has it failed?
The main reason the Left has suffered atrophy in recent decades is that there has been no social agenda. They were not sensitive to caste, gender, ecology or human rights.
Take the Rohith Vemula case: he left the Students' Federation of India (SFI) and joined the Ambedkar Students' Association. Would he have done that if the CPI-M had been active on the caste question? In Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Kanhaiya Kumar is trying to combine the two but there, too, Dalit students are not satisfied. He is a member of the All India Students' Federation. Even the radical student group, the Democratic Students' Union (DSU) does not attract enough support from Dalit students.
The Left is absent in struggles like Plachimada (ecological struggle against the Coca Cola factory in Kerala) and Sardar Sarovar. It is a little different in Odisha - or Niyamgiri, it is a Communist Party of India member leading the struggle against Posco and in Niyamgiri, it is mostly socialists and Gandhians. But the CPI-M is not in the forefront.
It is not just caste and gender. The twist comes because of nationalism and the Left is seen as opposing nationalism, which makes people uncomfortable…
I was unhappy at the way the Left responded to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formulation. The issue is one of democratic rights, the right to freedom of speech - which embraces the right to criticise even a Supreme Court judgement. Afzal Guru's death sentence, for instance, was the reason for the stand-off in JNU. The BJP made it a nationalism issue and the Left was busy trying to present alternative discourses. It is important the Left parties are seen differently in the nationalism debate.
How would you define nationalism?
Nationalism is about two things: it is about pride in your country; but is it also about the nationalities question, about the way oppressed nationalities in a country see themselves and see the state, whether it is Kashmir or the Northeast. On pride in the country, the Left should assert that not just the BJP, the Left has also done enough to fight for the country and defend its freedom.
But on the nationalities question: India is a nation but is also a multi-nationality republic. If you foist Hindutva on a multi-religious state, who is going to accept it? Why should they? Similarly, if you say India should be a unitary state as opposed to a "Union of States", as the Constitution puts it, meaning a multi-nationality, federal state, why should anyone agree?
Here the Left has been defensive: the CPI-M less, the CPI more.
Pride in being Indian is not a reaction that should be muted. The Left has still not formulated this properly. There is no reason to concede to the BJP on nationalism. There has been a postmodern attack on nationalism - I don't agree with it. Nations are still important because the threat of imperialism persists.
There are now voices seeking Left unity, especially from the CPI. How feasible is this?
About 30 or 40 years ago, I used to feel we should work for the unity of Indian Communists. But during the Emergency (1975) there were three streams - the CPI supported the Emergency, the CPI-M opposed it and the agrarian revolution was kept alive by the Maoists. So at least there was a revolutionary political challenge. This was a situation where all of them as a united party might have had to support the Emergency!
Certainly, we need much more coordination among the Left than unification - and definitely not mechanical unification. The real issues are: What is the alternative development model and what is going to be the social agenda that will be the basis of this unification - on caste, gender, ecology? A unification that means that Ajoy Bhavan and A K Gopalan Bhavan will merge will just be a merger of real estate. Real unity is about both theory and practice, not just about winning elections as "seizure of political power": They need to undertake an intersectional class analysis of society and evolve a programme.
Are you seeing any prospect of growth? The Anna Hazare movement and the rage against the Nirbhaya rape led to the creation of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) - it did not make the Left the logical alternative for young people
The electoral game and an understanding of the political movement - these are two different things. In electoral politics, you win some, you lose some. But when we see a crisis in the model of development that is not sustainable: displacement of people, the energy crunch… then you need an alternative.
Yes, young people did go to the AAP. It just shows how much the Left has to learn from the Anna movement. Now the AAP is just another authoritarian party, just another political party using a strategy to win elections. It has lost its ability to inspire the youth. The Left has to recapture the imagination of the youth by addressing their concerns, especially among the vast sections of unorganised labour, farmers, dalits and adivasis.
A review of the Left movement in India, after the Left-Congress alliance failed to become an alternative in West Bengal in the 2016 Assembly elections, says the Left in India survived a major crisis because it critiqued globalisation; consistently respected and upheld democracy; and joined alliances to meet specific challenges. Do you agree?
My feeling is a bit different. The crisis in the Left is because it did not critique globalisation enough; it did not embrace democracy enough; and especially democracy within the party and pursuit of democratic rights was not enough. I would add a fourth issue: it practised opportunistic alliances and did not really unite with different people's movements going on all over the country: for example, against globalisation and anti-people industrialisation. The residual Comintern (Communist International) mindset still persists.
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Where did the Left Front go wrong in Bengal?
I believe it was wrong for the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) to align with the Congress in West Bengal. The CPI-M was the main Opposition to the Congress, especially in Bengal before Mamata Banerjee came on the scene. If it was the Congress versus the CPI-M then it was on the basis of certain premises: that Congress symbolised neo-liberal global capitalism. The government led by the CPI-M itself was desperately trying to go the Chinese way of economic growth - get foreign capital, promote industrialisation… So what happened to the Left vision of an alternative industrial development; setting up industry in backward areas; creating jobs that would employ women, Dalits and adivasis; that would be environmentally sustainable; cause minimum displacement? It created a widespread sense of disappointment among the masses. The same mistakes that the Soviet Union made were made by the Left Front government in Bengal. After the 2011 and 2014 debacles, you would have thought the CPI-M would contemplate what it had become: another election-oriented party with lumpen cadres who didn't believe in Communism; known for authoritarian management of society and institutions; wanting to control every village, mohalla, every ward. This showed the party's internal weakness that became more and more conspicuous and faith in democracy was hardly demonstrated.
Hence the absence of an alternative economic model and lack of practice of democracy were quite evident.
I was aghast when I heard the CPI-M was going for an informal understanding; nobody was fooled - it was an alliance and they don't seem to regret it!
And outside Bengal, why has it failed?
The main reason the Left has suffered atrophy in recent decades is that there has been no social agenda. They were not sensitive to caste, gender, ecology or human rights.
Take the Rohith Vemula case: he left the Students' Federation of India (SFI) and joined the Ambedkar Students' Association. Would he have done that if the CPI-M had been active on the caste question? In Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Kanhaiya Kumar is trying to combine the two but there, too, Dalit students are not satisfied. He is a member of the All India Students' Federation. Even the radical student group, the Democratic Students' Union (DSU) does not attract enough support from Dalit students.
The Left is absent in struggles like Plachimada (ecological struggle against the Coca Cola factory in Kerala) and Sardar Sarovar. It is a little different in Odisha - or Niyamgiri, it is a Communist Party of India member leading the struggle against Posco and in Niyamgiri, it is mostly socialists and Gandhians. But the CPI-M is not in the forefront.
It is not just caste and gender. The twist comes because of nationalism and the Left is seen as opposing nationalism, which makes people uncomfortable…
I was unhappy at the way the Left responded to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formulation. The issue is one of democratic rights, the right to freedom of speech - which embraces the right to criticise even a Supreme Court judgement. Afzal Guru's death sentence, for instance, was the reason for the stand-off in JNU. The BJP made it a nationalism issue and the Left was busy trying to present alternative discourses. It is important the Left parties are seen differently in the nationalism debate.
How would you define nationalism?
Nationalism is about two things: it is about pride in your country; but is it also about the nationalities question, about the way oppressed nationalities in a country see themselves and see the state, whether it is Kashmir or the Northeast. On pride in the country, the Left should assert that not just the BJP, the Left has also done enough to fight for the country and defend its freedom.
But on the nationalities question: India is a nation but is also a multi-nationality republic. If you foist Hindutva on a multi-religious state, who is going to accept it? Why should they? Similarly, if you say India should be a unitary state as opposed to a "Union of States", as the Constitution puts it, meaning a multi-nationality, federal state, why should anyone agree?
Here the Left has been defensive: the CPI-M less, the CPI more.
Pride in being Indian is not a reaction that should be muted. The Left has still not formulated this properly. There is no reason to concede to the BJP on nationalism. There has been a postmodern attack on nationalism - I don't agree with it. Nations are still important because the threat of imperialism persists.
There are now voices seeking Left unity, especially from the CPI. How feasible is this?
About 30 or 40 years ago, I used to feel we should work for the unity of Indian Communists. But during the Emergency (1975) there were three streams - the CPI supported the Emergency, the CPI-M opposed it and the agrarian revolution was kept alive by the Maoists. So at least there was a revolutionary political challenge. This was a situation where all of them as a united party might have had to support the Emergency!
Certainly, we need much more coordination among the Left than unification - and definitely not mechanical unification. The real issues are: What is the alternative development model and what is going to be the social agenda that will be the basis of this unification - on caste, gender, ecology? A unification that means that Ajoy Bhavan and A K Gopalan Bhavan will merge will just be a merger of real estate. Real unity is about both theory and practice, not just about winning elections as "seizure of political power": They need to undertake an intersectional class analysis of society and evolve a programme.
Are you seeing any prospect of growth? The Anna Hazare movement and the rage against the Nirbhaya rape led to the creation of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) - it did not make the Left the logical alternative for young people
The electoral game and an understanding of the political movement - these are two different things. In electoral politics, you win some, you lose some. But when we see a crisis in the model of development that is not sustainable: displacement of people, the energy crunch… then you need an alternative.
Yes, young people did go to the AAP. It just shows how much the Left has to learn from the Anna movement. Now the AAP is just another authoritarian party, just another political party using a strategy to win elections. It has lost its ability to inspire the youth. The Left has to recapture the imagination of the youth by addressing their concerns, especially among the vast sections of unorganised labour, farmers, dalits and adivasis.