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Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M), General Secretary Prakash Karat spoke to G Sreedathan on the party's decline and differences between him and colleague Sitaram Yechury. Karat said that in the current political situation, the Left has become more relevant. Edited excerpts:
Your party's politburo and central committee met recently. After every election, your party conducts a post-mortem to find out the causes of defeat. But the CPI(M) seems to have learnt nothing from these exercises so far. What is the outcome of the recent meetings?
Our party congress is going to be held in Visakhapatnam in April next year. It's in that connection that we are doing the preparatory work.
The recent central committee (CC) meeting was held to review the political tactical line we have been pursuing. The purpose of this meeting is to find out what needs to be done to further strengthen the independent strength of the party and to be able to create a Left and democratic front, which can present an alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress and other ruling class parties. So the CC meeting examined our political line and how we have implemented it. On the basis of this review, we shall, in the next meeting, adopt the draft political resolution, which will be placed before the party congress for adoption. This will be our future policy direction.
There is a method in our party: the draft resolution will be sent to party units, they will discuss and form an opinion and then adopt it at the party congress. This was the purpose of the review meeting.
But there were reports that your colleague Sitaram Yechury said in the meeting that the political tactical line was okay but the party failed on the implementation front.
We are looking at both aspects: how we have implemented the political tactical line and if there are some shortcomings in the tactical line itself. We have examined that and based on that report, we shall formulate our future political line.
Was there any discussion on the party's rout in the Lok Sabha elections?
That we have already done after the Lok Sabha elections. After that, these decisions were taken that we must undertake these exercises. The draft will be prepared in the next meeting.
So what is the political line? Will you tie up with the Congress to defeat the BJP?
Today, because the BJP has come to power, the main direction of our fight will be against the (Narendra) Modi government. For that, we will not ally with the Congress. Our effort will be to rally Left and democratic forces in the task. There won't be any tie-up with the Congress. We are clear on that.
On particular issues, if there is any necessity for mobilising wider secular democratic forces, we may do so but that won't entail any alliance or front with the Congress party.
Coming back to the leadership issue, when the CC meeting was going on there were reports that a section of the leaders in the party raised questions about your style of functioning. How do you respond to that?
There were no such discussions. As I said, in our party meeting, we were discussing policy matters, the political line and policy we have pursued for the last two-and-a-half decades - since 1991 when liberalisation began in India. We are looking at the tactical line and how we have been able to implement it ,what we learnt from that and equip ourselves with more effective approach for the coming days. On that, there were some different views expressed. This is not a question of any X leader having a grudge against a Y leader. These views were discussed in the CC and we have come to a unified understanding.
Is it true that there is a power struggle going on in the CPI(M) between your camp and Yechury's and the "bourgeois media" is being used to settle political scores...
That's a media interpretation.
But why then a section of the party believes that the leadership has been a hurdle in the growth of the party?
There was no such discussion in the party, so why should I respond to that? Our focus is: independent growth of the party is not sufficient. We have not accomplished that to the extent we wanted. So what should be the steps to be taken for that; if we can learn from our past experience? We will discuss organisational matters later.
But you must admit that there is a view like that.
Our practice is: we first decide on the political line and then, on that basis, we discuss how to review our organisational work and make the necessary changes in the organisation. That discussion will take place after the party congress by holding, what we call, a Plenum. So, matters such as the organisational setup and reviewing the work of leading bodies like the politburo and CC were not discussed.
But there is such a criticism within and outside the party. Your critics say the party declined the most during your tenure.
There is no such criticism. When the criticism comes we will see. In our party, nobody puts the onus on individuals unless the person has committed some serious mistake or deviated from the party policy. We are reviewing the period from 1990; we are not saying so and so was the general secretary in 1995 or so and so was there in 2000. We don't look it at that way. We have made policies collectively - the politburo and CC - we are looking at how we have implemented the policy: were there any shortcomings or weaknesses in that? We have already come to the conclusion that the party has suffered stagnation. Therefore, first, we discussed the political line. Organisational matters are not discussed at this stage. We will discuss it in the Plenum.
Former Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan has submitted a note in the meeting in which he criticised the leadership for the party's decline in the state. He also came down heavily on the party's secular credentials.
There was no discussion on Kerala. He has submitted a note, which was not for discussion because it was not the agenda there. He has given views on some matter, but they were not discussed. He has neither asked for a discussion nor was it relevant to the current meeting.
Yechury also gave a dissenting note…
Not only Yechury, B V Raghavulu also gave a note. Besides, there were several notes submitted by other politburo members. There was a report and two notes on that. We discussed all that and came to a unified understanding. This is nothing abnormal in our party. We always discuss political matters like this.
Your term is coming to an end soon. How do you take stock of your tenure?
Our party is not leader-centric. We don't have a high command in our party. The general secretary is the convener of the politburo and its spokesman. So what assessment I would make will be from the last party congress to this party congress. So whatever we have progressed or whatever weaknesses we have - that is my thing also. There is no separate thing in our party.
The Left has become almost irrelevant in the national political discourse of late. Going by the current trend, the revival of the Left seems impossible. What do you have to say about this?
In the current political situation, the Left has become more relevant. The Congress is neither equipped politically nor ideologically to fight the BJP. In fighting against neo-liberal policies and communalism, the Left is the only consistent force. Though the Left suffered electoral reverses in the Lok Sabha elections, politically its relevance has not declined in any way. Our immediate priority is to strengthen the CPI(M) and the Left and we are taking steps for that. We are trying to get more Left forces together. There has been an erosion in our support base in West Bengal. It happened a few years ago, precisely during the Assembly elections in 2011. The BJP is making efforts to advance in Bengal. We are aware of this and concentrating on rebuilding our party's organisation and activating the mass organisations.
