India After Independence: 1947-2000 (35 page)

At its Second Congress held in Calcutta in February 1948, the party chose B.T. Ranadive in place of P.C. Joshi as its general secretary. It declared that the masses were disillusioned with Congress because of the deteriorating economic situation and the betrayal of the anti-imperialist cause and were ready to revolt. The party, therefore, gave a call for an immediate armed uprising. CPI organized several adventurist actions, two proving to be particularly disastrous. It decided to continue the armed peasant struggle in Telengana, which had been going on against the Nizam of Hyderabad since 1946, but to direct it now against the Indian government. The result Was the death of thousands of heroic party and peasant activists in the unequal and unpopular fight against the Indian army. The second major disastrous step was to declare a national railway strike on 9 March 1949 in the hope that it would lead to an all-India general strike culminating in a general, country-wide uprising. The strike was, however, a complete flop. The party also indulged in several terrorist acts. As a consequence, the CPI was banned in several states. It gradually got isolated from Indian opinion and was organizationally decimated through expulsions and resignations, its membership declining from nearly 90,000 to about 18,000 in 1951.

Near the end of 1951, when Ajoy Ghosh became the general secretary of the party, a new programme and a new tactical line were accepted under the direct guidance of Stalin, leading to the temporary unification of the party. But this still did not represent a new understanding of the Indian social and political reality. India was still seen as essentially a colony, the transfer of power in 1947 as ‘betrayal’, the Indian government as subservient to imperialism and as representing landlords, princes and the reactionary big bourgeoisie collaborating with British imperialism, and the Indian political system as basically undemocratic and authoritarian with the government having established a police state. The political task was still seen to be the eventual overthrow of the Indian state through armed struggle. The new element in CPI’s policy was that the overthrow of the state was to be part of the future agenda because the people were not yet ready for the task; they still suffered from ‘illusions’ about Congress and Nehru. Immediately, the party was, therefore, to turn away from revolution-making, to withdraw the armed struggle in Telengana, and to participate in the approaching general elections. The party was helped in making the change by the fact that Nehru was by now in full command of the government. He accepted the Communists credentials and cleared the way for CPI by legalizing the party all over the country.

CPI participated enthusiastically in the first general elections. It concentrated its efforts in only those areas where it had recognizable
strength, that is, in what were to become Andhra and Kerala. Along with its front organization, the People’s Democratic Front in Hyderabad, it contested only 61 seats for the Lok Sabha and won 23 with 4.6 per cent share of the votes and emerged as the largest opposition party, doing better than expected by anyone. It was to do even better in 1957 when it won 27 seats and 8.92 per cent of the votes. It won a majority in Kerala and formed the first democratically-elected Conununist government anywhere in the world. It also won representation in almost every state legislature. In 1962, it won 29 seats in the Lok Sabha and 9.94 per cent of the votes. By this time it had emerged as a strong political force in Kerala, West Bengal and Andhra and among the working class and the intelligentsia all over the country.

The 1952 elections promised that the party would in time be considered as the political alternative to Congress. The promise did shine bright for a few years, as it had done for the Socialists in the early fifties, but it remained essentially unfulfilled. The truce within the party proved to be quite temporary. Almost immediately after the elections differences in the party surfaced again. Despite arriving at an agreed programme in 1951, the party was not able to maintain a consensus on such major issues as the nature of the Indian state, the role of different social classes and strata, especially the Indian bourgeoisie, the nature of the class alliance which would make the Indian revolution, the very nature and meaning of revolution in India, as also the determination of the principal enemy against whom the revolution would be directed, the attitude to be adopted towards the Congress, the goveriunent and Jawaharlal Nehru and their reformist, nation-building activities. Regarding the class alliance, there was agreement on one point: the national bourgeoisie was to be allied with—but there was no agreement on who constituted the national bourgeoisie and who represented it in Indian politics and the state. The party was torn by controversies and conflicts as it tried unsuccessfully to come to grips with the actual course of social development within the confines of the 1951 programme. It was thrown into confusion at every fresh turn of events. Gradually, the differences hardened into factions, even unity on tactics broke down and the party organization tended to get paralysed.

Over the years, the party made four major changes in its official position. First, at its Madurai Congress in 1953, it accepted that Government of India was following an independent foreign policy though in its internal policies it was still not independent and was ah agent of imperialism. Second, at its Palghat Congress held in 1956, the party accepted that India had won independence in 1947 and was now a sovereign republic. The party now held that the government’s policies were directed at building capitalism but by following anti-people policies and giving concessions to the imperialists. The government was therefore basically reactionary and the party’s main task was to build a ‘democratic front’ to replace Congress. This front, however, was not to be anti-Congress because Congress contained many democrats who had to be won
over and detached from their leaders. Third, at its Amritsar Congress, in 1958, the party declared that it was possible to advance to socialism through peaceful and parliamentary means. It also declared that if it came to power it would grant full civil liberties including the right of the opposition parties to oppose the socialist government and the socialist system through constitutional means. Fourth, at its Vijayawada Congress in 1961, the party decided to follow a policy of struggle as well as unity towards Congress. The struggle aspect would be primary but progressive policies of Congress would be supported. The expectation was that Congress would split along progressive-reactionary lines and the party would then unite with the progressive section.

The agreements at the party congresses were, however, only on the surface. The differences were in fact sharpening with time, with new issues, such as the attitude to be adopted towards the Soviet critique of Stalin, Russia-China differences and the India-China war of 1962, being added to the long list. One wing of the party supported the government wholeheartedly against the Chinese attack, the other wing while opposing the Chinese stand on the question of India-China frontiers also opposed the unqualified support to the Nehru government because of its class character. The Soviet-China ideological split also had a great deal of resonance in CPI, and many in it were sympathetic to the Chinese position. The Chinese fuelled the differences in CPI by giving a call to all the revolutionary elements in the Communists parties of the world to split from those supporting the ‘revisionist’ Soviet line.

CPI finally split in 1964, with one party, representing the earlier ‘right’ and ‘centrist’ trends, being known as CPI and the other party, representing the earlier ‘left’ trend, being known after some time as the Communist Party (Marxist) or CPM. Apart from personal and factional differences, the split took mainly a doctrinal form.

According to CPM, the Indian state was ‘the organ of the class rule of the bourgeoisie and landlords, led by the big bourgeoisie, who are increasingly collaborating with foreign finance capital.’
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Congress was the chief instrument of the ruling classes and would, therefore, have to be destroyed. CPM did not believe that its goal of establishing a people’s democratic state could be established through peaceful, parliamentary means, especially as the Indian Constitution was inherently anti-democratic and ‘must go lock, stock and barrel’. The party would, however, use the Constitution as an ‘instrument of struggle’ and try to break it ‘from within’. To bring about revolution in social relations, CPM believed, it would become necessary to start an agrarian revolution and an armed struggle under the leadership of the working class and its party. The party would try to create suitable conditions for an armed struggle as soon as possible, and would use participation in parliamentary politics to create these conditions and to overcome the illusions that people still had regarding the usefulness of the parliament and the Constitution. A large number of those who went over to CPM believed that it would lead them in making a revolution. In its international outlook, CPM continued to
regard Stalin as a great Marxist who was basically correct in his policies though he made some avoidable errors. It claimed to take an independent stand on Soviet-Chinese differences but was closer to the Chinese in demanding an attack on Soviet ‘revisionism.’

CPI too wanted to ‘complete the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal revolution,’ but it would do so by forming a national democratic front which would include progressive sections of Congress. Moreover, this front need not be led by the working class or CPI. The party also declared that transition to national democracy and then socialism was capable of being accomplished by peaceful and parliamentary means.

Both the Communist parties later split further and have more or less stagnated and remained ‘small and growing,’ though they jointly with each other and other parties formed governments in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura and also made their presence felt in the parliament. But outside these states they have hardly a noticeable presence. In general, they have failed to conduct politics among the people and become the leaders of a broad mass movement. Like the Socialists, the Communists also failed to realize their political potential, though they did not disintegrate and disappear as the Socialist parties had done.

How is the failure of the undivided CPI and its offshoots to measure up to the challenges of independent India and to make a political breakthrough despite favourable socio-economic conditions to be explained? There was, of course, the failure of CPI to understand the complex Indian social development and the changing mood of the people. For example, it took it eight years for it to recognize that India had become free in 1947 and another nine for the breakaway CPI to accept that independent capitalism was being built. The airy debates of the fifties and sixties were much more theological in nature. On the other hand, the basic formulae that the economy was in crisis, the economic conditions of the people were worsening, the class contradictions were getting intensified, and the people were disillusioned with Congress were repeated in resolution after resolution without any in-depth economic or political analysis. The hope was that the party, with its committed cadres and carefully-whetted members, tight discipline and correct party line, would lead the people’s revolution whenever the inevitable social, economic and political breakdown occurred and a revolutionary situation developed. The result was that the party and its contending groups and factions remained stuck in grooves from which they found it increasingly difficult to extricate themselves.

Particular manifestations of the Communist failure to come to grips with the Indian political reality are related to three areas. Despite toiling hard in the anti-imperialist cause and being a part of the mainstream national movement led by Congress and Gandhiji, both before and after independence, the party failed to appreciate correctly the character of the freedom struggle as a massive national revolution, comparable to the Russian and Chinese revolutions. After independence, CPI by and large failed to come to terms with nationalism and the problems of national development and consolidation of the nation. Nationalism had a different
meaning in the ex-colonies than in the European context. Here, it was not merely or even primarily a bourgeois phenomenon or the ideological reflex of bourgeois interests. Here, it did not reflect the befogging of the people’s minds by bourgeois ideology; on the contrary, it reflected the grasp of an important aspect of the reality by the people who expected a united and strong India to become a vehicle for the improvement of their social condition. Similarly, nation building was not a bourgeois task. The Communists could not become a hegemonic or even a major force because they failed to take up the leadership in nation building and social development of the nation as a whole, in all its aspects; from economic development and the spread of education, scientific temper, science and technology and productivity to the fight against the caste system and for equity and equality, and the guarding of the independence, integrity and security of the nation.

Next, CPI was also not able to work out the full and real implications of a civil libertarian and democratic polity. It got repeatedly bogged down with problems posed in the abstract, such as revolutionary versus non-revolutionary path, violent versus non-violent means, parliamentary work versus armed struggle and so on. The real problem was not posed: what did it mean to be a social revolutionary in the context of post-independent democratic India? Electoral and parliamentary politics were not to be encompassed by the traditional Communist notion of using them as mere forums of propaganda and as measures of the Communist strength. Despite the bourgeois social structure underpinning it, India’s democratic polity marked a historical leap; it meant a basic change in the rules of political behaviour. India’s parliamentary institutions and framework had to be seen as the political channels through which social transformation was to be brought about.

CPI did hesitatingly move towards this understanding at its Amritsar Congress in 1958, but the effort was patchy and short-lived; and inner-party contentions soon led to its being abandoned. CPI also failed to realize that in a democratic polity, social transformation could occur only through a series of radical reforms which had to be put into practice and not pursued merely to expose the rulers and the existing social system. In other words, instead of promising what it would do after it came to power, the party had to struggle to influence existing social development in the direction of its vision. In the absence of such an approach, CPI failed to adopt a positive and a politically viable attitude towards the nation building and reformist measures and policies of the Nehru government. At the same time, the party failed to become an alternative to Congress, and to come up with its own agenda of national development and social justice. One result of this was that gradually the opposition space began to be occupied by reactionary communal and casteist parties.