People's Democracy

“Double-Speak” Charge: Maligning The CPI(M)

Prakash Karat 

IN the concerted campaign against the CPI(M) and the Left Front government on the land acquisition issue in Singur and other projects in West Bengal, a charge continually levelled at the Party is that “the CPI(M) indulges in double-speak,” that is, that the Party has double standards, and says one thing in Delhi and does another in Kolkata. While some critics attribute this alleged double-speak to duplicity on the part of the CPI (M) leadership, some others claim that it shows the political and ideological confusion of a Party that is unable to come to terms with globalisation, liberalisation and a booming market economy.

At the heart of the matter is these critics’ inability to comprehend the role of a state government under India’s constitutional set-up and the CPI(M)’s understanding of what governments headed by the Party can do. The CPI(M) had formulated the scope and purpose of such governments as early as the late 1960s, when United Front governments were formed in West Bengal and Kerala. It was clear then as now that the policies implemented by Left-led governments would always be circumscribed by the fact that State power vests with the centre while state governments have very limited powers and resources. This is the reality of a constitutional set-up that is not federal in nature.

This understanding was further clarified when Left-led governments began to rule in the three states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura for longer periods of time. Within all the constraints and limitations of office, these governments have to take steps to fulfil their commitments to the people and offer relief to the working people. While there are urgent issues before Left-led governments, including those of protecting livelihoods in agriculture, creating jobs by means of industrial development, and improving the quality of people’s lives, alternative policies in certain spheres can be implemented only within the constraints imposed by the system. 

AREAS OF DISTINCTION

Is it any accident that, in contrast to states ruled by non Left parties, the Left-led states in India are distinguished by their commitment to, and implementation of, land reform? In the pre-liberalisation era, these governments also allocated bigger shares of their budgets to education and health, a feature of policy that could not be sustained after the imposition of policies of liberalisation and privatisation by the government of India in the 1990s.

In the past decade and a half, the all-India policy of the CPI(M) has been to oppose the neo-liberal direction of policies, popularly termed liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation. What is not recognised enough is that the state governments have to bear the brunt of such policies. These policies have reduced the ability of the states to increase tax revenue and meet demands for additional spending and have severely hampered their capacity for positive pro-people economic measures.

For instance, in West Bengal, if the government cannot spend enough on the social sector, the easy option would have been to promote privatisation in spheres such as education and health. In West Bengal, 70 per cent of the people still avail the government health facilities which is unprecedented in comparison to other states. In order to keep the public health system going, funds had to be found. Given the orientation of the central government, which actually reduced public spending on health from 1.6 per cent of the GDP in 1986-87 to 0.9 per cent in 2004, the state government was compelled to accept grants and loans from multilateral agencies and foreign governments in order to maintain the public health system.

In sum, the major tasks of nation-building – including essential tasks in education, health, infrastructure, industrial growth, and agriculture and rural development – have been assigned to the states. It is an irony of our present situation that while states have been given weighty responsibilities under our present Constitutional arrangements, they are consistently being denied the wherewithal to achieve them.

Such matters were discussed in the Party, not just in West Bengal, and a strategy worked out. Policy matters such as taking foreign loans, the approach to the public sector, the growing dependence on NGOs to funnel funds for development and so on were discussed at the 18th congress of the Party. The document that emerged now guides the Party at the all-India level and in West Bengal.

The anti-CPI(M) propagandists may want to know that the industrial policy of West Bengal was discussed and a resolution approved by the central committee as long ago as 1994. In a situation where the central government cuts back resources for public sector and infrastructure development and promotes private investment, and given the stark reality of the squeeze on States’ finances, it is not possible for the Left Front in West Bengal to implement the alternative policy programme of its choosing. The central committee therefore approved of the state government’s efforts to solicit private investment for industrial development.
At the same time, the Party resolution called for efforts to rescue central public sector undertakings (PSUs) in the state and strengthen them. The emphasis on the central PSUs was because state PSUs were relatively minor and not in key and heavy industries. The Left Front government has to be commended for pursuing this goal. The recent decision of SAIL to take over the IISCO steel plant and invest Rs 9,000 crores for its modernisation and expansion would not have been possible without the relentless efforts of the state government, Left parties and trade unions.

At the all-India level, the CPI(M) has consistently been advocating policy alternatives to the neo-liberal policies implemented by successive central governments. The Party has played a leading role in building resistance to the harmful effects of these policies. But for the fact that the CPI(M) and the other Left parties have the parliamentary strength to check some of the more glaring pro-big business and pro-foreign finance capital measures proposed by the UPA government, there would have been a greater policy thrust in favour of the big bourgeoisie and imperialism, notwithstanding what is written in the Common Minimum Programme.

CHALLENGE FOR THE LEFT

While the CPI(M) leadership engages in this task at the all-India level, a part of this leadership is involved in running the state government in West Bengal. They have to ensure that the government of West Bengal can meet, to the extent possible through the endeavours of a state government, the demands of the people for better livelihoods, for the removal of stark poverty and for balanced development.

West Bengal will have the basic features of a liberalised capitalist economy. Those who believe that it can be otherwise are only deluding themselves. The challenge for the Left is to see how, in extraordinarily difficult conditions in which State-sponsored economic activities are severely limited, economic development can take place in a manner that benefits the people, particularly the working people and the poor. Until the 1990s, the State registered major progress in agricultural production as a result of land reforms and the establishment of panchayati raj institutions. New initiatives are also needed in industry, education, health, the service sector and so on.

The CPI(M) opposes the existing provisions of the SEZ Act and Rules. In fact, it took the initiative to work out the changes required on land use, the tax exemption bonanza and the plan to make SEZs enclaves of the affluent. If there are going to be SEZs all over the country, there will be SEZs in West Bengal. But that does not stop the CPI(M) from struggling to change the existing law and restructure the scope of such zones. Unlike other parties, which pay lip service to such concerns, the Left Front government will ensure within the existing law that the main purpose of SEZs will be to promote industry and not real estate speculation. As for tax exemption, this is outside the purview of the state government, and it is for the Party and other Left and democratic forces to see that they are changed.

More and more, the centre is imposing conditions on the central schemes and grants that are offered to the states. In 2005 when the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) was announced, the Party criticised some of the terms and conditions stipulated. Does this mean that cash-strapped states should forgo the funds offered by this scheme? Neither Kerala nor West Bengal can afford to do so. While accepting such schemes, both at the state government level and at the all-India political level, the demand should be raised and pressure built to stop the unconstitutional practice of coercing states to accept the neo-liberal package of reforms attached to loans and grants. 

In recent years, the terms of the Finance Commission and of centrally-sponsored schemes and projects come attached with stipulations that are contrary to constitutional and federal norms. The centre has gradually encroached on vital rights of the states. It is a legitimate criticism that the CPI(M) and the Left have not done enough to bring this aspect of centre-state relations to public attention. It is necessary for the Party and the Left to rally other political parties running state governments to take a common position against these onslaughts on state rights.

What the Left and democratic forces in West Bengal have done in the last three decades is to be in the forefront of all the struggles and movements against the policies of liberalisation and privatisation and strengthen the battle for secularism. Such a role was strengthened vastly by the existence of a Left Front government. 

CPI(M) AND INDUSTRIALISATION

Instead of acknowledging this reality or attempting to understand it, some Left intellectuals and progressive personalities have mounted an all-out attack on the CPI(M). It must be made clear to these quarters that, as a Marxist Party, the CPI(M) rejects the platform of the anti-industry wallahs. The working class movement has suffered as a result of the de-industrialisation of West Bengal. The Party wants the Left Front government to make all efforts to make the state a manufacturing base. The Tata automobile plant at Singur is one step in this direction.

In 1985, when it became clear that the Congress government at the centre was bent upon continuing its discriminatory policy of denying industry to the state, the 12th congress of the CPI(M) endorsed the effort of the Left Front government to go in for a joint sector venture to build the Haldia petro-chemical project (at that time too the issue under discussion was a joint sector effort with the Tatas). As a result, the petrochemical project at Haldia was established, although eventually not with Tatas as the major partner.

In January 2007, the central committee of the Party, which met in Kolkata, resolved to support the West Bengal state committee’s stand on the Singur project. It was satisfied that the compensation package for the land acquired was fair to the landowners and bargadars. As for projects related to the Salim Group, including the SEZs, the Party has decided that they require further discussion within the Party and also in the Left Front.

The CPI(M) will continue to refute the modern-day Narodniks* who claim to champion the cause of the peasantry. The people of West Bengal are the best judge of genuine defenders of the cause of the peasantry. The CPI(M)’s programme, which analyses the configuration of classes in Indian society, sets out the task of establishing a worker-peasant alliance that is the moving force of the people’s democratic revolution. The CPI(M)-led state governments will not do anything that violates this strategic goal. The land use policy announced by the West Bengal government will provide a scientific and planned basis for the conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural purposes.

It is saddening to see the line-up of the Trinamul Congress, the BJP and the Congress — a traditional and unsurprising anti-Marxist gang-up of ruling-class parties — being fortified by the likes of Medha Patkar, who did not hesitate to make an outrageous comparison between land acquisition in Singur and George Bush’s policy in Iraq. This is a typical illustration of the poverty of understanding of US imperialism that prevails among NGOs and the “single-issue” crowd. Can there really be any doubt that mass mobilisation in India on a consistent basis against US imperialism exists only in West Bengal, Kerala, and Tripura, where the CPI(M) has led strong anti-imperialist movements? As for the Naxalite groups, in West Bengal as elsewhere, they have no alternative to place before the people other than a programme of violence and disruption.

The CPI(M) will continue to build resistance to the existing policies of the ruling classes at the centre and project alternative policies. While doing so, the state governments headed by the Party will strive to implement the directives of the 18th Congress of the Party : 

Faced with the neo-liberal policies of the centre, the Left-led governments have to struggle hard to pursue policies which ensure pro-people and balanced development. While promoting private investment, the Left Front governments defend the public sector in key areas, protect and, if possible, expand public expenditure in the social sector and project alternative policies to protect the poorer sections who are the worst affected by the policies pursued by the central government.

If this process of discharging our tasks at the national and state levels is depicted as “double-speak” by some intellectuals on the Left, one can only wonder at their motivation. They must ponder on the question of why they have placed themselves in the company of the virulent anti-Communist gang in West Bengal and CPI(M)-baiters in the big business-run media.

* Narodniks in late 19th century Russia believed that with the overthrow of Tsarism, a traditional village based communal system could go towards socialism. Considering capitalism and industrialisation regressive, they idealised the old peasant-village economy. Ultimately they resorted to individual terrorist actions against the Tsar and lost the sympathy of the peasants who were horrified by their actions.