Issue # 1412      27 May 2009

Culture & Life

India: The people against the landlords

Rob Gowland

A couple of years ago, while in India to attend the congresses of the country’s two big Communist parties – the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the even bigger Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M) – I was privileged to stand on a street corner with half a dozen other international delegates and review a parade by CPI(M) Red Shirt volunteers.

The marchers, four abreast and each carrying a wooden staff about a metre and a half high, stretched for quite a distance. They were disciplined and motivated and it was quickly obvious that they were in fact a self-defence force. Why such a thing was needed became obvious when we visited the local offices of the two Communist parties.

The local offices were small and austere (in most villages just a single-room hut). Apart from a picture of Lenin the only decoration was usually a group of black-bordered photographs of individuals, men and women. Enquiries as to their significance in every case elicited the response that they were portraits of “Comrades murdered by the Congress Party”.

Congress evolved over the years from the party of national liberation (from British colonial rule) to become the party of the landlords, a combination of the petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie.

India is a big country, and its landlords are used to controlling rural affairs through a combination of patronage and violence (using their own hired thugs). Extreme poverty co-exists with great wealth and the authority of the central government was – and still is – often non-existent. Banditry is still rife along the border regions (although the bandits now cloak their activities with the banner of separatism and call themselves “freedom fighters”).

Although India is a secular country, religion still plays a big part in its affairs, especially in rural areas. To the right of Congress is the neo-fascist party of conservative Hindus, the BJP. In the best traditions of the religious right elsewhere, the BJP used a combination of religious prejudice, nationalism and plain demagoguery to win the national government a few years ago.

The BJP however were mired in what the Indians call “communalism”, the exalting and exacerbating of parochial and even sectarian notions on the basis of ignorance and fear. Religious violence escalated and India’s secular state was in jeopardy of being broken up (a result imperialism would not have grieved over).

It was with considerable relief (and much hard work) that the BJP government was eventually defeated by the combined forces of the Left and Congress.

In the national elections to the Lok Sabha (India’s parliament) that have just taken place, the BJP were once again spurned, as they had been in 2004. They could not offer anything beyond their communal agenda combined with rightwing economic policies.

The BJP’s vote share fell by almost three percent. However, their voters turned not to the Left but to the Centre-Right, to the Congress, whose vote share rose by a corresponding three percent.

The combined vote share of Congress and the BJP is less than 49 percent, but in the usual way of bourgeois democracy, Congress nevertheless won enough seats to form a government without having to depend on the Left for support.

In its analysis of the election results, the Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) noted that Congress benefited from a number of progressive measures that had been taken by the outgoing Left-supported UPA government, especially the various social welfare measures that had been pushed through under Left pressure. 

The CPI(M) additionally noted that the Congress party had also gained support amongst racial and religious minorities and other sections of “secular minded people who were keen to ensure that the BJP does not make a comeback”.

The CPI(M) is in government in three of India’s states: West Bengal (where it has been in government for over 25 years), Kerala and Tripura. The results in West Bengal and Kerala were a shock for the CPI(M): the party lost a total of 25 seats (although its vote share of 5.52% nationally is only marginally less than the 5.66 per cent it got in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.

The CPI(M) Polit Bureau has called for “a serious examination of the reasons for these reverses” adding: “Both national and state-specific factors are responsible for the poor performance.

“A self-critical review will be conducted by the concerned state committees and the Central Committee which should form the basis for corrective steps. The Party will make all out efforts to regain the support and confidence of those sections of the people who have been alienated.”

In Tripura on the other hand, the two CPI(M)-Left Front candidates secured a massive victory.

However, in West Bengal, in the lead-up to the election, activists of the local Trinamool Congress (TMC) – and in some areas Congress Party activists – in keeping with their class alignment, launched violent attacks against CPI(M) cadre and sympathisers. And in the post poll period, these attacks escalated.

The CPI(M) reports that “two comrades, including a Forward Bloc worker, have been killed in the post poll period and hundreds have been attacked and houses burnt. TMC activists attacked the entire areas of Chitnan gram panchayat and looted and set fire to 43 houses. They tortured women and children. The affected people are now being shifted to a temporary relief camp.

“In Kaliaganj, Malda, thirty houses of party workers have been set on fire.

“Earlier, 26 comrades had been killed in the period between March 7 and May 13. [And some CPA comrades find election work here onerous!] Three electoral officers were also killed by Maoists in a landmine blast. After the polls a police officer was also killed by these armed groups.

“The aim behind the violence unleashed primarily by the TMC is to terrorise CPI(M) supporters and drive them out from selected areas, to create lawlessness in the State, deliberately provoke intervention of the police with the undemocratic aim to destabilise the elected state government and prevent it from working to implement pro-people policies.”

Despite the violence from the landlord groups, the CPI(M) says it and the Left parties will “work as a responsible opposition in parliament. The country is faced with serious economic difficulties which have a direct bearing on the people’s livelihood and well being. The new government has to address this issue urgently and squarely. The CPI(M) will be vigilant in defending the interests of the people. It will work for strengthening the unity of the Left parties and will continue the cooperation with other secular parties in the opposition.”

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