Bleak outlook for the Left

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

 As the Communist Party of India-Marxist, the largest of India’s Left parties, prepares for its triennial national congress, the outlook for the future is bleak as there are no signs of recovery from the setbacks of recent years.

The Communist Party of India was the main opposition in Parliament in the early years of Independence. It stunned the world in 1957 by seizing power in Kerala state through the ballot box. A few years later the party split in the wake of the Sino-Soviet rift, and the breakaway CPI-M, outgrowing the parent body, became the major political force in West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala.

In West Bengal and Tripura, it enjoyed a long run in power. In Kerala, a coalition led by it alternated in power with a rival front led by the Congress party.

As the Congress was reduced to a minority in Parliament, the CPI-M promoted the formation of non-Congress, non-Bharatiya Janata Party governments at the Centre but did not participate directly in them. It was the Left’s image as a progressive force that enabled the party’s general secretary, Harkishen Singh Surjeet, to bring together small national and regional parties to form coalition governments.

At one stage these parties wanted West Bengal’s charismatic CPI-M leader Jyoti Basu to be the Prime Minister. The party turned down the suggestion as it did not want to be part of a government in which it did not have a dominant position. Basu later termed the decision a Himalayan blunder.

In 2004, Surjeet’s successor, Prakash Karat, extended Left support to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government from outside to keep the BJP out of power. He pulled the plug when the government concluded the civil nuclear agreement with the United States but could not bring the government down. The UPA won a second term in the 2009 elections.

In 2011, the regional Trinamool Congress brought the CPI-M’s unbroken 34-year rule in West Bengal to an end. The Left’s electoral rout was widely attributed to the pro-rich policies the government had adopted and the ruthless manner in which it attempted to seize farmers’ lands for industries.

Dr Ashok Mitra, a former CPI-M Finance Minister and well-known economist, said the party was defeated as its state leaders had deviated from communist policies and principles.

Last year’s Lok Sabha elections revealed shrinkage of the Left’s electoral base. The CPI-M’s vote share dwindled from 5.3% in 2009 to 3.2% and the CPI’s from 1.4% to 0.8%.

The results of two recent by-elections in West Bengal, one to the Lok Sabha and the other to the State Assembly, show that the party’s downward slide is continuing. The Trinamool Congress won both the seats. In the Assembly constituency, the BJP took the second spot pushing the CPI-M down to the third place.

In Kerala, the CPI-M has been debilitated by a feud between party veteran VS Achuthanandan and long-time state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. A new act of the long-running tragi-comedy was played out at the state party conference which has just concluded at Alappuzha.

The small northeastern state of Tripura is the only place where the party is intact. Small pockets of influence which it had elsewhere in the country have been swept away by the rising tide of communal and regional parties.

The state of the Left in Delhi, where Prakash Karat served as the CPI-M’s state secretary before his elevation to the Central Committee in 1985, is illustrative of its sad plight at the national level. Five Left parties jointly put up 15 candidates in the Assembly elections there. Together they polled a paltry 5,405 votes. The state has an electorate of more than 13 million.

Prakash Karat, who became general secretary in 2005, is due to relinquish the post at the party congress scheduled to be held at Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, from April 14 to 19. His poor stewardship of the party is generally attributed to his lack of experience in working class movements.

Sitaram Yechury, who is widely tipped to succeed him, shares Karat’s background. Both were student leaders catapulted into the top leadership without field experience.

The party’s West Bengal and Kerala units have powerful state level leaders but have not been able to throw up a single leader of national stature after Jyoti Basu and EMS Namboodiripad. Basu, who was West Bengal’s chief minister continuously from 1977 to 2000, died in 2010 and Namboodiripad, who was Kerala’s chief minister twice, died in 1998-- Gulf Today. Sharjah, February 24, 2015

Unsteady coalition plods on

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government is tottering with the loss of two large coalition partners in a span of six months but plods on, confident in the feeling that it will not be overthrown as few parties want to face elections immediately.

The Trinamool Congress, the Congress party’s largest ally, walked out of the coalition last September protesting against the decisions to open the retail sector to foreign direct investment and limit the subsidy on liquefied petroleum gas. The exit of its 19 members reduced the UPA to a minority with only 254 members in the 544-strong Lok Sabha. However, there was no threat to the government as it was supported from outside by the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party which have 22 and 21 members respectively.

Last week the next biggest constituent, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, with 18 members, pulled out of the alliance protesting against the government’s failure to press for censure of Sri Lanka in the UN Human Rights Council for violation of the rights of the island’s Tamil minority.

This further reduced the coalition’s strength in parliament, but the continued support of the SP and the BSP gives it the necessary numbers to claim a majority in the house. However, it is at the mercy of the SP and the BSP, either of which can bring it down at any time.

The SP’s Mulayam Singh Yadav and the BSP’s Mayawati are both ambitious leaders capable of driving hard bargains. Arch rivals in Uttar Pradesh politics, circumstances have forced them into the same side at the Centre.

The DMK had remained in the coalition without demur during the closing stages of the civil war in Sri Lanka when atrocities against the Tamils took place. Few, therefore, believe that its decision to withdraw support to the UPA and pull out its five ministers was dictated by sympathy for Sri Lankan Tamils.

DMK chief M Karunanidhi had been sulking since his daughter Kanimozhi, MP, and party colleague and former Communication Minister A Raja were arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation in 2011 on corruption charges. He chose to quit the coalition on the Sri Lankan human rights violations since it is an emotive issue in Tamil Nadu.

As soon as Karunanidhi announced his intention to leave the UPA, the Congress rushed three senor ministers, AK Antony, P Chidambaram and Ghulam Nabi Azad, to Chennai to mollify him. This was not easy since the government is keen to avoid doing anything which will push the Sri Lankan administration closer to China.

Yet, in a bid to placate him, the Congress leadership explored, against its own best judgement, the possibility of pushing through Parliament a resolution critical of Sri Lankan human rights violations. The move did not find favour with the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main opposition, and other parties like the SP and the Trinamool Congress. The aborted effort revealed a North-South divide in the country on the Sri Lankan issue.

The Congress, which has 203 members in the Lok Sabha, is now left with no ally with two-digit strength in the house, its largest remaining partners being Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s National Congress Party (nine members), Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (five) and Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (three).

Mayawati lost control of UP, the largest state, which sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha, in last year’s Assembly elections. She will not precipitate a situation which will lead to immediate parliamentary elections as it is unlikely to improve her party’s position.

Mulayam Singh Yadav may be thinking differently. The SP won the Assembly elections in the state and he has installed his son, Akhilesh Yadav, as the chief minister. He will not hesitate to pull the rug from under the UPA’s feet if he thinks the time is ripe for a kill. He knows that if he waits too long the ground situation may change to his disadvantage.

Facing increasing isolation as the elections approach, the Congress has begun a search for new allies. One party whose name figures in the speculation in this connection is the Janata Dal (United), the BJP’s largest partner in the National Democratic Alliance. The party heads the government in Bihar, a state with 40 seats in the Lok Sabha. The price Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has set for the support to any government at the Centre is a special package for his economically backward state.

A realignment of forces ahead of the elections is a possibility. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, March 26, 2013

Women's security: Time to establish accountability

B.R.P.Bhaskar
IANS

Leaderless and unorganised groups of young men and women have been demonstrating demanding women's security and just punishment to perpetrators of the Delhi gang-rape.

They have defied ban orders and braved repressive police action. The death of the rape victim Saturday appears to have strengthened their resolve. But punishment in criminal cases, just or otherwise, comes only at the end of trial and hearing at three levels, which, with the best will to fast-track the process, will take time.
Ensuring security of women calls for toning up of the police machinery and reforming society -- tasks that will take even more time. The protesters cannot be hanging out at Jantar Mantar and in parks in other cities while these processes go on.

Knowing this, the government is resorting to time-tested dilatory measures like constitution of judicial commissions and promises of action. While the protests have been ignited by one incident which received considerable mass media attention, what has also brought young people into the campaign is the feeling that the political system is not responsive to the issue.

Their exasperation is evident from the way they are steering clear of all political elements.

On their part, the ruling parties and the opposition are viewing with deep suspicion the protest movement run by those who are not under the control of any party. Their misgivings are shared by middle class intellectuals who fear the movement may lead to anarchy.

Figures show a crime against women is reported every two minutes. When we take into account the fact that many women do not file complaints and even when complaints are filed, police may not register them, the actual crime rate must be higher.

The nation's concern over the issue, which the protesters are articulating, is therefore justified. The protesters cannot be blamed for their distrust of the political class.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not speak out on the issue for days. Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde opened his mouth mainly to defend police action against the demonstrators.

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushama Swaraj, who demanded the death penalty for rapists, had been silent on the rape of women during the Gujarat riots.

Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Brinda Karat, who paid visits to India Gate, was an accessory to her party's decision to settle sexual harassment charges against two of its leaders in Kerala and shield them against prosecution.

Jaya Bachchan, who broke into tears at a Mumbai protest rally, is an MP of the Samajwadi Party that has fielded men facing rape charges in elections.

The Bahujan Samaj Party and the Trinamool Congress, two parties controlled by women leaders, too, have put up rape case accused as candidates.

How can such leaders be relied upon to address the issue sincerely?

Former Indian Army chief, Gen V.K. Singh was among those who publicly associated themselves with the protest. While serving as army chief, he showed no sign of concern for rape victims. Army personnel in Kashmir attracted rape charges in his time.

He had no word of sympathy for Irom Sharmila of Manipur, who is on an epic fast seeking lifting of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which provides immunity to servicemen involved in rape cases.
While the record of the politicians and the former officials is not inspiring, protesters must understand we are running a democratic system and such a system cannot be run without political parties. But they are entitled to demand that the politicians remain accountable to the people.

Sonia Gandhi, chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), said on Saturday: "We have heard you".

If she has heard the protesters' voice, why is there no action?

The constitution envisages a government responsible to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament. That body owes its special status to the fact that it is directly elected by the people, who, going by the preamble, are both makers and keepers of the constitution.

In a democratic dispensation, when things go wrong, someone must assume responsibility. Half-a-century ago, Lal Bahadur Shastri assumed moral responsibility for a rail accident and resigned as railway minister.
When a sex crime in the capital awakens the nation's conscience to the vulnerability of women, must not someone assume moral responsibility and bow out?

If no one does so voluntarily, does not the UPA chairperson have a duty to fix responsibility and call for the resignation of the person concerned?

Two persons present themselves as likely candidates: the prime minister, who remained silent when he should be have spoken out and acted; and the home minister, whose words only added insult to injury.

The exit of either gentleman will not bring the government down since it is open to the Congress and the UPA to find a replacement from their own ranks.

A make-or-break move

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The die is cast. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, under fire from advocates of globalisation at home and abroad for not going forward with reforms, last week announced a slew of measures which may determine the political future of his party and government.

The measures included cuts in subsidy on diesel and cooking gas, permitting foreign direct investment of up to 49 per cent in aviation, 51 per cent in multi-brand retail and 74 per cent in mobile television, direct-to-home, cable networks and teleports, and sale of shares of four public sector undertakings to raise Rs150 billion, which is half of the disinvestment target set for this year.

The broad sweep of the measures surprised friends and foes alike. The cut in diesel subsidy invited universal condemnation. The retail FDI was opposed by political parties of different shades, including the Trinamool Congress, which is the ruling United Progressive Alliance’s largest partner, and the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, both of which support the government from outside. 

The Centre had cleared the retail FDI proposal in November last year but was forced to shelve it because of strong opposition from political parties, especially those that control the state governments, who argued it would hurt the small traders. In an attempt to mollify them, the states have now been given the freedom to keep foreign retailers out if they so wish.

The Centre has stated that foreign retailers can establish outlets only in cities with a population of more than one million. They must bring in a minimum investment of $100 million each and at least half of it must be in “back-end infrastructures,” a term which includes facilities for processing, manufacturing, distribution, design improvement, quality control, packaging, storage etc. Also, they must procure at least 30 per cent of their wares from small industries in the country.

These conditions, which the Centre claims will benefit farmers and small manufacturers, have not blunted the political parties’ opposition. West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee has threatened to take hard decisions unless the Centre rolled back the diesel price increase and retail FDI decision. The National Democratic Alliance, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, and the Left parties and several other small national and regional parties, have called for nationwide work stoppage on Thursday in protest against the new measures.

The government has acted behind Parliament’s back. Since constitutional provisions or precedents do not require it to seek prior parliamentary approval for such decisions, it cannot be accused of improper conduct. However, since a UPA partner and at least two parties that support the government from outside are opposed to these measures, the question whether there is democratic sanction behind them is quite legitimate. Also, the constitutional principle of collective responsibility of the council of ministers has been compromised.

The prime minister and the Congress party have brushed aside the publicly voiced reservations of allies in the belief that they will not go so far as to pull down the government. They expect the Trinamool Congress, the SP and the BSP to stop short of withdrawing their support to the government. Reports that the TC may limit its response to pulling out its ministers and support the government from outside and that the SP and the BSP do not favour withdrawal of support to the government reinforce their optimism.

However, the prime minister and his Congress party cannot be sanguine about the government’s ability to have smooth passage in the Lok Sabha, whose term runs for another year and a half. Since the UPA has only 273 members in the 543-member Lok Sabha, they will be walking on the razor’s edge during the budget session, knowing a snap adverse vote can spell the government’s end.

The possibility of the Trinamool Congress and the Samajwadi Party, which registered convincing victories in the last Assembly elections in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh respectively and entertain hopes of doing well in parliamentary elections, feeling tempted to ditch the Congress as its burden of incumbency grows cannot be ruled out.

Why then did Manmohan Singh take the plunge? The short answer is that he wanted to avert further downgrading of India by global rating agencies which will throw the faltering economy out of gear and end hopes of pushing up the growth rate which is now only around 5.5 per cent, the lowest in a decade. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, September 18, 2012.