PRAGOTI

Since Comrade Jyoti Basu’s death, scores of people have tried to come to terms with his unique role, legacy and stature. Jyotirmoy has tried to do the same, but the attempt is not merely disappointing but mostly tongue-in-cheek. 

Comrade Jyoti Basu’s funeral

The funeral has evoked varied responses from different quarters. Most have been humbled by the estimated 15 lakh turnout during Com. Jyoti Basu’s last journey. Many have remarked that the last journey was truly a people’s affair, a befitting tribute to a people’s leader. Others like the Business Standard are upset at what the fuss is all about. They have taken offence at why state honors and a wholesome national coverage were given to a man who according to them had supervised the "ruin of West Bengal" as its longest serving Chief Minister. Some, like The Telegraph are upset that the Communist Internationale was played along with the National Anthem. They are trying to point out to the CPI (M) that having a state funeral for their leader is not consistent with their politics.

Amidst all these responses, Jyotirmoy has faulted the CPI (M) for deviating from Marxist-Leninist principles. However, contrary to expectations, in the course of his article, he does not make a case for upholding Marxist-Leninist principles, but argues for abandoning them altogether. Though he is not entirely clear about what the legacy of Com. Basu or his generation is, he is absolutely certain that it is not Marxist-Leninist. Like many who are harping upon the 1996 episode in order to divorce Com. Jyoti Basu’s legacy from that of the CPI (M), Jyotirmoy is trying to divorce Com. Basu and the CPI (M)’s legacy from that of the creative application of Marxism-Leninism in Indian conditions.

In fact, some of us would have taken offence, if the Party had adopted a narrow, sectarian approach and tried to monopolize Com. Jyoti Basu’s funeral merely as a CPI (M) affair. This would have neither done service to Com. Basu’s legacy wherein he played a decisive role in building a broad based multi-party alliance in the shape of the Left Front to pursue an alternative agenda within the constraints of the bourgeois-landlord state, nor his tireless commitment to the people emanating from a Marxist-Leninist outlook. He played a decisive role in steering the Party out of the phase of bans and underground activities, and helped shape the Party’s evolution as a mass revolutionary party working for the people’s democratic revolution. His efforts at creating an acceptability for the party is borne out by the fact that in several part’s of the country, the CPI(M) is recognized as the Party of Jyoti Basu. Jyotirmoy would have us believe that the Party should have adopted an approach wherein a full blown national controversy over refusing a state funeral for Com. Basu, would have amounted to true adherence to the principles of Marxism-Leninism and would have forwarded the cause of the Indian communist movement.

It is not a question of accepting state honours; Jyoti Basu had himself refused to accept the Bharat Ratna when it was proposed a few years back. It is a question of a fitting tribute to a leader who, inter alia served as Chief Minister of a state for 23 years (nobody in India has that distinction), whose appeal extends beyond India’s borders (the Bangladesh parliament dominated by the centrist Awami League adopted an unanimous condolence resolution) and who was among the last surviving politicians who had fought for the country’s freedom. It is absolutely fitting that the Indian tricolour was placed over the red flag on his body. It is fitting that the Indian state, which had jailed him and his colleagues calling them Chinese agents in 1962, was forced to accord formal recognition to his greatness. It was the mass endorsement by the people of a Communist leader that forced the state to do so, as was the case with Com. EMS.

How does the according of state funeral to Com. Jyoti Basu undermine the revolutionary objectives of the CPI (M)? After all, unlike the infantile ultra Left Maoists, the CPI (M) has never strategised an armed overthrow of the Indian state. It wants to achieve revolution through a combination of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggles. Only if the state unleashes violence against the revolution would the question of armed struggle acquire relevance. This was made clear in the CPI (M) programme in 1964 itself (subsequently updated in 2000). CPI (M) has accorded support to the Indian state on several crucial occasions, even its military interventions: during the Bangladesh liberation war for instance. The CPI (M) has in fact been at the forefront of the battle to protect the democratic and secular character of the Indian state during the Emergency and BJP rule, respectively. The Party has never shared such a shallow notion of the Indian state, as Jyotirmoy displays, which offers a simple binary choice between accepting the state or rejecting it. It always has had a more nuanced view, even while unambiguously characterizing it as bourgeois-landlord and fighting against it.

Jyotirmoy’s critique of the CPI (M)

Rather than making a laboured connection with Com. Jyoti Basu’s funeral, Jyotirmoy would have done well to simply state his main critique of the Party. On the Party’s understanding on Left Front governments, he should read the 19^th Party Congress document, rather than making his own guesses and making unfair criticisms about the Party heaping unqualified praises upon itself for its achievements. 

He has made the following points in his write-up:

-         that the Indian communist movement has unique achievements, which rest on its flexibility and innovativeness to discover new and fruitful political ideas and understandings.

-         that one of the greatest dangers before the movement is that it has failed to ‘codify’ or ‘articulate’ its own ‘ideological discoveries’.

-         that Jyoti Basu and his comrades were able to ‘reach correct political conclusions’ based on a ‘coherent theory of the world’. 

-         that this theory was not Marxism-Leninism, and their success was not because but in spite of the CPI(M) Party Programme.

-         that the updated CPI(M) programme not merely fails to articulate the creative achievements of the movement, but is based on old theories of state, revolution and Party, is ‘not implementable under the present circumstances’ and has become a ‘dead letter’.

-         that the Programme has created a vacuum within the party, with neither ‘pro-people’ nor ‘anti-people forces’ within the party being able to implement the programme.

-         that ‘principleless pragmatism’ is winning the day within the CPI(M).

-         that Jyoti Basu and his generation were ‘non-revolutionary’ but staunchly ‘pro-people’. For want of a better term, their ideology and politics can be called ‘social democracy’.

-         however, social democracy, if accepted in principle, runs the danger of going the European way and ultimately to the ‘acceptance of right wing ideas’.

-         that the way out or forward for the communist movement in India is to discover some ‘new kind of revolutionary politics’ or some ‘new popular alliances’.

-         this may bring a synthesis between its theory and praxis and is its only chance at defending the past.

His main argument is that the success of the Indian communist movement lies in its new discoveries, which it has failed to ‘codify’. Without codification, it will be unable to understand its past gains and take them forward. However, Jyotirmoy too is unable to clearly outline and codify these new discoveries (but for a passing codification as the same old social democracy) and ends up emphasizing the need for more new discoveries. Isn’t this argument self-defeating?

He is certainly not crediting Jyoti Basu and his generation for their praxis based on the Party’s theory. Rather, he credits them for what he perceives are the departures. He believes that the praxis of the past generation merits a new theory. By his own logic, the achievements made by the Indian communist movement are a product of the lack of ‘synthesis’ between theory and praxis. Yet he argues that a synthesis between the two is crucial for success. Wouldn’t he do better to just admit that in fact the success of the past generation is rooted in a synthesis between the two, which he (just as so many others) is at pains to deny?

If Jyotirmoy wants to seriously engage with the past, present and future of the communist movement in India, it would certainly require a more coherent appraisal than the present article for it to become a constructive intervention. The present article seems to be a case of casually indulging in argument for argument’s sake; a case of flippant intellectual acrobatics. 

Jyotirmoy’s advise to the CPI (M)

Jyotirmoy is hardly the first voice to advise the CPI (M) to abandon its programme and endorse social democracy. A party called the Party for Democratic Socialism (PDS) was formed in West Bengal by some persons after they were expelled from the CPI (M) in 1998 because they were pushing the same line. Intellectual honesty would demand that having arrived at such conclusions, Jyotirmoy should not indulge in the hypocrisy of advising the CPI (M) to abandon Marxism-Leninism in the name of seemingly seeking to advance the cause of the Indian communist movement.