By Siddartha
NEW DELHI — The threat of communalism looms large over India as the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance is set to form the central government. After two weeks of post-poll machinations, the BJP has managed to gather just enough support from a number of disparate regional parties to capture power.
The 12th general elections to the Lok Sabha (lower house of the Indian parliament) have once again thrown up a hung parliament. The BJP emerged as the single largest party, but, with its pre-poll partners, could not along muster a simple majority.
The traditional party of the Indian ruling classes, the Congress, was able to avert an ignominious performance with the entry of Rajiv Gandhi's widow, Sonia Gandhi, into its campaign. The Nehru-Gandhi legacy still enjoys mass appeal among a large section of the voters.
The United Front, a conglomeration of 13 different national and regional parties, got a massive drubbing, one of its main constituents, the Janata Dal, being almost decimated.
Also part of the UF was the Left Front, consisting of the four mainstream left parties, including the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)).
This election marked a gradual shrinkage in the electoral base for both CPI and CPI(M). The CPI(M) just managed to retain its seats in its stronghold of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, but drew a blank in all other states. Outside these three states, the CPI managed to rope in a few more seats but lost badly in north India, where it commanded considerable strength at one time.
For a revolutionary left party like the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (CPI(ML)), and one that does not enjoy the official recognition of a mainstream party, the elections proved a grim battle against the odds.
Criminalised politics
All the mainstream parties flout each and every rule they have set for the electoral game. In backward states like Bihar or Uttar Pradesh, rigging and large-scale bribing of the electorate are rampant. In other states, especially in the strongholds of the mainstream left, a more "scientific" form of booth capturing has been common.
Indian politics, in recent years, has also experienced a remarkable increase in criminalisation. The mainstream parties have fielded an increasing number of scam-tainted politicians and notorious criminals. Though the liberal establishment makes a lot of hue and cry over this, it rarely targets the ruling-class parties, instead shifting the onus to the people to electing cleaner candidates.
Despite waves of protests by the left and democratic forces demanding the debarring from parliament of Md. Shahbuddin, the notorious criminal and MP involved in the killing of CPI(ML) youth leader Chandrashekhar in March 1997, this epitome of the criminal face of Indian politics has yet again made it into parliament.
With these elections, the rules of the game were unevenly amended in favour of the ruling-class parties. The election rules have been reshaped to keep out younger and weaker parties that truly represent the socially and economically weaker sections of society.
Bihar
With 41 candidates from 11 states, CPI(ML) polled nearly a million votes. In Bihar, where we have the maximum strength, our total increased by about 100,000. While we couldn't win any seat in the state we polled third in six constituencies.
The elections revealed the true strength of the CPI and the CPI(M) in Bihar. For the past few elections, the two parties had won seats relying on the formidable strength of the ex-chief minister, Laloo Yadav, and his party. Left to their own this time, the two parties suffered a virtual rout.
A gradual distancing of their leadership from land struggles and other movement initiatives has also been reflected in their poor electoral performance. Agrarian labourers belonging predominantly to the socially oppressed sections form the core of our electoral mass base in Bihar. The contest is usually for the "middle forces", the poor and middle sections of the backward social groups.
In central Bihar, however, this time, with a sharp polarisation between the upper castes and the backward castes, almost the entire backward social section voted for the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).
In the face of a deep-rooted institutionalisation of caste in rural society and the appeal to strong caste affinities by ruling-class parties, effecting a favourable balance of class forces in the elections becomes quite a daunting task. However, we have stepped up our efforts to address the social base of the RJD.
The reactionary BJP managed to consolidate its position in the state and now, with a government at the centre, the Ranvir Sena, the private army of the upper caste landlords backed by the BJP, will step up its offensive against the CPI(ML) in central Bihar.
Gains for revolutionaries
After Bihar, our next best performance was in Assam. Comrade Jayanta Rongpi, a member of the CPI(ML) central committee, contesting under the banner of the party's front organisation, Autonomous State Demand Committee, won for the third time from the tribal-dominated constituency of Karbi Anglong.
His victory with an increased vote is significant for the fact that he is the only candidate from left or centrist parties to retain his seat in the face of a complete sweep by the Congress and the BJP.
The Asom Gan Parishad, which runs the state government in Assam, along with its allies, was wiped out in the state. In other seats in the state, the CPI(ML) and its allies polled nearly 200,000 votes.
In West Bengal, we put up an impressive performance and made significant gains in working-class areas. The state, which for the last 20 years had a strong voter polarisation between the Congress and the Left Front, showed some rapid changes with these elections.
The BJP, riding piggyback on its poll partner in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress, a breakaway section of the Congress, won a seat right in the centre of the working-class belt of the CPI(M). This fanatically anti-left alliance was successful in luring a section of the base of the CPI(M).
For our part, we are making efforts to attract all positive left forces within the CPI(M) without diluting our criticisms against the thoroughly discredited government of the CPI(M)-led Left Front in the state.
Like West Bengal, the BJP made inroads into states where it had a marginal presence solely on the strength of its strong regional partners. In the lone seat that we contested in Andhra Pradesh, we were able to increase our vote significantly in the face of an unexpected swing in favour of the BJP and veiled threats from the anarchist left group, the People's War Group. We also made our electoral debut in some seats and succeeded in making good beginnings.
Electoral gains haven't come for us without a price in blood. Comrade Anil Kumar Barua, a central committee member of the party and our candidate for the seat of Dibrugrah in Assam, was shot dead by gunmen belonging to ULFA, a reactionary and chauvinist extremist organisation of the upper castes, while addressing an election meeting.
ULFA had called for a poll boycott. The BJP, which has defended ULFA in the past, reaped the maximum benefit of the boycott.
This has been another facet of the BJP's desperate bid to come to power — striking unholy alliances with anti-social forces in many states.
The outcome of these elections has created favourable ground for a broad confederation of the left parties. In states where the CPI(M) and CPI have fared badly, e.g. states of the Hindibelt, Assam and Andhra Pradesh, and where their allies have moved rightward, possibilities have been opened for a confederation.
Establishment backs BJP
In these elections, the bourgeois establishment threw its weight behind the BJP. The big bourgeoisie stands solidly behind the BJP for its commitment to accelerate economic "reforms" once it assumes power.
Adopting flexible postures on its fascist and reactionary agendas so as to accommodate a pack of disparate allies, the BJP still remains committed to its core agendas — attacking the religious and ethnic minorities (building the Ram temple on the site where they brought down the Babri mosque in 1992), encouraging revivalism and obscurantism, whipping up anti-Pakistan war hysteria (going nuclear), enforcing its Hindutava code all over the country.
Given the delicate balance on which the present rightist government is hinged, it wouldn't be surprising if the country is faced with another election in the near future. But for now, we are gearing up to oppose tooth and nail all the designs that the present dispensation has up its sleeve.