Author: K.P. Joseph
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: October 24, 2001
The Marxists have a vested interest
in the poor who constitute their main vote bank. A decline in the number
of the poor will lead to a decline in their power and a diminution of their
vote bank. In other words, there is a reverse correlation between the Marxist
party and development. If the development process speeds up, the Marxist
party declines and if the development process slows down the Marxist party
grows.
An open opposition to development
will make them unpopular. So one should not be surprised if they pay lip
service to development while trying to sabotage it through political action.
The CPM in Kerala has been playing this game very well. If the Kerala model
of development - high literacy and quality of life built on low-income
base - stands discredited today for having failed to achieve economic growth,
the Marxists are to be blamed.
According to Karl Marx, economic
growth is the result of application of new technology to work i.e., modernisation
of production methods. But the Marxists have consistently opposed the modernisation
process in Kerala. They justified it in the name of conserving employment
opportunities for the poor. It never occurred to them that if they believed
in progress, they should have worked for social protection of labour rendered
jobless due to new technology rather than for retention of antiquated production
methods.
Realising that education provided
the basis for overall development of society the Marxists worked hard to
bring down educational standards. For this, they injected party politics
into schools and colleges, which brought down educational standards. This
went on from early sixties to 1997 when the Kerala High Court decreed a
ban on such politics on a writ filed by parents and concerned citizens.
The school standards have been going up since then but the Marxists have
gone to the Supreme Court against the decree.
In the guise of opposition to private
sector participation in education, they had been preventing growth of professional
higher education facilities in Kerala. They insisted that the government
alone should fund higher education. But while in power they had no funds
to do so. Today Kerala may be the most literate state but in higher education
it is a poor cousin to many Indian states thanks to the Marxists.
Kerala had stopped attracting investment
long ago mainly because they have been successful in creating and maintaining
a hostile climate for industry. Devious methods have been used by the CPM
to drive away industry from Kerala. The headload workers' movement, initially
promoted by them, had seen to it that new investors were given enough headaches
in the preliminary stage itself. Here, the trade union leaders have also
grabbed the right, from the employers, to appoint workers. Which investor
will come to a place where he has no freedom to appoint his workers?
It is true labour strikes have come
down in Kerala but this is because the local trade union leaders have learned
to have their way without resorting to strikes. No wonder that even Keralite
businessmen have made it a habit to invest outside rather than inside the
state.
The behavior of Marxists bring to
mind the theory of the German sociologist, Robert Michaels (1876-1936),
who said that when organisations grew old they would increasingly be controlled
by an oligarchy whose sole purpose would be to protect their interests
rather than pursue the goals of the organisation. Apply the principle to
the Marxist oligarchy in Kerala and see what happens.
In 1957 the Marxists were voted
to power in Kerala, probably the first instance of Marxists seizing power
through the ballot box in the world. But having seized and tasted power
in a parliamentary democracy the oligarchy realised that it had stumbled
into the best of all the worlds they could hope for in Indian polity. Whether
they are in power or in opposition they realised that they could enjoy
the fruits of office and positions of power without the fear of a Big Brother
as in proletarian dictatorships.
Sustained economic growth has wiped
out communist parties in Western Europe. (According to Marxist theory,
they should have grown in strength due to intensification of exploitation
of the proletarian mass. Instead, the workers' living standards went up
and the Marxist influence declined.) No wonder that the Marxists are asking
themselves what would happen to them if the society in Kerala also were
to move up to levels of Western development?
The writer is a former consultant
of Food and Agricultural Organisation.
