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Many political persons and commentators are bewildered by the political
approaches adopted by the BJP and the CPI-M in recent years. Both arouse
expectations of playing a positive role in national development and then belie
these expectations. What is not commonly realised is that the two cannot have a
healthy influence on Indian politics, constituted as they are ideologically at
present. And, of course 1 they cannot be sturdy pillars of any political alliance
which may be formed to rule India. The roots of this belying of the hopes of the
allies and supporters of the BJP and the CPI-M lie in the contemporary tendency to
ignore the role of ideology in politics. But we cannot understand the politics of
the two unless we realise that both are highly ideological parties - their
politics are driven by their distinct, single-track ideologies.
In independent India, despite wide political differences, basically two models of
politics have operated and contended with each other. One is the Nehruvian or
Social Democratic or Reformist Communist model. This model accepts the necessity
of national unity, nation-building and economic development here and now even when
differences exist on how to achieve their objectives. This model accepts that
national development and social change based on greater equity, equality and
social justice and a non-acquisitive society can, and have to, occur within the
framework of the existing socio-economic and political structure as established in
the Constitution, and the consensus built by the national movement. At the same
time, it accepts the necessity of reforming and even overhauling the existing
class structure. The votaries of this model would pursue the national objectives
and values bequeathed by the national movement even while working for social
change.
The second model is that followed by parties driven by a single ideological goal
which can be reached only by their capturing political power. All pragmatic and
policy considerations are to be subordinated to this single objective. Only after
coming to power can any other political agenda be taken up. The total commitment
to political power means that all other objectives are "tradable", they can be
drastically modified or even turned into their opposites, if the political needs
arise. The ideological driving force of the BJP-RSS is communalism or the
transformation of the Indian state and society into a Hindu communal state and
society - I put RSS and BJP together because the controlling force behind the BJP
is the RSS. To achieve its goal, it is necessary for the BJP-RSS to first capture
political power.
Given its basic communal goal, the RSS-BJP can adopt any social, economic or
political programme and policies. In the 1940s, the RSS ideologues branded
Gandhiji as an enemy of the Indian people; in the 1960s it portrayed itself as
Gandhian in part. Its economic policies have undergone a sea change in the last 45
years. Its foreign policy has shifted from a tilt towards the USA to strident
anti-Americanism. Its Social policy appealed in the past to upper castes and the
socially orthodox; it now champions the cause of lower castes. It supports
reservation of legislative seats for women today: earlier it frontally and loudly
opposed the Hindu Code Bills in Maharashtra, it has allied with those who were, a
few years earlier, unashamedly anti-South Indian. It opposes foreign capital and
liberalisation of the economy in India as a whole while its governments in
Maharashtra, Rajasthan and earlier in Gujarat supported it and extended
wholehearted welcome to the multinationals. The basic features of all the policy
changes by the RSS-BJP are the efforts to safeguard and develop its communal
constituency and the absence of any all-India developmental perspective.
Similarly, the single party goal of the CPI-M, based ideologically on what may be
described as Stalinism or the Stalinist distortion of Marxism, is the capture of
state power by the party on behalf of the proletariat whose sole political
representative it is. This is the goal, the single strategic aim, all else is
tactics. To achieve this goal, the CPI-M can also be fully flexible in its
policies, political stances and even its analytical categories. While its
programme brands the Indian state as being the state of the big bourgeoisie
increasingly collaborating with imperialism, it can be part of the United Front
which is running that state. The party can change from being a total critic of
Nehru as the chief representative of this collaborationist state to becoming a
defender of Nehru's policies; from treating public sector as state monopoly
capitalism and nationalisation as a clever manoeuvre of the big bourgeoisie and a
political ploy of Indira Gandhi to defending public sector and nearly all the
economic policies of Indira Gandhi.
The CPI-M does not criticise and condemn China's capitalist policies, its welcome
to massive import of foreign capital and virtual suspension of all rights and
welfare of labour in the foreign-owned enterprises because the Communists are in
power there. It welcomes Indian and foreign big capital in West Bengal because it
is in power there, but it continues opposition to big Indian and foreign capital
in the rest of the country. The CPI-M claims to be a staunch opponent of
communalism but has for years allied with the Muslim League in Kerala and Tamil
Nadu and the Akalis in Punjab. It did not hesitate to enter into an indirect,
though at one remove, electoral adjustment with the BJP in the 1989 elections
though unlike 1977 there was no emergency to remove. The only purpose was to
defeat the Congress.
Thus both the RSS-BJP and the CPI-M, though belonging to opposite poles of the
political spectrum, share the single point political agenda of capturing political
power. They do not, and perhaps cannot, have the perspective of contributing to
national development under the existing political structure. They cannot keep in
the forefront national and economic development when they are out of power.
Their total opposition to the Congress and their anti-Congressism does not spring
from policy differences otherwise the CPI-M would not ally with Mr V. P. Singh,
the liberalising Finance Minister of 1985-86, and the near. total free enterpriser
Mr P. Chidambaram. Nor would the RSS-BJP ally with the Communists and all
categories of Congressmen in 1967, 1977 and 1989-90. But both RSS-BJP and the
CPI-M see the Congress as the main stumbling block in their march towards power.
It has, therefore, to be destroyed, whatever the consequences for the Indian
polity, society and economy.
To bracket the CPI-M and RSS-BJP or the Indian communists and communalists is not
to ignore the basic differences between the two. There is, for one, one critical
difference between the two. The RSS-BJP cannot be reformed. If it gives up
communalism as an ideology, as many fondly hope, it would be left with nothing to
set it apart from others. Nor can communalism as an ideology be reformed. There is
no scope for its development or change except in a more extreme direction as was
the case with the Muslim League before 1947. Moreover given its social base and
ideological formation over the years, the social and economic agenda of the
RSS-BJP is basically conservative and reactionary behind all the gloss.
The CPI-M on the other hand, has distinct socio-economic objectives which are
historically progressive. No Marxist or socialist can give up these objectives,
but their political premises can undergo changes. Marxism as an ideology is not
rigid, it can be, and has been, developed in the fight of changing historical or
national circumstances. The basic change, especially in the last forty years, has
been the increasing recognition that socialists do not need monopoly of political
power to change society over time. In fact, India's is today the only Communist
movement in the world which has not changed its theoretical or political premises.
Though this is another subject, I may point out that this is because their
ideological formation has been that of Stalinism, which is not Marxism at all!
And of course, the big difference between the CPI-M and the RSS-BJP is that while
the former would at the most divide the forces of national development and
secularism, the latter would divide the nation itself. While the CPI-M tends to
be anti-development, the RSS-BJP can pose a threat to the unity of the nation.
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