archive: The Parallel Coup
The Parallel Coup
Swapan Das Gupta
India Today
May 10, 1999.
Title: The Parallel Coup
Author: Swapan Das Gupta
Publication: India Today
Date: May 10, 1999.
So the truth is finally out, courtesy Jyoti Basu and Somnath
Chatterjec. Far from being an upholder of Marxist fundamentalism, the
CPI)M) has evolved into a pragmatic and eminently flexible
organisation. So pragmatic that it is willing to digest dynastic
democracy when necessary and so flexible as to furtively steal a
government where possible.
The events of April are not only about a meticulously planned coup by
Sonia Gandhi to fell Atal Bihari Vajpayee and install herself in Race
Course Road. There was a sub-plot too. It centred on a parallel
operation to trip Sonia at the last hurdle and clear the way for
India's first communist prime minister. If conspiratorial whispers in
Lutyens' Delhi are to be believed, the sub-plot had the tacit approval
of a house on Raisina Hill.
Don't get it wrong. There is nothing politically and morally,
reprehensible about the CPI(M) turning its back on its 199 8 Calcutta
congress resolution and preferring the Popular Front approach rather
than the United Front approach. Communist orthodoxy-borrowed from
European and Chinese experiences of the 19 30s and'40s-has a place for
either approaches. There would have been nothing particularly
heretical about the CPI(M) participating in a government in which the
Left was not the dominant partner. True, it would have obliterated
the difference between the CPI and CPI(M), but that would have been of
academic interest to the dogmatists alone.
The point is that the CPI(M) didn't play with a straight bat. After
Vajpayee fell on April 17, H.S. Surjeet was among the first to offer
fulsome support to a Sonia-led Congress-only government. When initial
noises were made by the likes of Mulayam Singh Yadav about Basu
heading a Third Front government, it was Sonia who said that the West
Bengal chief minister "wasn't interested". Arjun Singh put his own
twist and dubbed the idea as ridiculous as making Ajit Jogi the prime
minister. The CPI(M) didn't get offended then. So why are Surjeet
and Basu now complaining about Sonia's consistency? Why is Basu
making inferences about "foreign powers" blocking his road to Delhi?
Unless this is his way of belatedly questioning Sonia's Indian
credentials. If so, it is strange it didn't occur to the avowedly
internationalist CPI(M) earlier.
Obviously something doesn't square up. It would seem that the gushing
support to Sonia by the CPI(M) was prefaced on the understanding that
the Congress would find itself short of the promised 272 MPs at the
last minute. This is precisely what happened with the Samajwadi
Party, Revolutionary Socialist Party and Forward Bloc developing cold
feet. Is it a mere coincidence that all these parties enjoy a special
relationship with the CPI(M)? Is it also a coincidence that
Chatterjee's leak to a Calcutta media group that the Politburo was
ready to allow Basu to head a Third Front government was timed to
match a sense of despondency in the Congress camp? Reconstructing the
events, the conclusion is inescapable that the CPI(M) wanted to
present Sonia with a fait accompli: either Basu or a restored
Vajpayee. Sonia didn't blink. Did she know that Vajpayee wouldn't be
given a second chance under any circumstances?
As India readies for the 13th Lok Sabha these are academic questions.
But one thing is clear: Basu and the CPI(M) were willing, always
willing. Their coyness was just a convenient facade. The communist
coup was premised on plain duplicity.
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