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The Rediff Interview/ Harkishen Singh Surjeet

'Neither the BJP nor the Congress can ignore us'

Thirty six years after the Communist Party of India-Marxist drafted a socialist revolutionary programme to be implemented in India, the winds of change have started blowing through the country's largest Left party.

All these years the CPI-M resisted the allurement of power at the Centre. But the special conclave that concluded at Thiruvanathapuram early this week revised the CPI-M leadership's rigid rule that the party should not join coalitions at the Centre. Hereafter, whenever the numbers game begins to affect the fate of governments, the CPI-M will be there to participate in coalitions.

In 1996, the CPI-M was forced to reject a power-sharing pact between the then United Front partners. The party's octogenarian leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu was offered the prime minister's office, but the party refused to take it. Miffed, Basu later termed the party decision 'a historical blunder.'

Since then, the reformers in the party led by CPI-M General Secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet have advocated the need for the party's participation in secular and democratic governments at the Centre. The CPI-M party congress debated the issue in 1996, but hardliners rejected the proposal. Surjeet and the pro-change lobby did not succeed once again in 1998 during the Calcutta party congress.

But Surjeet won over the hardliners during the special conclave that amended the party constitution, adding a crucial clause that will enable the CPI-M to share power at the Centre. He reckons the revised party programme is significant as he expects a Third Front-led government emerging at the Centre early next year.

In an exclusive interview with rediff.com Senior Associate Editor George Iype, the veteran Marxist explains why the CPI-M has decided to move with the times.

Why did the CPI-M amend its party programme?

Our party programme was 36 years old. It was first adopted in 1964. For the Communist party, the party programme is not a mere, ordinary document. It sets the path for basic social transformation, the revolutionary path. It is not a statement of wishes and desires. It is a scientific study of the classes in Indian society, the nature of class and social exploitation, the character of the Indian State and how to forge a revolutionary alliance of the exploited classes. But the party programme, we found, was very old and needed to be amended to suit the new circumstances and situations that we found ourselves in.

What are the new circumstances and situations?

First, in 1964, it was the days of one party dominance. It was then the Congress monopoly of power. But the Congress days of power are over. The CPI-M has made a big contribution in the struggle to break the monopoly of power in the Congress party. But unfortunately, the vacuum has not been filled by democratic forces but by the dark forces of communalism. Such a situation demands an urgent strengthening of the Left and democratic forces.

This requires that the CPI-M should be further built up and strengthened. Thus, our new programme provides the guidance to work out necessary tactics to fight the more aggressive attacks of imperialism in the new world situation and the harmful domestic policies of the ruling classes who have not the will to stand up for self dignity and independence.

Don't you think party veterans led by you wanted to change the programme to ensure the CPI-M's participation in coalition governments at the Centre?

We have not changed the party programme to somehow join any government at the Centre. Yes, the party has now unanimously revised the programme to include a clause that permits the CPI-M to participate in a government at the Centre. The programme has empowered the party to join the government disregarding the fact whether the party had a decisive influence on the formulation or not.

I don't think you should read the amendment as the CPI-M's desire to play power politics at the Centre. You see, since 1996 when the United Front government came, whether we should participate in a coalition government or not has been an issue that we were debating. Now we are happy that a consensus has emerged.

Don't you think it is a historic amendment?

Yes, it is historic. But the point is that the revised programme does not just tell the party leadership to join any government at the Centre. We will decide about participation only after analysing the situations at the appropriate time.

So by deciding to join a government at the Centre, do you think the party has decided to set right the 1996 historical blunder?

Too much has been written and said about the historical blunder quotation. I would not want to enter into a debate on the issue. There is no need to discuss such a question at this point. If we have a decisive majority, then why should we think of not joining a government?

Now that you have changed your party programme, are you ready to join a coalition government with the Congress at the Centre?

This is a hypothetical question. How can I say how the political situation will emerge tomorrow? But the fact is that we consider the Congress more secular than the BJP. The Congress has lost its monopoly over power. I don't think the Congress can ever come to power on its own now.

Who is the enemy number one for the CPI-M? The Congress or the BJP?

It is not my job to interpret who the enemy number one is. But I would like to clarify that there is no difference between the Congress and the BJP as far as the class character is concerned. However, we view the Congress as a secular party though its policies encouraged communal forces in the past. The CPI-M is the third largest party in Parliament today. Neither the BJP nor the Congress can ignore us.

You have decided to participate in future coalitions at the Centre. Don't you think the CPI-M will now increasingly look like the BJP or Congress?

Never. Our party programme, our ideology, our pro-poor political movement and our economic policies do not allow any comparisons between the CPI-M and the Congress and the BJP. The record of the three Left-led governments of Bengal, Kerala and Tripura show that the alternative policies to the bourgeois-landlord policies are essential if the country is to go forward.

Land reforms, decentralisation of power to local bodies and panchayats, creating conditions for the exercise of democratic rights of the working class people, maintaining communal amity and defending secular values — all these are achievements of the Left governments. No other government can boast of these positive results.

Do you still believe that the alternative to imperialism and economic liberalisation is socialism?

As far as economic liberalisation is concerned, my argument is that the inflow of capital would be welcome as long as it helps improve science and technology and adds to productivity. Nothing more. In the last decade, the policies of liberalisation and privatisation, which have been imposed on the country under the dictates of the IMF and the World Bank, have undermined whatever possibility there is of any self-reliant development in India.

The public sector is systematically being dismantled. Available assets built up over four decades are now being handed over for paltry sums to Indian and foreign monopolists. The distorted form of growth advocated under liberalisation is shutting off employment opportunities and making the rural poor more poor.

Even though we have revised our party programme, the core of our ideology remains: We will continue to fight against the policies of liberalisation.

What will be the CPI-M's new agenda now?

Our old agenda continues. The fight against economic liberalisation. The relentless fight against the rising threat of communalism.

If you stick to your anti-liberalisation policies, how can you join a coalition government at the Centre?

We will not join any government at the Centre without certain assurances and pre-conditions.

Don't you think the CPI-M is plagued by infighting and dissidence in Bengal and Kerala?

Dissidence and infighting are there in every party. But they have never threatened our party. Dissidents who get out of the party with a hue and cry have always disappeared. It is our party policy that anyone who works against the party's basic rules is not entitled to remain in it. S/he is free to leave.

Our party has a certain ideology that makes the CPI-M a different entity in Indian politics. Those who find our ideology uninteresting should leave the party.

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