Indian Politics and the Communist Party (Marxist) By Bhabani Sen Gupta n the new political conditions that have pre- lize" strategy in West Bengal that may hold impli- vailed in India since the electoral defeat of Prime cations for Indian politics generally. IMinister Indira Gandhi in March 1977, the Com- This article will look at the role of the CPI-M in munist Party of India (Marxist),orCPI-M, has moved India today. To place that role in context, it will into a position of some strategic importance, at both assess the CPI-M against the backdrop of recent the national and state levels. To be sure, the party political events in India and of the party's own still represents only one strand of Indian commu- history. nism. Its competitors include the pro-Soviet Com- munist Party of India, or CPI—from which the CPI- M split in 1964—and various Maoist groups that The Political Context emerged in the 1970's from the splintering of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), or On June 26, 1975, Prime Minister Gandhi de- CPI-ML—originally formed by dissidents from the clared an internal emergency; subsequently, with l CPI-M in 1969. Moreover, the CPI-M is, by its own the approval of a captive parliament, she installed 2 description, a "weak and scattered" party. Its in- an authoritarian regime. Her actions were not merely fluence is confined to certain regions (several states reactions to the populist movement mounted by in the east and the state of Kerala in the west), and right-wing opposition parties during 1974-75 under it draws much of its support from the rural and the leadership of the Gandhian leader, Jayaprakesh urban poor in these regions. Narayan. According to her perception, she was re- At the same time, the CPI-M is a cohesive party, sponding to a crisis of the Indian constitutional 3 with disciplined and dedicated cadres and a sup- system. Consequently, she imposed an iron order port base that has proved enduring over at least a on a seething and volatile republic by imprisoning decade. In addition, it has established a working thousands of political opponents and by suppress- relationship with the dominant Janata (People's) party on the national scene in defense of democracy, and it has embarked on a novel "govern and mobi- 1. For earlier discussion, see the author's "India's Rival Communist Models," Problems of Communism (Washington, DC), January-February 1973, pp. 1-15. 2. Communist Party of India (Marxist), Political Resolution, New Mr. Sen Gupta is Editor of Perspective (Calcutta). Delhi, 1978. This document stems from the party's 10th Congress, He has been Professor at the School of Interna- held in April 1978. 3. This is convincingly shown in David Selbourne, An Eye to tional Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (New India, London, Penguin, 1977. Another outstanding study of the latter Delhi), and Senior Fellow at the Research Institute part of Mrs. Gandhi's rule is Henry Hart, Ed., Indira Gandhi's India: on International Change, Columbia University A Political System Reappraised, Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 1976. Among Indian publications, see Kuldip Nayar, The Judgment, New (New York, NY). He has contributed frequently to Delhi, Vikas, 1977; and Prashant Bhushan, The Case That Shook scholarly journals and is the author of numerous India, New Delhi, Vikas, 1978. For further studies of Indian communism, monographs, the most recent of which is Soviet- see the present author's Communism in Indian Politics, New York, NY, Columbia University Press, 1972; Mohan Ram, Maoism in India, Asian Relations in the Seventies and Beyond: An New Delhi, Vikas, 1971; and SankarGhosh, The Naxalite Movement, Interperceptional Study, 1976. Calcutta, Firma K. L Mukhopadhaya, 1974. PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Indian Politics and the Communist Party (Marxist) PRESS INF0RMIT101BUKMI a^ten «tenr fldVaJM rfRrMig 3".a. «r.*to ^if®. Bttw __ m BIHAR UKm HP. 0R1SSA PUNJAB RUftSTHM T. NADU U.P. if JIWAl WBWJJMiW 147 117 200 234 425 294 30 » UN W 3S4 90 BS 147 115 199 B33 35B 154 30 SB BB «* 254 90 SB aisia (w iMfB *• flRM mi BBW *• WB& *• BBHWI (•JHWBBSHW - — — 87 as 41 283 S 22 2 52 li 3THHI 32! IBS 30 7S 68 S3 3)1 230 M7 110 flWSJ. 7S I? 14 88 47 25 20 12 35 t 214 94 «*q.Jir«*qJir> IS H 4 33 4 4 1 mum 3i s f 200 129 230 48 mWMENT STREET New Delhi citizens watch a tally board for the June 14, 1977, elections to a number of India's state legislative assemblies. Early reports show CPI-M success in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu (T. Nadu on the beard), and Punjab. — Pana- India/Keystone. ing the democratic freedoms and civil liberties of hold on the west coast) did it retain its majority. the Indian people. In all, the Congress party won just 151 of the 542 In January 1977, confident that voters would give seats in the Lok Sabha. The Janata party (with her regime their overwhelming approval, Mrs. its ally in Punjab, the Akali Dal), on the other hand, Gandhi called for elections to the Lok Sabha (par- won 305 seats.4 Thus, the Congress party, after liament). At the same time, she temporarily relaxed nearly 30 years of uninterrupted rule in India, lost the rigors of the Emergency. Released from prison, power. Mrs. Gandhi herself, defeated even in her leaders of four opposition parties hurriedly formed home district, surrendered the prime minister's of- an electoral coalition—the Janata party. Soon fice to Morarji R. Desai, head of the Janata party. thereafter, in February, Janata was joined by a fifth In subsequent elections to the legislatures of group, a breakaway Congress party faction led by India's 22 states, the Congress party suffered an Mrs. Gandhi's Minister of Defense, Jagjiwan Ram, even worse disaster. In June 1977 elections for all the most prominent leader of India's 100 million but five state legislatures, Janata dislodged the untouchables. Congress party in the north, and the Left Front, led The elections, which took place in March, dealt by the CPI-M, defeated it in West Bengal. A deep Mrs. Gandhi and the Congress party a crushing blow. The Congress party was defeated in all of northern India: it failed to get a single seat in the 4. The Congress party garnered 41 of 42 seats in Andhra Pradesh, 26 of 28 in Karnataka, 14 of 39 in Tamil Nadu, 11 of 20 in Kerala, states of Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Pun- and 20 of 48 in Maharashtra. Of the seats that neither the Congress jab, Uttar Pradesh, and the Union Territory of Delhi; or Janata and its Akali Dal ally captured, AIDMK, a caste-oriented and it was able to capture just one seat each in the local Tamil Nadu party, won 19, the CPI, 7; and other parties and states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Only in independents, 34. See S. L. Shakdher, Ed., The Sixth General Election to the Lok Sabha, New Delhi, Oxford and IBH Publishing Co., 1977, the south and in Maharashtra (its traditional strong- p. 19 and the tables. PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Problems of Communism Sept-Oct 1978 crisis overtook the Congress party, from which Mrs. party, there are some who take a more benign view Gandhi broke away with her majority faction on of the former prime minister than others do. January 1, 1978 (her new party was appropriately Second, India's bourgeois politics have at the called "Indira Congress," or "Congress-I"). In later same time shown a marked tendency toward frag- elections in the remaining five states, Mrs. Gandhi's mentation. As already noted, two factions have faction won in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka (both broken away from the official Congress party since 5 in the south), the CPI-M triumphed in Tripura, and the beginning of 1977—Ram's group before the no party captured a majority in Assam and Ma- parliamentary elections of March 1977 and the harashtra. In Assam, Janata formed a minority Indira Congress after the first round of state elec- government with the support of the CPI-M and some tions. The Janata party has likewise not been im- independent legislators. In Maharashtra, the two mune to internal unrest, even though the five con- feuding Congress party factions hurriedly joined stituent groups claimed, when forming the new together to install a shaky coalition government. central government, that they had abandoned their However, that coalition collapsed in July 1978, when individual identities and that Janata was now a a faction of the official Congress party broke away single, unified political party. So far, however, de- (together with some legislators belonging to Mrs. spite intracoalitional conflict in June-July 1978 and Gandhi's group) and joined hands with Janata, the the exit of two cabinet members,6 the Janata has CPI-M, and three small local factions to contrive a survived, although the stability of the government People's Progressive Front coalition government. and even that of the party itself have at times been This development created yet another crisis in the in serious doubt. official Congress party. Thus, in the course of three rounds of elections held from March 1977 to early 1978, profound The CPI-M in Recent Indian Politics changes were wrought in Indian politics. The old Congress government fell, giving way to Janata, a The ups and downs of the CPI-M's fortunes in newly formed coalition of right-wing parties.