Third term for the
Left Front in West
Bengal
The polarization of the votes has also been marked by electoral analysts. The spread tends to be a little more for assembly polls, because during parliamentary polls all-India issues are raised so sharply that third parties get elbowed out. But even in assembly elec. tions, the share of third-party votes has been steadily declining over the last two decades. Thus, in 1987, the challenge posed by former finance minister Pranab Mukherjee's Rashtriya Samajbadi Congress and the United Left Front - comprising dissident CPI(M)
IT IS RARE enough for a political combination including a
Communist party to win elections at almost any level in a bourgeois country. It is even rarer, perhaps unique, when the front is led by a Communist party, and has swept the polls for the third time running, with the Communist party alone securing a majority of the seats. Yet that is precisely what happened in the March 1987 West Bengal provincial
Legislative Assembly elections.
KUNAL CHATTOPADHYAY
HE LEFT Front (LF) is led by
T the Communist Party of India
(Marxist). It also includes the
Communist Party of India
(CPI), the Revolutionary Socialist Party of India (RSP), the All-India Forward
Bloc (FB) and smaller groups such as the Revolutionary Communist Party, the Marxist Forward Bloc, the West
Bengal Socialist Party, and the Democratic Socialist Party. It has increased on the right, as well as its critics on the left. However, this victory does not indicate any leftward swing in West Bengal politics or an intensification of the class struggle. Before going into such things, though, it is necessary to look at some election statistics. (See Tables 1 and 2.)
The pattern of voting shows the clear and dissident RSP forces — proved to be a total washout. Congress(l) wins majority of industrial seats
Two other sets of figures are, however, quite significant and need to be taken into account to understand the nature of the West Bengal poll results. One set relates to voting in the metropolis of Calcutta, while the cerned with the industrial seats. (See Tables 3 and 4.)
If the Janata, Congress(S) etc. votes are added, it will be seen that only in 1982 did the left, including non-LF left parties, have a majority of Calcutta votes.‹ Table 4 shows the number of assembly seats/segments won by the LF and Congress(I) between the 1977 assembly polls and the 1987 elections.
This shows that the Congress has had a much more stable base in Calcutta in
Table 2 its total number of seats compared to
Percentage of votes in Assembly and Parliamentary polls
2 the two previous terms of the West
Bengal Assembly.
In 1977, the Left Front had secured about 44% of the votes, which rose to
53% in 1982 and, after a sharp fall in
2
1984, rose again to 51% in 1987. This continuing electoral support for the LF has upset the calculations of its foes
International Viewpoint • July 13, 1987
1977 (A)
1980 (P)
LF
44 (approx)
54.39
Congress
36.5
Others
9.11
1982 (A)
1984 (P)
1987 (A)
53.05
48.83
51.06
36.67
48.16
41.41
*11.28
3.01
7.53
Table 3
Votes polled by the LF and C(I) in Calcutta recent years, and a slight swing is enough for it to trounce the Front in all the seats, as indeed it did in 1984 by huge margins. In fact, the distribution of Congress support is such that even when it polled less votes than the LF, it won an equal number of seats
1977
1980
LF
440,574
536,668
40.86%
43.13%
256,189
C(1)
524,229
INDIA
1982
1984
1987
688,882
571,938
741,454
49.64%
37.04%
46.06%
628,359
920,141
813,494
(1980 and 1982).
Finally, we can take a look at those seats where the working class is either Tablo 4 in a majority or is in the deciding sec- Assembly seats/Assembly share of parliamentary seats in tion of the voting population. There
Calcutta are 39 such seats. Of these, 3 are in Calcutta, 5 in the Howrah district across the Ganges from Calcutta, 20 more are in the urban agglomeration stretching away from Calcutta, and the rest in other parts of the province.
The LF polled 1,881,475 (50.76%) against the Congress(l)'s 1,704,755 votes (45.99%). The LF won 2 out of the 3 Calcutta seats, 1 out of the 5 Howrah seats, 16 of the 29 other Greater Calcutta or CMD seats and 6 other seats. Of the 14 seats won by the Congress(I), the majority were more clearly industrial seats than many of those won by the LF.
A new generation of voters
LF leaders have put forward the explanation that the Congress(I) won the votes of non-Bengali workers along linguistic lines. Even if this were the whole truth, it shows that after a decade of LF rule, class consciousness is overshadowed by "national," linguistic and caste identities.
As for the Front's weakness in Calcutta, that is due only partly to urban middle class hostility to the Front on a class basis. More important are factors such as rising unemployment (4.3 mil lion for the entire province, as against the 35.4 million who figure in the voters' list), the coming of a new generation of voters who have not seen the Congress(I) in power at the provincial level, and the strong-arm tactics of the CPI(M) in its efforts to capture all institutions of civil society, particularly its action in crippling the functioning of Calcutta University ever since it failed to get its nominee elected to the post of vice-chancellor.
Having looked at the election statistics, it is necessary to turn to the background of the rise of the LF. That in turn will make it easier to understand the functioning of the Left Front govemment.
Bengal in pre-independence India, and West Bengal in independent India, had a long tradition of leftist politics. Sometimes this leftism was quite illdefined, as with Subhas Chandra Bose and his Forward Bloc. But there was also an early development of the Communist movement.
23.76% 42.13% 1977 1980
LF 17 11
C(I) 11
Others 0
On the eve of independence, the CPI had led a major peasants' movement; and the CPI, and to a lesser extent the RSP, had formed significant components of the leadership of the post-war urban upsurge. Since independence, the left has led a number of major movements — one against the proposed merger of West Bengal with Bihar during the 1950s, two rounds of food movements, major popular movements protesting against US interventions in Korea, Vietnam and the imperialist conspiracy against Lumumba's government. By the 1960s, the CPI had emerged as the dominant left party. After the split in the CPI, the "left" faction, which took the name CPI(M), became the biggest left party.
In the 1967 elections, two popular fronts were formed, one led by the CPI(M) and the other by the CPI and a breakaway Congress faction calling itself the Bangla Congress. Despite their internal conflicts, they defeated the Congress. A short-lived United Front ministry was toppled by defectors. But in 1969 the UF swept back to power with a bigger majority.
The Bangla Congress pulled out of the UF, leading to its collapse. After some time, this unsettled period was brought to an end by the Congress, which rigged the 1972 elections. The trial run of the Emergency of 1975-77 [during which Indira Gandhi suspended parliamentary rule] was made in West
By 1974, the CPI(M)-led Left Front was able to launch some movements. But the Emergency stopped those, at least partly because the CPI(M) adopted an ostrich-like policy of waiting till the storm blew over. However, even its passive opposition to the Emergency was enough for it to gain even more popular support than in the past. In 1977, the elections witnessed a mass upsurge, and the Congress was driven out of power.
Thus, when the LF came to power in 1977, it had almost unlimited credit from the masses. However, between 1976 and 1977, the CPI(M) had
45.27% 59.6% 50.54%
1982 1984 1987 11 9 11 22 13 changed greatly. Most of its revolutionary cadres had been Maoists who were purged or had left on their own after the peasants' movement in Naxalbari (North Bengal) was hailed as the beginning of the Indian revolution, and after the same movement had been attacked by the state government.
In spite of that, in 1967 the CPI(M) had at least tried to play some kind of a militant role. But the fall of both UF governments had taught it a lesson. If it wanted to form a stable government, it could not permit the unhampered development of mass movements. Ever since 1977, it has proved time and again to the bourgeoisie that even if it carries out certain reformist measures, it will not rock the boat. Limited reforms for the rural and urban poor
Thus, the LF's strategy since 1977 has had certain constant elements. Within bourgeois limits, it has carried out certain secondary reforms. These serve a dual purpose, as a study of the reforms shows. On the one hand, they have meant a real, if limited, benefit for sizeable sections of the rural poor, the urban middle classes, slum-dwellers, and so on. Among the measures taken was "Operation Barga" — the registration of sharecroppers - which has given them a better share of the produce and relative security from evic-
About 800,000 acres of surplus land distribution is supposed to have benefitted 1.64 million recipients. According to the National Sample Survey, the percentage of people below the poverty
1. In 1977, a large part of the traditional Congress vote 2
went to the Janata Party. In the same year, the CPI was not a partner in the Left Front. Other left parties who won seats included: In 1977, SUCI (Socialist Unity Centre of India — a centrist group) 4 seats; a CPI(MIL) faction 1 seat. In 1982, SUCI 2 seats. In 1987, SUCI 2 seats. 2. Congress(S) was a small split from the Congress(I), named after its leader, Sharad Pawar, who has now rejoined the Congress (1). July 13, 1987 • International Viewpoint
INDIA gone down from 59% in 1977 in 1983-84. Other rural reforms include a significant extension of irrigation.
The number of shallow tube-wells has risen from 78,000 in 1977 to a little less than a quarter of a million present. Deep tube-wells are up from 174 to 454. Nearly 138,000 hectares of additional land is being brought under irrigation through a Rs156 crore (over $110 million) World Bank-aided plan. Already, these have enabled a doubling of the third paddy crop production. Minor irrigation as a whole has gone up by over a half a million hectares in the decade of LF rule, which is a little more than the area covered in the three previous decades together.
Another important step was the holding of the panchayat (rural government bodies) elections. That has meant the election of peasants, some cases poor peasants and agricultural labourers, to positions of authority. The panchayats play a not unimportant role in rural life, including such things as the generation of ployment for the rural poor, the maintenance of schools and so on.
The other side of all these has been the growing institutionalization of bourgeois political ideology. The LF has very clearly abjured the path of struggles, to which their government is supposed to be committed, both according to Marxist theory and their own previous political stance. The slogan "The Left Front Government is a Weapon of Struggle", has really meant that people should above and should not launch any moveunless the government Left Front has shifted to the
Militant forms of movement are particularly frowned upon. As the chief minister, Jyoti Basu, has put it several times, strikes are the ultimate weapons of the working class, and hence should be used sparingly. Other forms movements once made popular by these very left parties, such as gheraos (forcing the management to stay inside factory for prolonged periods) or road-blockades, have been denounced as unacceptable forms of agitation.
After one decade of rule, the Left Front has become a clearly electoral
2 combine, which has dropped almost all
pretences to social transformation, and which has shifted to the right - not only compared to 1967 but even to
The ideology of the Front, and especially of its major partner, the CPI(M), has become regionalist (or subInternational Viewpoint • July 13, 1987 nationalist), militant. To understand its precise nature, we have to understand the nature
Bengal's ecoEconomically, entered a period of decline a long while ago. Ever since the British occupation, city of Calcutta has sucked the province dry. With the transfer of the capital to Delhi in 1911, the advantages that had previously come to Calcutta began to disappear. To this has been added the fact that some of the major older industries are stagnating due to the owners' policies (for example, the jute mills have not been modernized for many decades, and their profits are taken away into other sectors and other
This prolonged crisis enabled the left to mobilize workers quickly. But they did so by putting forward catchy populist slogans. As a result, once in power, they found that they had no workable strategy, and certainly none that would fulfill the workers' aspirations.
The ideological response to this problem was fashioned above all by Dr. Ashoke Mitra, a former World Bank economist turned CPI(M) member, who served a stint as the LF's finance minister. In order to stave off criticisms of its failure to deliver the goods, the Front had talked a lot about the deprivations of West Bengal. Mitra gave it a precise content, and chalked out a campaign for the restructuring of the centre-state relations. Shorn of the verbiage, the basic position was that the state government could do little, because the constitution and the economic laws gave it too little political and economic power. So, what was needed was a more federal type of constitution. Till then, the centre was to bail out the provincial government.
The curb on strikes and so on, mentioned earlier, was linked to this theory. Since the state government had so little power, agitations should not be directed against it, but only against the
Reformist measures aimed at getting votes
Another element of the regime's ideological position was born out of the heritage of the anti-Bengal/Bihar merger agitation. Bengali sub-nationalism and the left were identified. By the early 1980s, the CPI(M) was identified more or less with the Bengali people all over eastern India. During the Assam movement, the CPI(M) took its stance not from any class consideration, but through its identification with the Bengali people.
In Tripura, its stance lost it a major part of its tribal base. Finally, in West Bengal itself, its hostility to the tribals' demand for a Jharkhand state including a part of West Bengal, and more recently its chauvinist campaign against the demand for a separate province for the Gorkhas, were based on Bengali sentiments.
Some of the arguments and the data put forward in the course of this campaign about the deprivation of Bengal are quite correct. But the LF made no attempt to explain such things in class
The economic policy of the regime was in practice all too often a copy of the policies pursued by Congress gov-
The reformist measures in the countryside were aimed at securing electoral support, not as the beginnings of vast rural struggles, which alone can fundamentally alter the class relations. The industrial policy consisted of advocating orderly settlement of disputes, central aid to calling for nationalizations as a curepreventing the growth of any workers' struggles outside the Front's control - by any means, including the deployment of para-military and police
In a decade, West Bengal has become one of the provinces having the least "labour troubles", with far more workdays being lost due to lock-outs or other actions taken by the employers than due to working-class struggles. This in turn has enabled the Front to convince the big monopoly houses and multinational corporations that West Bengal is a good place for their investments.
While the deals they strike - such as the Rs850 crore ($607 million) Haldia petrochemical project with R. P. Goen-
ka — may generate some additional employment, and have some effect on the economy of the province as a whole, they will also, and inevitably, mean a more right-wing ideology of capital accumulation, one that tends to converge with the central government's strategy. Industrial workers and the unorganized workers in
"informal sector"
Naturally, the LF has due to such policies. such attacks. The only to make real gains at the expense of the unions allied to the LF has been the Congressled INTUC. The dissithe far left have small pockets of influence. anywhere near the ability to pose as an alternative across the prov-
One of the factors behind the success of the LF has been its policy of systematic selective violence. The LF rode to power on a programme that promised to restore democratic rights. But the LF began foot dragging as soon as it came to power. Political prisoners, particularly those with definite Maoist connections, were released only gradually, and that after a prolonged prisoners' release campaign. At the same time, a policy of intimidation was adopted
As early as 1977, workers in the Calcutta dock areas were shot at and killed by the police. The policy of terror had two main targets — the far left groups and the SUCI (a centrist formation) on the one hand, and working-class militants (including some who were initially supporters of the LF) on the other. The scope of the terror increased from 1982, when, taking advantage of the activities of a Maoist group calling itself the Second Central Committee of the CPI(ML), which believed in a policy of individual liquidation, the government decided to terrorize the Bengal
Police camps were set up all over the province, particularly in Nadia district and in parts of north Bengal. Between 1982 and 1987, the powers of the police have increased further. A notorious creation of the early 1970s, the "AntiNaxalite Cell" of the Special Branch (the political police) has been revived, and the police offers who are responsi ble for torturing and killing many Maoists have been restored to that
The CPI(M)'s youth and student wings, the Democratic Youth Federation of India and the Students Federation of India, have been pressed into service, particularly to tackle urban popular movements such as those protesting repeated hikes in public transport fares (three times in the last seven
So the third term for the CPI(M)-led Left Front has been accompanied by a steady rightward swing in its orientation. During the elections, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's bluster about overthrowing the "red bastion", reaction among the people, political parties and commentators tend to agree that this consolidated the LF's position. But it would be wrong to find any left upsurge from that.
Indeed, the bourgeoisie, or large sections of it, would prefer to see the Front in power at present. The West Bengal Congress(I) presents a dismal, faction- and caucus-ridden corrupt picture. On the other hand, in the case of the Front, despite its decade in power, the number of ministers or party leaders who can be accused of such corrup-
Another reason why the people voted LF was that to a majority, the hoodlum years of 1972-77 and the Congress are still identified together. The CPI(M)'s effective propaganda about centre-state relations, and the projection of Jyoti Basu as the one leader who can stand up to the center, cater to Bengali sentiments. But above all, the fact is that electorally there is no alternative. to the LF. The CPI(M)'s party machine is a powerful one, with units in every town and a majority of villages, either directly as party units, or through front
The party has numerous front organizations, including the CITU (private
INDIA sector workers' union), the Coordination Committee of the State Government Employees' Associations, the Krishakh Sabha (peasants), the DYFI, the SFI, the Ganatantrik Mahila Samity (women), several cultural organizations, bank employees' associations, etc. Through the panchayats, the party also controls a wider rural base. As long as the electoral options are this well structured, Left Front and the Congress(I), the victory of the LF is virtually asleft and the centrists is due to their inability to parliamentary alternatives. The reasons for this are complex. SUCI has been able to defend its base in South Bengal through all these years, but it has failed to significant progress elsewhere. far left (mainly Maoists) has also clung to its bases, but without making much of a gain. the inability of these groups to put forward a revolutionary
Since they, like the CPI(M), call for a "people's democratic revolution," they fail to challenge certain important class collaborationist principles of the CPI(M). As a result, a number of these organizations appear more as left pressure groups than revolutionary forces with an alternative
Another factor operating against them is the senseless splits that they undergo. The majority of the Maoists have basically similar positions, but they are still split up into nearly 20 organizations in West Bengal. certainly does not inspire confidence in their abilities to lead political move-
Given these failures, electoral participation for the Maoists often becomes divorced from general political pracand leads them to the same "parliamentary cretinism" that they accuse the CPI(M) of falling prey to. Thus, one Maoist group contested the recent West Bengal polls in alliance with a Muslim minority communalist party, the IUML, which is in alliance with the Congress(I) in Kerala. Others fought with the slogan "Defeat the 2 Congress(I)." Since they contested only a few seats, in effect this meant a
3. For a discussion of the LF's attitude to democratic 5
rights, see Nilanjan Dutta, Violation of democratic rights in West Bengal since independence, C.G. Shah Memorial Trust Publications, Bombay 1985. July 13, 1987 • International Viewpoint
Left victory in
INDIA call to vote the LF elsewhere. The problem that this slogan created for them was that they characterize the CPI(M) as a pro-bourgeois, or even "pro-social imperialist" party.
Excluding the CPI(ML) (For a New Democracy) faction, which contested the polls in alliance with the Muslim League, the far left put up 27 candi-
THE VICTORY of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the dates, polling 78,079 votes out of a total of 25,570,190 votes casts in
March legislative assembly elections in Kerala is regarded those districts.
Just as the failure of the far left re-
To some left journalists, it is a repetition of 1957, when for flects the fact that disappointment in the LF is not leading to any significant the first time in India a Communist Party (the CPI) came to radicalization, other indicators show power in a state and subsequently carried out major the direction of the people's consciousness. Two examples will show the reforms benefiting the low-caste Ezhava community. (It was trend. In 1967, when the first UF minithrown out of office by a decree of the central government in stry took the oath of office, the rallies in its support were genuine expressions of popular aspiration for social change.
However, a closer analysis reveals that this is an
In 1987, the victory rally of the LF exaggeration. The LDF's triumph was just another victory of was packed with youth who had not come walking with flags and so on, as the opportunist policies of the "left of the centre" parties.
in the past, but had been packed into
Moreover, in 1957, it was the undivided CP that came to trucks and vans, and with slogans and behaviour more often associated with the Congress youth organization.
The other instance is even more serious. Attendance in temples and mosques is steadily going up. To take only one example, the Temple of Tarakeswar has been getting more and more devotees throughout the past decade, with over two thirds of them falling in the under-30 age group. A feeling of hopelessness, lack of jobs or jobinsecurity, coupled with the absence of secular ideological thrust by a sharp the left, has contributed to this.
Communal organizations have grown
Communal organizations have grown steadily. The Viswa Hindu Parishad has increased its activities. In response,
Muslim communalism has also grown to the point where IUM could even make an electoral come-back in West
Bengal after nearly two decades, wresting one seat away from the LF. The LF is not a patron of communalism. In recent years, the CPI in the Punjab and the CPI(M) in Kerala have taken bold stances against communalism. But the
LF has also failed to make anticommunalism, especially anti-Hindu communalism, a permanent plank of its campaigns, because of its electoralist
Continued failure on this front may lead to the type of social tensions and
2 riots already common in many other provinces of India. That these have not developed so far in West Bengal is
6 more due to the residue of secular traditions among the people of West Bengal, and not to any achievement of the
Left Front. *
International Viewpoint @ July 13, 1987 as a historic event. 1959.) power on its own. VENUGOPAL
NTIL THE LATE 1960s and and Congress were the mair forces that could win elections on their own. Now this is no longer possible, as a substantial fragand communalization of Keral politics has taken place.
So two basic coalitions now contest each other: the United Front (UDF) and the LDF.! The smaller parties play an important role in the LDF, be they bourgeois "secular", like the Janata and the Congress(S), or "communal", such as the Muslim League, Kerala Congress [a Christian party] and BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu communalist party].2 Even the SRP — Socialist Republican Party, an Ezhava party - has to be wooed by the rival coalitions of LDF and UDF.
The present LDF coalition cannot be said to be a pure left alliance. Congress(S) and the Janata Party are partners in the alliance. The coalition also includes some non-party communalists, such as Mr. Lonappan Namabdan.
On the programmatic level, there was no difference between the LDF and the UDF. Except on the issues of law and order and police atrocities, the LDF did not manage to clearly differentiate itself from the policies of the UDF.
Despite all the drawbacks of the UDF, the rural poor were for them. To the rural poor, the danger of communalism, as projected by the LDF, had no meaning at all. Last year the CPI(M) officially renounced its political line of uniting against Congress at all costs, that is, aligning with explicitly communal parties to defeat Congress.
In Kerala, the explicitly communal parties are the Kerala Congress, which represents Christians and has two wings, led by Joseph and Mani; the Indian Union Muslim League; and the BJP, which is based on the Hindu cultural organization Rashtriya Sevak Sangh (RSS). Christians make up roughly 20 per cent of Kerala's 26 million people, and Muslims about 30 per cent.
Belated break with communalism
The official refusal to ally with "communal" parties broke with the line established since 1964, when the CPI(M) was first formed. This change also led to a small split in the CPI(M) in Kerala and the formation of the Communist Marxist Party (CMP) led by M. V. Raghavan, perhaps the most dy1. The UDF includes Congress(I), the Indian Union Muslim League, both wings of the Kerala Congress, one wing of the Socialist Republican Party (SP) and the National Democratic Party (the party of the uppercaste Nayars). The LDF includes the Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Janata Party (a right-wing party), Congress(S), and one wing of the SRP. (See following footnote.) 2. Congress(S) — a bourgeois split off from the Congress(I) whose most prominent leader was Sharad Pawar. He was the former chief minister of Maharashtra. In fact, Sharad Pawar of the Congress(S) in Maharashtra reintegrated himself into the Congress(I) some months ago. The Kerala unit of the Congress(S) refused to do so, remaining in opposition to the Congress(S) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) led by it.
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Kerala
The Barbari Masjid Affair
The Babari Masjid affair is an extremely sensitive issue that flared up in the state of Uttar
Pradesh. It refers to a mosque (masjid) that is said to be located in the birthplace of the mythological hero of the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, Lord Rama, There Is a shrine to
Rama there So, the Issue is known as the Barbari Masjid-Ram Janamabhoomi (Rama s namic youth leader in the Kerala CPI(M). In the Muslim Malabar region, where the CPI(M) traditionally had a strong presence, the CMP took away perhaps 15 per cent of the CPI(M) cadres. It is not strong elsewhere.
Even this belated break with commu-
INDIA
In view of the sensitivity of the lasue in the face of counter claims as to the rightful nalism had a catch that made it quite control of the place (the mosque and the Hindu shrine are next to each other), the place different than it seemed on the surface. had been sealed off for some time until a local judge took it upon himself to order it The CPI(M) leaders focused their their opened up for Hindu pilgrima last year. This led to a major communal riot between Mus "anti-communalism" almost entirely irs and Hindus. Hindu communalist groups In Uttar Pradesh had long been agitating for against the parties of the minorities that they considered communalist.
In the selection of candidates and in its propaganda activities, the LDF was keen to pamper communal interests. What they did was to select candidates belonging to the vote banks in each constituency. And they tried to buy the Hindu votes by saying that only they can oppose the danger of minority communalism. This paid them high dividends. As BJP had no chance of the elections, the desperate Hindu communalists voted for the LDF. Muslim candidates chosen in many constituencies
Its "anti communal" stand helped the CPI(M) in another way also - helping them to attract more Hindus. A recent feature of Kerala politics is that more and more young people are going away from CPI(M) to the RSS and the BJP. The new policy was intended to stop
After the date of the elections was announced, the communalism of the LDF became very clear. In the Malapurram district of Malabar (where the Muslim community is the dominant one), they chose Muslim candidates for many constituencies. Special mention should be made of Guruvayoor, where the Muslim League candidate (UDF) was opposed by a CPI(M)-supported independent candidate, who is notorious all over northern Kerala for his stance on the Barbari Masjid issue [see box].
Even arch communalists were afraid of this man's extreme position. In the Neyyattinkara Taluk [sub-district], in all the five constituencies, LDF candidates belonged to the same Christian sect. The LDF also started communal propaganda. In one constituency, the CPI candidate, in public, exhibited his birth certificate to prove that he belonged to the Ezhava community.3 This was to counter the UDF argument that he was not an Ezhava.
To woo the Ezhavas of the south, the LDF projected the name of an Ezhava politician as the next chief minister. This had an interesting epilogue. When the LDF won the elections, the CPI(M) decided on a non-Ezhava, E. K. Nayanar, as their leader. Now momentum is building up within the CPI(M) against this "betrayal". The oath-taking cereust such an opening of the gates. mony of the LDF ministers witnessed noisy scenes, and posters are coming "discrimination" of the leadership.
An analysis of the election results proves beyond doubt that the victory of the LDF was not a victory of the anti-communal, secular forces. Internal rivalries and groupism within the Congress(I) rebels and the many independent candidates in every constituency were some of the reasons for the LDF victory. The candidates of the LDF were young, sincere, smart and not corrupt when compared to the UDF candidates. This also helped the LDF, as the new voters chose to vote for the candidates who had a clean background.
The most striking feature of this election is the emergence of the BJP as a strong political force. In three constituencies — two of them in Malabar - they came in second, pushing the LDF into third position. CP|(M) losing its traditional
In the last elections, the BJP could not make a good showing even in a single constituency. But now, in 29 constituencies, the LDF won only because of the presence of BJP, which cut into votes that would otherwise have gone to the UDF. Wherever the BJP thought it would win and mustered all its votes, the LDF lost. From this it can be assumed that many BJP votes went in to the LDF.
election, one fact emerged disturb the leaders of the CPI(M) for a long time to come they are losing some of their traditionareas. In the 1987 electhe CPI(M) lost heavily Malabar. Many of the seats (which were previously
It was from Malabar that the CPI(M) had a strong base in the past. Malabar is the area that saw many peasants and proletarian struggles led by the Communists. In the northern district of Kasargode, they could win only one seat - that of E. K. Nayanar. The process of alienation from the masses in the early 1970s has spread all over the north. This is evidence for our view that the CPI(M) is increasingly becoming a petty-bourgeois organization. In another sense, it is also the result of the reformist path it has followed.
For the first time, the CPI(M) came to power due to the support of the people belonging to the southern districts. But this support cannot be taken for granted forever. In the past this area has never consistently backed any party or coalition. This time, they voted for the LDF only because of their opposition to a corrupt, inefficient and non-functioning government. This support may not last long. But at the same time, the victory of the UDF in the northern region is a gain for them in
Though the LDF would not be able to do much to defeat communalism, we think that this LDF victory can objectively stimulate the construction of a genuine Left Front in Kerala. Only such a genuine secular alliance of all the left forces can effectively fight the growing threat posed by majority and minority communalism in Kerala.
Particularly disturbing is the rise of various forms of Hindu communalism as reflected in the growth of the BJP, the RSS and such new cultural-political offshoots as the Hindu Munnani, OI Hindu Front, which ran for the first time in the March elections, winning over 300,000 votes. * 3. The Ezhavas are not Untouchables, but are among the lower castes, and are also the single biggest caste among the Hindus of Kerala. Traditionally, they worked as toddy tappers [those who tap the juice of coconut trees], agricultural labourers and poor farmers, loaders in transport and so on. Historically they constituted the most important support base for Kerala Communists, and it was their bloc support that brought the CPI to power in 1957. However, over the decades, the Ezhavas have experienced substantial economic differentiation, with many layers becoming more prosperous. This has meant that the CPI and CPI(M) have lost their unitary dominance among Ezhavas. Many of the caste continue to support the Communists, but others support the Congress, and they also have their own explicit Ezhava party, called the Socialist Republican Party (SRP), which is divided into two wings.
Although the Ezhavas are now economically stronger 2
and have considerable political clout, they are still socially backward. For example, they lag far behind other communities in education, and are thus demanding affirmative action, such as special quotas in government-controlled schools and colleges and for jobs in
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goverment concerns. This has been resented by others, such as Brahmins, who, while of socially high status and with educational advantages, have seen an erosion of their economic and political position. July 13, 1987 • International Viewpoint
WATCH OUT!
WATCH OUT!!
THE RUSSIANS!