Expose and Oppose the Ruling Class Parties and Their Policies

Coming elections to the state assemblies in five states (West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Pondichery) once again show utter bankruptcy of the ruling class politics. Not only they are oblivious of the deepening economic crisis in the country and increasing hardships of the people, they are forging unprincipled alliances to retain or gain power without any regard to the people’s interests.

Today the sufferings of the people have increased manifold owing to the disastrous new economic policies and implementation of the WTO dictated framework. Workers are losing jobs while large number of industries are facing closure. The problem of unemployment has taken gigantic proportions with ever rising number of unemployed. Rather than rejuvenating the industries, the Govt. is removing all restrictions on imports of goods from abroad plunging Indian industries and agriculture into deeper crisis. The whole agriculture is coming under domination of MNCs while the landlords’ domination in the villages continues unabated. What to talk of implementing the land reforms, the ruling class parties are trying to reverse them. The masses of Indian people living in villages are facing a crisis of existence and even the prospects of migrating to cities even for menial jobs are bleak owing to spreading closures there.  The tribals and oppressed sections are the worst sufferers as they either do not have land or their land and dwellings are being attacked by the govts. without providing them any  rehabilitation. This scenario has become quite widespread in the country.

The economic hardships of the people and their indebtedness have increased to the extent that they are forced to commit suicides. These suicides are in fact murders by the ruling classes. Peasants in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab and other provinces and weavers in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are forced to end their lives not finding any means to continue living.

While ruling class parties talk of mitigating the sufferings of the people, this is empty rhetoric as they all basically stand by the policies which have resulted in deterioration of the conditions of the basic masses.  None of them is talking of taking India out of WTO which shows that their opposition to the present policies is only formal and meant to hoodwink the masses. Since the advent of new economic policies in 1991, almost all ruling class parties including the ‘left’ parties like CPI, CPM have been in power and yet all these govts. have speeded up the implementation of the very same policies of subservience to WTO, WB and IMF at the dictates of the imperialist powers which have brought ruin and devastation for the people.

Pursuing the anti-national economic policies, they are forging unprincipled alliances in the states where the elections are being held with the sole aim of grabbing or retaining power. They are making fronts with the very parties they used to condemn till the other day and fighting against their erstwhile allies. The ruling National Democratic Alliance has begun unraveling after Tehelka expose. Mamta Banerjee has quit NDA and in Tamil Nadu, the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has already fallen apart. PMK, TMC and MDMK have all walked out of the NDA in the state. In Assam, BJP, which had ruled out any alliance with discredited AGP, is now in alliance with the same even at the cost of exodus from their party, thanks to Tehelka. In Kerala NDA or the BJP is not in the reckoning.  

It is with these dim prospects that the ruling BJP rushed to contradict assertion by Mr. Vajpayee, who, in the flow of his oratory, had claimed that coming elections would be a referendum on Tehelka. They obviously do not savour the prospects of losing power at the Centre even if the people throughout the country reject them. After all they have not been practising lathi-wielding for so long only to lose power so easily.

The utter disregard of principles can be seen in the forging of alliance by the Congress in Tamil Nadu with PMK. The same Congress had brought down Gujral Govt. on the demand for sacking DMK ministers after the release of the interim report of the Jain Commission probing circumstances of the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi charging DMK with sympathies with LTTE. And now they are in alliance with an openly pro-LTTE PMK in Tamil Nadu. One cannot fathom the depths to which these ruling class parties can sink in their quest for power. They would justify their action in the name of containing BJP. But where was this consideration when they had brought down UF Govt. paving the way for rise of BJP to power?

One is amazed at the ease with which the regional parties of ruling classes are moving in and out of the communal and secular formations of the ruling classes and the utter chicanery with which the self-proclaimed secularists of the ruling classes – likes of Surjeets and Bardhans – have been distributing the badges of secularism to what is obviously a power game of the ruling class parties. This has reduced their struggle against communalism to merely tokenism if not entirely a farce.

Take for example the case of Assam. There the ruling Assam Gana Parishad has been a valuable constituent of secular United Front. CPM, CPI have been part of their fronts, CPI being in the Ministry also. Now the same AGP has forged an alliance with BJP and has become part of the communal bandwagon. These parliamentary cretins who have since long reduced Marxism to a caricature, much to the delight and applause of their admirers among ruling classes, have simple recipe to fight communalism i.e. by forging advantageous election alliances. Now engaged in bitter struggle with Congress in their main bases of West Bengal and Kerala, they have again dusted off their Third Front in its new incarnation of People’s Front.

Not only these well known revisionists but even the new entrant to their fraternity, ex-revolutionaries of CPI(ML)-Liberation, have since long been aligning with the same AGP, having even supported their Govt. in Assam. And now allies of these ‘consistent’ anti-BJP forces have left them to sit in the lap of the same  BJP. It is not surprising for them as their former ally in Bihar, Samata Party of George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar, has been part of the ruling NDA. Obviously these minor irritants do not force any rethinking on them. They have not left the revolutionary camp for nothing. They hope to do better than their revisionist sisters, CPM and CPI, with the same worn out tools.

Mamta Banerjee quit NDA and joined hands with the same Congress in West Bengal whom she used to condemn as the ‘B’ team of CPM to fight the very same CPM. Both Trinamool and CPM in West Bengal are trying to woo industrialists with promises of attacking or containing the workers’ movement. While Trinamool is promising to limit protests only to holidays and to end strikes, CPM is promising them with further reducing militancy, ending legitimate TU actions like gherao and ushering in work culture. New CM Buddhadev Bhattacharya is endearing himself to the industrialists by his all out attack on the working class movement.

While disregarding issues of the people and forging unprincipled alliances, the ruling class parties are going through growing disruption inside their parties and alliances. It is part of the growing political crisis of the ruling classes. The way Karunakaran rebelled in Kerala and forced Sonia Gandhi to change the list of candidates is symptomatic of the times that the dream of single party rule must remain a nostalgia. The rebellion in Congress in Bengal and BJP in Assam is symptomatic of the malaise of the ruling class politics.

The coming elections will not solve any problem of the people nor ameliorate the deepening economic-political crisis of the ruling classes. Rather it is bound to further aggravate it. On the other hand people are moving into agitations against attacks on their livelihood and rights. These struggles hold the future for the vast masses. Without challenging the very parameters of ruling class policy framework and politics, it is not possible to serve the cause of the struggle of the people.

CPI(ML) is contesting these elections to propagate against the policies of the ruling class parties, against the dangers posed by communalism mainly majority communalism, and to mobilize the people in struggle against attacks on the workers, peasants and other sections of the people, for intensifying their struggle for land and better wages, and on other issues in the countryside.