Indian Express - Dec 28, 2015
CPI-M plenum: Checking communal forces top agenda
Faced with a continuous decay in relevance, many in the party aren't opposed to the possibility of an alliance with the Congress
Written by Aniruddha Ghosal
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Aniruddha Ghosal is a principal correspondent with the Indian Express. He writes on politics, enviro
CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury at a press conference during the party’s ongoing ‘Kolkata Plenum’, in Kolkata on Monday. (PTI Photo)
The last Plenum that the CPI-M held was in December 1978 in Salkia from December 27-31, where the party had underscored the need to expand their political base. History repeated itself, as the party finds itself once again facing the same challenge, in another plenum at Kolkata on the same days.
While the party maintains that the dates being the same is “merely coincidence”, they can’t deny that the special instructions issued in 1978 for expanding the party outside Tripura, Kerala and West Bengal were largely ignored. So on Monday, when Sitaram Yechury introduced the ‘Draft Resolution on Organisation’, it once again stressed on the need to “strengthen and streamline the Party’s organisational capacities to meet the current challenges” through people’s struggles that would allow the parallel development of “independent strength of the party”.
The party plenum – an assembly of members of the party – will discuss what the draft review report on the ‘Political-Tactical line’ – the electoral strategy of the party adopted by the CPI-M in the 21st Congress held in April 2015 – refers to as “flexible tactics” to combat “swift changes in the political situation”.
Such talk of flexibility has remained incongruous with the party’s political operations for decades. But now, faced with a continuous decay in relevance, many in the party aren’t opposed to the possibility of an alliance with the Congress – the same Congress that the 1978 plenum had denounced as a “semi fascist”, “bourgeois” and “revisionist” political force.
Senior party leader Biman Bose, in the annual number of the CPI-M’s organ Ganashakti has urged party workers to change the party into one of “active membership”. Bose has also noted that presently many members are functioning in a “semi active” or “inactive” manner and said, “If we are not able to change this…then a movement is not possible”.
Whether or not the CPI-M will be able to revitalize their political and organizational structure remains to be seen. But party general secretary Sitaram Yechury maintained that in the face of communal forces overpowering the country, it was imperative for the party to do so. “The agenda of the communal forces is to replace Indian history, it’s rich, syncretic history with Hindu mythology and Indian philosophy with Hindu theology…They are being able to do this because of state patronage,” he said.
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