Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and the CPI (M) have much in common with Tony Blair and his New Labour. Yet, despite all efforts, it is doubtful that Bhattacharya will succeed in becoming a Blair.
The similarities between the two leaders are indeed astounding. Both started their political careers in the premier educational institutions of the country. Blair attended Oxford and Bhattacharya went toPresidency College, Kolkata (which incidentally used to be described as the ‘Oxford of the East’ in the days of yore). Both were seen as an antidote to the ideological stagnation of the grey-hairs within the left echelons. Both came to power astride massive electoral victories and promised an era of change. Memorably, Blair said in his accession speech:‘Just as power without principles is barren, principles without power is futile.’ Bhattacharya recited the IT mantra, snuggled up to industrialists and promised to re-awaken the almost forgotten work-culture in West Bengal.
Initially, all went well. Both leaders repeatedly stressed that socialist ideals had to be made more amenable to changed and globalised realities. One of Blair’s first moves as the leader of New Labour was to amend the Labour Party constitution to drop the final abolition of private property (Clause IV) as one of itsaims, while Bhattacharya said, ‘It’s a new situation. Old Ideas won’t do.’
Trade Unions, long seen as the bane of industry in West Bengal and the ultimate ideological white elephant for the Communists, were vigorouslyreined in. That the CPM’s trade union, CITU, was ultimately always controlled by the parent party had been proved episodically in the past as well. During the Kanoria Jute Mill agitation in 1993-94 or during the so-called Operation Sunshine to evict hawkers and street-peddlers on the streets of Kolkata in 1996, the CITU was only too willing to tow the official party-line to the detriment of its members. Some unions, though, left the party fold as a consequence and rebel outfits such as Sangrami SramikUnion—whose nucleus consisted of those who had forcibly occupied the locked-out Kanoria Jute Mill and tried to re-start production through a worker’sco-operative—have over the years increased their influence. The mine worker’s unions, which had formed the solid base of the Labour Party too had left Blairite New Labour in the mid 1990s under the leadership of Arthur Scargill to form the Socialist Labour Party.
In the British case, Margaret Thatcher, should get the credit for this change. It was in hertime that British citizens living on Social Benefit in government housing were given the option of buying their houses through government loans. By a single master-stroke thus, Thatcher had created a property-owning class from amongst Labour’s most strident supporters. The move had principally affected the south of England, which is traditionally more urbanised and its urban poor more radical in their politics, rather than the relatively more settled rural work force of the Scottish mines.
In the case of the CPM too, a similar shift in the economic conditions of its urban support base can be discerned. East Bengali refugees who had come to Calcutta in waves since 1947 and had settled forcibly on land to the south of the city, had formed a strong bulwark of support for theparty. As their right to these forcibly occupied lands were slowly legalised and their economic conditions improved, their politics lost much of the early radicalism.
Those who had left Labour with Scargill, now increasingly gravitated towards the Scottish Labour Party which apart from a radical left agenda also espoused a chauvinistic Scottish nationalism. Others followed George Galloway into Respect. Galloway was always a demagogue, but the Iraq war was his biggest opportunity. His street-fighting antics soon earned him the support of the coloured Britons, especially in the south, comprising the now significantly large Brown and Black British groups which had traditionally voted Labour. Some amongst these coloured Britons also found common cause with radical Islamic groups. As Dhiren Bhanot’s much publicised trial last year proved, Radical Islam was not only attracting Muslims, but was becoming a political alternative for coloured Britons who felt strongly against the racism of the British establishment.
In Bhattacharya’s opposition too, we see an increasing affiliation of religious movements with radical politics. In Nandigram, the peasants told TV crews recently that when thepolice attacked, they were performing Puja, not to mention the increasing communalisation of the main opposition party the Trinamool Congress and its association with the BJP. Amongst the Muslim peasantry, the sudden rise of Dr Siddiqulla Choudhury and the Jamait-i-Ulema-i-Hind proves the growing acceptability of religious politics as a vent for the radicalism of the marginalised.
Dr Projit B Mukharji is Wellcome Fellow, Department of History, University of Southampton,United Kingdom