NEW DELHI: The dialectical politics of at once opposing “Narasimha Rao’s Govt and helping it survive crisis after crisis has landed the Marxist leadership in a situation far more piquant than when it propped up Indira Gandhi’s minority ministry shortly after the first split in the Congress Party. Whether and how Jong it should suffer this tortuous spell of double think is what its central committee is to decide at its next meeting. An agenda for discussion with emphasis on the emerging options before the party will be drawn up by the polit-bureau on Aug.17 and 18.

Much has happened alter the central committee’s last meeting on June 21 when it decided to lend its strength to keeping Narasimha Rao’s Govt alive on the ground that the country could ill afford another early election. That being its frame of mind it is understandable that the Marxist leadership has so far allowed no situation to arise when it has had to consider voting against the govt. But the central committee had scrupulously stated in its resolution of June 22 that all this would depend upon the policies of the Congress (I) govt.

The decision then was to review the situation from time to time and adopt necessary tactics. The time for the first such review and a crucial one at that has come and that is what the central committee will attempt later this month.

It has not taken much more than a month for the Marxist leadership to realise that the present Congress (I) Govt is assuming a political and economic character which makes it well-right impossible for the Left parties to look forward to an era of creative cooperation with it. CPI (M) leaders say that they have learnt in a few weeks of support to the Govt that it is patently naive to expect that the political destiny of the Left parties can be shaped in the coming years in association with the Congress (I). The kind of economics of the rightist variety pursued by the Govt no matter under what pretext cannot be endorsed by the Communist Parties without endangering their own identity.

The CPI (M) and other Left parties have gone ahead directing its members in the Lok Sabha to move cut motions on many aspects of the budget. As it happens this has been done in tandem with the constituents of the National Front. The position of the Bharatiya Janata Party is already well-known. There is so much of identity of views among all these parties on several budgetary issues that the Govt will be defeated the moment the Left parties fall in line with other opposition groups and decide to force a division in the Lok Sabha on any cut motion on the demands for grant of any ministry. Even if that does not happen for some esoteric reason there is the finance bill to be presented in the first week of September which the Left parties can decide to disapprove along with other opposition groups and that will be the end of the govt.

Though the Marxist leadership has directed its members to give notice of cut motions whether they should be pressed or whether its members should be present in the House when the cut motions of certain others are put to vote with a fair chance of being adopted or whether substantive amendments to the finance bill should be proposed and pressed are the momentous issues for the Marxist central committee to decide later this month. Given its strong reaction to a whole range of governmental moves in the economic sphere the Marxists should declare that it cannot prop up a Govt with which it has almost nothing in common but whether it is useful to take such a step is its dilemma.

Marxist leaders recall that there was some ideological rationale in propping up Indira Gandhi’s Govt in the late sixties by asking their members in the Lok Sabha to vanish the moment it appeared that there were more members on the opposition benches than on the treasury benches. Whatever they were worth Gandhi had provided some seemingly progressive measures to earn the approbation of the Left parties.

That their infatuation with her progressive face or mask did not last long is a different matter In the context of the Narasimha Rao Govt there is nothing that Left parties can cite as a progressive measure which should politically compel them to vote for it in times of distress.

CPI (M) sources say that the psychological trauma for partymen while backing a Govt with which they do seem to have differences so so severe that a decision to vote against the Govt and fell it would have been taken but for the fear of an early election. That fear is particularly acute because the Marxist assessment is that an early election may only help return the forces which it may now vote out.

In the post-election polarisation of forces CPI (M) sources assume the Left parties or the constituents of the National Front may not make any headway it cannot even be ruled out that the socio-political base of the National Front will be significantly annexed by the Congress (I) if for nothing else for the reason that the Bharatiya Janata Party has emerged as a big force.

The sections which would want to see the debacle of the BJP are more likely to go in large numbers to the aid of the Congress (I) than the National Front-Left Front combine.

The Marxist leadership is equally worried over the dissension in the Janata Dal and the National Front. It is pointed out that N.T.Rama Rao has taken a view that Narasimha Rao should be brought to the Lok Sabha from Andhra Pradesh unopposed. The logical extension of such a political line is what Marxist leaders ponder over now.

The principal constituent of the NF the Janata Dal remains so divided and disorganized that the Left parties cannot hope to gain any strength from it or give it any useful help. And then there is the impression that the people will be against another early election.

That explains the dilemma of the Marxist leader-ship. It is indeed willing to wound the Govt but it is afraid to strike. In all likelihood the task of the politbureau and later the central committee will much as they would want a Govt which is an anathema to the party to go be to present a semantic exercise explaining away the contradiction in keeping alive a political arrangement with which the Left parties are in total disagreement economically.

They will indeed be thankful to Narasimha Rao if something is done tentatively which may mean a description as & progressive measure before the central committee weighed down by dilemma meets to explain why it has to do what it does now.

Article extracted from this publication >> August 9, 1991