New guard, old politics

Unanimity is not always a laudable goal to pursue; especially not when Stalinist parties aspire to it. On Sunday, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) announced its new General Secretary, Sitaram Yechury, following the withdrawal of S Ramachandran Pillai (his nearest contender for the post) based on “consensus” within the Party. Where a contest between the two contenders for the top job could have given the appearance of inner-party democracy that the CPI-M (like other parties) desperately needs, the signal from Sunday’s events is perhaps clear: such challenges to “consensus” reek of “anti-party” activity. It is worth noting that despite the CPI-M constitution mandating a secret ballot in case of voting, the party has never held an election for the post of general secretary. 

That the CPI-M was divided on electing a new General Secretary at its just concluded 21st party congress, was already well known. While Yechury was backed by West Bengal delegates, Pillai enjoyed the support of the Pinarayi Vijayan faction from Kerala. More in the Harkishen Singh Surjeet mould, Yechury at 62, is 15 years younger than Pillai. Besides being a well-known face in national politics and the party’s voice in the Rajya Sabha, Yechury’s supporters believe him to be potentially more effective in breaking the stagnation in the party’s expansion beyond the three states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. Pillai, on the other hand, is known as an organisation man with an ear to the ground, one who has worked closely with peasants as head of the party’s All India Kisan Sabha. Both contenders refused to rule themselves out openly till the very end of the party congress. 

By choosing to take the consensus line and avoid a contest between these two contenders, the CPI-M has drawn attention — even if indirectly — to important issues of dissidence and democracy within party organisational structure. Closely linked to these two principles is the question of party discipline and its converse, the right to disobey without being victimised by the bosses. There is little doubt that the CPI-M, despite its constant refrain of democratic centralism as one of its principal organisational tenets, has little patience to deal with inner-party dissent. For a broader understanding of the fractious relationship between democracy and disagreement or the place of dissent in Communist Parties, one has only to look at the histories of Soviet Union and China.

Inner-party contests for the top post of General Secretary could, therefore, be an important tool in evolving a healthy spirit of democracy within a party. Why should challenges within party structures de facto be projected as evil? Why should unanimity be evidence of successful collective functioning and party unity? In denying the existence of party factions, political parties try to pull the wool over our eyes. Recall in this context, the rivalries between Prakash Karat and his successor Sitaram Yechury, V S Achuthanandan and Pinarayi Vijayan, or even the Bengal vs Centre doctrine in the CPI-M. Denials in public, regardless of however vigorous they are, have never been convincing.

As the party congress proceedings have shown that the CPI-M is clearly not ready to deal with some fundamental organisational problems — among which lack of inner-party democracy is a primary one. Nor is the CPI-M the only party at fault here. This trait of clamping down on dissent within is visible in every major political party in the country.

However, the occasion does provide us with an opportunity to weigh in on a different party model, one presented by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), a novice among the veteran political parties. In many ways, the AAP model is quite the reverse of the Communist party model. Perhaps it is its organisational flexibility that has encouraged a full play of rebellious tendencies, both personal and ideological, so early in the day.

Many in the AAP battle have chosen to describe the party’s head and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal as a Stalinist. Be that as it may, the spate of events recently rocking the AAP — each one of them played out in full media glare — reveals a rather interesting organisational experiment that might contradict such a description. In the AAP, we can glean an organic tension between democracy and dictatorship. Unlike other political parties, including the tightly controlled Communist parties, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the AAP is not shying away from the problems and clashes that have been unfolding and is, in fact, allowing them full play, however messy and unpleasant they appear to be.

Just a couple of days before the CPI-M conclave, the AAP’s dissident faction led by Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra yadav, held their separate conclave right under the nose of the Delhi government headed by their one-time friend and now reviled comrade, Arvind Kejriwal. Interestingly, a different kind of political toss-up has thus far been visible in the tussle between the AAP’s two warring factions. A considerable part of the tension within the AAP, though couched in the language of ideology and principles, is aimed at wresting control of the party.

The dissidents’ 'Swaraj Samvad' convention, attended by thousands of AAP volunteers, went off peacefully with the four top dissident leaders delivering a battery of accusations against Kejriwal from the podium. It was rebellion out in the open and in full bloom. “We have started a campaign to take forward the ideals on which AAP was founded. However, while continuing to be a part of AAP, we will carry on our work under a different organisational structure,” Prashant Bhushan said at the meeting. “We may form a political party but for that we have to prove two things. Firstly, that this organisation is true to the principle of swaraj and, secondly, we should be able to grapple with issues pertinent to our times and have more people join our movement,” he added.

The interesting thing about this speech was the rebel leaders’ conviction that they would continue to exist within the formal AAP structure. True, a couple of days later the AAP’s disciplinary committee did show cause the leaders, seeking an explanation for the conclave. And it is well possible that the rebels now face expulsion from the party. But by the time that happens, the AAP would already have stretched the norms of inner-party democracy to a remarkable extent. This is not to say that Kejriwal and his advisors were totally democratic in their handling of the dissidence within the party. But the point is to understand the different character of the experiment that was (and is still being) allowed to run its course.

Born out of an energetic political movement, the factional strife in the AAP has followed an explosive trajectory. The controversial leaks of letters and unseemly sting operations have dragged the inner-party messiness out in the open. The result — though inadvertent — has been the lifting of the usual opacity which covers internal strife within parties. The default mode of transparency has been disturbing to some. Arguably, such transparent and chaotic defiance and counter-defiance is better in building organisations than driving frictions underground in the name of “consensus building.”

One wonders why the CPI-M congress, held at a juncture when the party’s future hangs by a thread did not witness a clash of ideas, perhaps even a clash between factions which debated party’s earlier and present tactics and strategies. Instead, Yechury’s speech at the end of the conclave was full of platitudes about ushering in ‘socialism’ and the ‘crisis in capitalism'. The head of the party may be new. But the politics has an old, familiar ring to it.

The author is Editor, dna of thought