left hand side notes

I will not be able to look through a lot of news for a few days but just to highlight an interesting signal: according to the statesman, CPIM state conference in Kolkata apparently “revived” the demand for “restructuring center-state relationship which had been a focal point for the marxists agitation in the early 80s”. It doesnt indicate whether this was a resolution or if it was just a point that was raised. This is interesting in light of the point I made on Jan 8, that Naidu is hoping to revive the 80s spirit of region against the center and my observation that the CPIM’s feet are in struggles for regional power vis a vis the center, and eyes on the national state.

This apparent return to a focus on restructuring center state relations has important implications for the future. First, I think it is pointless chiding the CPIM for not doing much in Gujarat. The only promise the CPIM can make is that by winning enough seats in the Lok Sabha i.e. in Bengal and Kerala, it will keep communalism at bay. If any one thinks that there is spade work to do on the ground in Gujarat, they are welcome to it.

But what is actually worrisome is that with further loosening of the center state relationships, the CPIM will simply not be able to monopolize power in Bengal. (It never did in Kerala) anyways. This is because there will be other legitimate contenders for some of the slogans that the CPIM can now claim as its own e.g. development, welfare of the poor and so on — afterall Modi won exactly on the same platform in Gujarat. What goes on behind that slogan is that particular winners and losers will get organized around sociopolitical identities rather than along class lines.

Under conditions of rapid restructuring leaders emerge and disappear pretty quickly as new coalitions keep emerging without any durable logic. This process is underway in Kerala too. The Pinarayi faction has been promising everyone that factionalism in the party will end with the state conference that is due shortly. But in preparation for the state conference, Vijayan faction has been systematically capturing all the district committees throwing out VS supporters. The promise of ending factionalism simply means, the current state of affairs where neither side is winning will be over when we win.

Once this win by BB-Pinarayi lineup is consolidated, the state-center contradiction will be revived. That is when things will hot up again and by the time that question is exhausted, we are going to be in a different world. I dont mean in an otherworldly sense. It will simply be a very different kind of India.

In my note on Jan 8th I suggested that the CPIM has basically put Naidu in quarrantine. At the national level, as Modi and Jayalalitha band together against the Congress and the CPIM, the CPIM will have a tough choice making up its mind whether to band with Naidu and Mulayam both of whom are anti Congress and played a critical role in the development of the demand for restructuring center state relations in the early 80s.

It can stick with the Congress and hope that the party will reform itself. But if it does then the same logic will also lead to a stronger Congress in Bengal. Already there are noises in the Congress that it should pay greater attention to developing stronger regional leadership — a process that the Congress studiously avoided all the way into the 90s when after Rajiv gandhi’s death, a dozen jacks in the box sprang up.

On the surface they settled for the old Brahmin PV but only as a stop gap arrangement. After his term was over — it was mayhem as the marathas, the rajputs the baniyas –all scrambled for power. With Rahul Gandhi getting ready to take the reigns of the party, and Sharad Pawar not being able to shake off his maratha politics which is both his strength and his weaknes — we are about to get on to an exciting decade 2010-2020.

PS 1. with many apologies for another mind reading TV poll pundit style post

PS 2. and no, the left hand side in the subject line is not a reference to the left front. It is a play on the left hand side of government files which is a kink in the Right to Information Act in India. When the act was passed somehow, nobody noticed that the act does not say anything about the file notings. This is surprising because many government officials involved in the drafting of the bill at different stages were actually quite apprehensive about having to reveal the left hand side notes and wanted a clause included in the bill to explicitly exclude them. the current situation is that in different places very different kinds of scenarios are emerging. Often, the  Commissioner of Information is at loggerheads with the actual deparments which refuse to reveal the notes. For quick updates on RTI go no further than this.