The Radical Face of Democratic Liberalism- A Study of Communist Politics in West Bengal (1947-1977 An Old Book)

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The emergence of a leftist regime with a communist party at its head in June 1977 was perhaps the most significant event in the political history of West Bengal in the post-independence period. The Congress rule which except for two short intervals in 1967 and 1969 had an unbroken tenure of power in the state was terminated by the dramatic collapse in the popularity of the Congress Party following the tyrannical spell of the Emergency Rule under Indira Gandhi between 1975 and 1977. Yet, the victory of the communists in the Elections of 1977 was not merely an incident of a parliamentary opposition sailing into power through the electoral process. In the party system of Indian democracy the communists had a special position. Unlike the other political groups, they did not accept the existing political structure as sacrosanct. While bidding for power through elections, the communists also entertained a vision of demolishing the framework of parliamentary democracy. The edifice of political democracy in which they operated was also the main target of their ideological offensive. Their electoral practices were conditioned to fulfil the demands of their revolutionary ideology. Naturally the empowerment of a party professing the ideology of subverting the existing political order raises a number of questions: with what expectation did the people bring a revolutionary party to power in an electoral contest? what was the party's strategy in utilizing the electoral process to achieve its revolutionary objectives? to what extent in this power politics were the ideological purity and political praxis blended?

Approaching Indian Communism

The growth of communism as a popular force and the internal complexities of the Communist Party in the post-independence period are the two major features of the politics of West Bengal that had attracted a fair measure of scholarly attention. As regards the larger Indian context, Overstreet and Windmiller have summed up the history of the Communist Party of India as a series of alternatives between 'left' and 'right' policies arising from anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist strategies. The difference between these two strategies, according to them, lies in their attitudes towards bourgeois nationalism. The 'left' strategy which makes capitalism its main target regards bourgeois nationalism as an enemy. The 'right' strategy which aims against imperialism, feudalism and monopoly capitalism regards bourgeois nationalism as an ally. The Indian communist movement, as the authors have traced its evolution from the beginning up to the 1950s, made its choices shifting between the two strategies depending fundamentally upon the goal the party set for itself at a particular moment. When it aimed at merely freeing the country from British rule, it would work with the Congress. When it aimed at achieving power through a socialist revolution, it would work against the Congress. Certainly there was an element of pragmatism in party policies; yet, the 'goal' of the Indian Communist Party, as the authors suggest, has always been conditioned by the goals of the international movement.

On a slightly different note, Bhavani Sengupta in his two volumes on Indian communism has identified the main problem before the Indian communists as one of assimilation of the communist doctrine in the national milieu. This, however, according to him, was not unique to the Indian communists or the communists in Bengal but was relevant for any communist movement, when it attained a certain degree of maturity and was determined to make an effort to achieve power. The internal difference among the communists and the consequent division of the party into a number of splinter groups too, according to Sengupta, were the outcome of this quest for legitimacy within the Indian political process, while retaining its links with the international communist movement. Though the legitimacy was sought in different ways, the success came mainly through electoral mobilization. Here the CPI(M) which was formed by breaking away from the CPI in 1964 scored most in comparison with the other splinters that came out of the undivided party. This was largely due to its success in achieving a stronghold in rural West Bengal. But after it achieved legitimacy through the electoral process and became a formidable actor in the electoral game, the Communist Party, according to Sengupta, did not present itself much differently from the Congress Government.

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