The Pinarayi Govt doesn't look very left: Yogendra Yadav

Excerpts from the interview with Yogendra Yadav:

You wrote an interesting article in the Tribune four years ago titled 'Left is dead, long live the Left.' If you decide to revisit the article in the context of the ongoing CPM party congress in Kannur, what will be your take?

The fundamental argument doesn't change. The word left can be used for two things. The spirit of left (the ideology) and the political entity. The political entity is facing terminal decline. It has disappeared from Bengal. The fall of the left entity was not unexpected. It was built into its genetic code. The surprising element is that the left survived this long after the collapse of the German wall and the disintegration of Soviet Union.  In India it persisted till 2011. Now it is almost on its way to extinction.

But look at Kerala. The left govt has made a historic second term. Does the Kerala scenario present a new alternative in terms of the left ideology?

Not sure if it is an alternative. It is a clearly localised, contingent political success, partly because of the performance of the LDF Govt and partly because of a weakened UDF. This does not indicate a revival of the left ideology. My article focussed on the fall of the left as an ideology. Ironically the left has contributed in making Indian polity more democratic. It made ordinary people's voices count. They have made enormous contribution to the  intellectual, cultural life of the post- independent India. The left could keep in check the degeneration of the Congress party.

K Damodaran, one of the prominent communist leaders from Kerala, in an interview with Tariq Ali, recalls his meeting with Ho Chi Minh, where the Vietnamese leader told him that the Indian Communists couldn't lead a revolution in India because there was Gandhi in India while he could have the revolution in Vietnam because he was the Gandhi there. How do you look at this?

I have not read this interview. But I must say that Ho Chi Minh has put it really beautiful. It is indeed deep! It is not merely about the persona of Gandhi. When Ho Chi Minh says he is the Gandhi of Vietnam, he is not saying that he himself is a big leader like Gandhi. He points to the fact how Gandhi captured the mind and imagination of the people. It is about the way Gandhi connected himself with the Indian society. To an ordinary person Gandhi looked not like a politician, but like a religious saint. Yet Gandhi criticised the ills of the Hindu religion. Mao also comes into focus here. Mao refused to take dictates from the Comintern. MN Roy led this delegation. Mao said he knows how to conduct the revolution.

The Indian communists couldn't do this. They practised what my teacher Sudipta Kaviraj called 'Marxism in translation.' The left merely translated Marxist practice from Europe. There was no creativity involved in this. The inability to connect with Indian nationalism did them in. They failed to recognise the Indian reality. But  having said this, we shouldn't forget the sacrifices made by leaders like EMS, Sundaraiyah, Dasrath Deb and Pramod Das Gupta. It is a fact that they couldn't realise the worth of leaders like Gandhi and Ambedkar.

How do you see the Left's interaction with Ambedkar?

Today the left has recognised the significance of Ambedkar.

Hasn't it come too late?

In all fairness I must say that everyone was late in appreciating Ambedkar. The Socialists did not relate with Ambedkar even though Lohia started a debate with Ambedkar before his death. Everyone has been late. The inability of the communists to recognise the caste factor has been much deeper. Caste is the major source of inequality in Indian society. Vivekananda was quite sure of Socialism as a means to eradicate caste system. Straight jacketing of the Marxist ideology killed creative thinking. It put the lid on all imagination. If we want to learn we should avoid the official Marxist doctrine. Let us go back to the original Marx and the workers. I recall my meeting with Kanu Sanyal, the naxalite leader of Bengal. He reminded me of the Gandhians. His house looked like a  Gandhian Ashram except the fact that there was a photograph of Stalin. These leaders were Gandhian in their practice. The ordinary workers were agitated against inequality and injustice.

The Nandigram - Singur moment was a turning point in the history of CPM in Bengal. Now the Kerala govt has taken up a project called SilverLine, which brings back memories of Nandigram. Are you aware of this project?

You mean the SilverLine project? My friend Prashant Bhushan keeps me informed about this.

The criticism is that  CPM has not learnt any lessons from Bengal?

I don't know sufficiently about this project. But it looks odd that any govt will  invest so much money in such a project to create a parallel line. I believe it costs more than Rs 1.5 lakh crore. While it is odd that any govt should do this, it is even more odd that a left Govt should do this. I do not know how big the public mobilisation against this is and whether this will turn out to be the Nandigram moment for the left govt in Kerala. But in many ways the Pinarayi  govt doesn't look very  left.

The Kerala CM presented a new Kerala vision document in the CPM state conference held in Kochi. The thrust of the document was the need to invite private investment in the higher education sector in Kerala?

It doesn't surprise me. That is why I said that the victory of the Pinarayi Vijayan govt was the victory of a  political party not that of ideology. The  CPM govt doesn't look different from a Congress govt or a DMK govt. Many things in Pinarayi Govt doesn't look left. Their economic policies don't make them look like left. The news reports, which I am unable to verify, about the mix of politics with money, are alarming!

Let us come back to our original question. Do you think that the left, including CPM, won't survive in their present format?

I am not saying that the left won't survive. Nothing dies in this country. But the left as an organised ideological political force, the kind that we have seen, definitely faces a terminal decline. It must get more deeply involved in people's struggles. And here I must say that the left played a very crucial role in the farmers' struggles. It was absolutely outstanding. But given the overall projection of this movement in our country, I think after 1989, it was going to be very difficult to sustain.

We must ask what is the space for the left in India. I think if the political apparatus of the left, the CPM primarily, were truer to the spirit of the ideology, they will have a longer life. In other words, be true to the simple ideas that have motivated the left. The communist movement reflected the moral disgust against exploitation and injustice. The country is still unequal and there is lot of injustice here where the Ambanis and the Adanis have amassed wealth beyond 100 billion dollars. The left should focus on channelising this moral disgust.

I don't want the left to be irrelevant in India. The Republic of India demands the survival of the left. It will be a pity if the left becomes irrelevant at a time when the very idea of India is challenged and questioned.

So, will you have the same title if you decide to rewrite that article?

I think I would probably emphasise the second part. I would probably say long live the left!