(From Liberation, August 1995 Excerpts]

Writing on Bihar elections after nearly three months may appear strange but the delayed review has the added advantage of scrutinising various arguments and conclusion advanced by other analysts. Then, the alternative positions from within the Party that capitalise on the confusions in the Party ranks have begun taking shape only recently. All this necessitates a fresh look about our election practice and election results.

Let us first see how some analysts have reviewed our position. Mr.Chaturanan Mishra, a CPI ideologue, writing in a Hindi daily commented that whereas a large share of votes of CPI and CPI(M) came through their alliance with JD, only a small share of CPI(ML) votes came from its alliance with Samata Party. He wondered that CPI(ML) mached the number of seats gained by CPI(M). Mr.AK Roy in his much-published article lamented on the increased dependence of the Left on JD. In the same breath he branded CPI(ML) as 'defiant for refusing to be the ally of JD and then accused is of entering into unprincipled alliances with Samara Party and JMM, unprincipled because, as he felt, it was motivated by just the lure of seats and power.

Mr.Tilak D Gupta, an ex-Naxalite belonging to Parry Unity stream and now a journalist, wrote in Economic and Political Weekly: “The CPI(ML) group has reason to be satisfied with its electoral show though its performance fell far below is somewhat exaggerated expectations. Among all parties, the CPI(ML) had to face the maximum hostility from an administration organically connected with the big landwners. Additionally it had to face a situation where a substantial section the toiling rural masses, who have been mobilised by the party in agrarian struggles, opted for the Janata Dal in election time. Further the CPI(ML) fought the elections solely on its own strength compared to CPI and CPI(M). Given these circumstances, it may be said that the Pany did fairly well in a rather difficult situation.”

After handing out these compliments, Mr. Gupta adds, "Having said this, it need to be pointed out that the unprincipled attempt to forge alliance with the patently right-wing formation, though with socialist pretensions articulating the aspirations of non-Yadav landed interests, smacks of a kind of political opportunism so commonly witnessed in the Indian communist movement in the past. Besides, in its anxiety to defame and dethrone the Janata Dal, the CPI(ML) group along with the other opposition parties became to a certain extent supporter of, if not a willing collaborator to, the arbitrary and biased acts of the Chief Election Commissioner in Bihar."

TWO ALLIANCES: TWO TACTICS

Now let us see what all these statements actually mean. Mr.Chaturanan Mishra's analysis seeks to put CPI-CPI(M)'s alliance with JD and CPI(ML)'s alliance with Samata Party at par with only a quantitative difference, i.e., the share of votes accruing to them out of their respective alliances. He glosses over the qualitative difference in the very nature of the alliances themselves. While the former was an alliance with the party in power, the latter was with a party in opposition. Moreover, whereas the former was in the nature of absolute dependence, the latter signified absolute independence. This is clearly borne out by the fact that a large share of votes of CPI and CPI(M) were due to JD's support in contrast to CPI(ML)'s victories solely on its own strength. The alliance with Samata Party having been reduced to a token gesture and barring two or three seats with Samata candidates opposing us everywhere else, it is ridiculous to speak of even a small share of our votes coming due to Samata Party's support. It is even more ridiculous because Samata itself proved a total flop. Then again, equating CPI(M) and CPI(ML) on the basis of equal number of seats gained is a mockery of ground realities. Despite CPI(M)'s large share of votes coming through JD's support it is still less than half of our votes.

Two alliances, two election campaigns and two categories of votes secured were of qualitatively different nature and unless this is understood every election analysis will be nothing but superficial, at best a clever subterfuge to cover up one's own opportunism.

While the running thread from the beginning to the end in the first alliance was dependence and nothing but dependence on its bourgeois ally, in the second it was absolute independence of the party of the proletariat vis-a-vis its bourgeois ally. Whoever confuses this, wittingly or unwittingly is guilty off obliterating the basic difference between the election tactics of Social-Democracy and revolutionary communists.

Mr.AK Roy, who admits that the Left's election tactics of aligning with JD has only led to an increasing dependence on JD, doesn's answer the question what else than the lure of seats and power motivated the Left in aligning with JD? The loss of identity or increasing dependence on JD was built in the very process of their relationship with JD for the last five years and it was not say sudden development. If CPI(ML) preferred us remain defiant in the entire period in the face of all adversities and refused to be lured by the lust of seats and power, wasn't the question of principle involved here? The stoical silence maintained by the self-proclaimed moralist on the unprincipled alliance of his own outfit Marxist Coordination Committee with JD is quite intriguing to say the least.

As for our alliance bid with JMM and Samata Party we had all along made it clear that we shall never be part of any Samata-JMM government, and at best, only offer conditional support. Had any such situation emerged – chances of which were very remote from the very beginning – it was obvious that our Party, ingrained as it is in the battle for radical transformation, would have soon resumed its role of revolutionary opposition. A Samata-JMM government would have hardly accepted and followed our conditions. The question of lusting for power was ruled out from the very beginning. Now, what are the facts of our relationship with JMM?

In the first place, our relations with JMM didn't come up all of a sudden just on the eve of elections and for an opportunist sharing of seats and power. It began when Laloo Yadav made a somersault and rejected the demand for a Jharkhand state. Amidst a new spurt in the Jharkhand movement we participated with JMM in a joint forum. Secondly, as JMM still remains the foremost representative of the Jharkhand movement in parctical politics it is virtually impossible to deny having any relations with it. We made the relationship, however, conditional by demanding separation from Congress in any joint move. And we did walk out of the joint body when the JMM began hobnobbing with the Congress. Thirdly, except for some political statements expressing the desire for alliance from both the sides, no formal talks on alliance or seat sharing ever took place. And eventually, owing to its hobnobbing again with the JD during the crucial election period we decided to reject even a symbolic alliance with JMM. Later on, when they again came back, it was Samara Party which forged an alliance with them and we were never a party to that.

Will Mr.AK Roy tell us where the principle is sacrificed here? On the contrary, Mr.Roy who had been a foremost votary of a separate Jharkhand state, who was the moving spirit behind the formation of JMM on the premise of upholding local people's interests vis-a-vis Bihari outsiders and who went to the extreme of describing Jharkhand as the ‘internal colony of Bihar’, remained clinging to Mr. Laloo Yadav even after the latter adopted the typical ‘Bihar colonialist’ stand in relation to Jharkhand. Aher throwing away his principles to the winds, if Mr.Roy laments at the loss of identity of the Left, who is he blaming for that?

Now JMM is happily back in the fold of the National Front and through NF-LF combination the Left, including Mr.Roy, will again resume relations with JMM without, however, bothering to answer how principled this relation will be?

POLITICAL IMPORT OF AGRARIAN STRUGGLES

Mr.Tilak D Gupta compliments us for keeping our score card intact even when 'a substantial section of toiling rural masses who have been mobilised by the Party in agrarian struggles opted for Janata Dal in election time'.

First of all, I would like to point out that the overwhelming majority of our votes which remains comparable to our old performance five years back came from the same toiling rural masses who have been mobilised in agrarian struggles. The phenomenon of shift of such votes to JD was basically confined to the district of Jehanabad and to one or two constituencies of Patna district. The sharp decline of our votes did take place in Bikramganj and Barachatti – the seats we had won earlier – but the shift was mainly in the votes of middle sections who had voted for us last time. This time, whatever votes we got was exclusively from the landless and poor strata.

We, more or less, maintained our position in Shahabad zone, improved a bit in South Bihar and scored impressive advances in the North-western region. The debacle in Jehanabad is intimately connected to the serious organisational disorder there which again is related to the political disorientation, that is, a diversion in the mobilisation of the toiling people in agrarian struggles. This diversion again arose out of a situation where the Party was forced to take on the MCC-PU onslaught. It was part of a well-calculated strategy of Laloo Yadav to instigate these forces against us and all our efforts to settle the disputes through talks evoked no response from MCC and PU. Moreover, the administration's hostility was at its peak in Jehanabad.

It was only after elections that we could move a set of senior leaders to Jehanabad, unite the ranks and take up drastic organizational mearares to revamp the situation and return to the path of mobilisation of the tailing mases in the agranan struggles.

Jehanabad is a very specific exception and a typical example showing how the anarchins practically serve the cause of the ruling classes MCC-PU did succeed in damaging our Party to a great extent in Jehanabad to the advantage of JD, but could they develop any alternative political model based on election boycott? Their election boycott call took an adventurist turn and ultimately proved to be a total flop. Ground reports, as noted by several journalists, clearly proved that a large section of their cadres and supporters voted for Janata Dal. Politically, these groups were reduced to a nonentity at a time of sharp political fervour.

In contrast, our electoral support has essentially been the political reflection of the agrarian struggles being conducted by our Party. This fact is admitted by Mr.Gupta when he comments that, "Significantly, for the first time the CPI(ML) group bagged two seats in the North Bihar plains in the face of a pro-Laloo Prasad wave to indicate the growing spread of agrarian movement beyond the traditional Naxalite strongholds of South and Central Bihar".

This doesn't mean that I want to underestimate our weaknesses in Jehanabad. The Party should have stuck to its orientation of agrarian struggles despite extreme provocations and we singularly failed on that count in Jehanabad. The point I want to make is that the formulation that "a substantial section of toiling masses mobilised in agrarian struggles by the Party opted for Janata Dal in election time" is basically wrong. On the contrary it happened only in areas where the Party, for some reason or other, failed to pay proper attention to mobilising the rural masses in agrarian struggles.

Mr.Gupta has also talked of our "exaggerated expectation". It is true that our results were much below our expectation, we had been expecting 12 to 13 lakh votes and 10 to 12 seats to enable us to get recognition. This target was not far beyond the reach of the Party. Administrative hostility, "killing of a senior Party leader, abnormal delay in the whole election procedure that gave the major parties a lot of room for manoeuvring, Maharashtra-Gujarat election results that brought the sharp polarisation between JD and BJP and the rigging, etc. were in no way less important factors in affecting our election prospects to a considerable extent. We had pointed out at the very outset that we were strong in 25 seats where we hoped to be in the race. Out of these we won six, stood second in eight, and polled between 14,000 to 25,000 votes in the other ten seats. In Hilse, the 25th seat, countermanding of elections did greatly affect our prospects and Samasa Pany, which was nowhere in the race in the first phase, emerged the main challenger in the second round. In our original list of top 25 seats, of course, it was Barachatti in place of Bhore and that was the only anomaly. I have elaborated in detail to show that in face of these ground realities ous expectations can in no way be termed as "exaggerated".

Having said this, I must point out that exaggerated expectations were indeed there which banked upon superficial subjective factors like hoping to rope in the negative votes of upper casts, Samaa Party’s base among Kurmis, wherever Samata was not in the race, caste supports to individual candidates, etc. This wishful thanking narurally raised the expectations of seats from 25 to 30 and even more. This, I must remind you, was in no way the official Party position, but manifestations of petty bourgeois subjectivism and parliamentary cretinism which did affect a section of leaders and large sections of ranks. Every time elections are round the corner and by the time election fever rises to a high pitch a lot of people begin to cherish wild dreams and just refuse to listen to any sober assessment. This is a serious deviation which invariably brings in its wake frustration and despondency. The Party has to consistently fight this trend.

Mr.Gupta singles out for criticism our so-called unprincipled attempts to forge alliance with Samata Party which he feels is more to the right than JD – and this he equates with the political opportunism of the CPI and CPI(M) brand. Mr.Gupta had himself admitted that we conducted elections solely on our own strength compared to CPI and CPI(M). He has also conceded that our victories in North Bihar are an indication of growing expansion of agrarian struggles. In the case of alliance too, he differs from Mr.Chaturanan Mishra and AK Roy as he has referred to "unprincipled attempts" only knowing fully well that the alliance eventually was reduced to a token gesture. Now this reduction of the alliance to tokenism, in contrast to the "complete understanding" which CPI and CPI(M) entered with Janata Dal is itself symbolic of our Party's attaching utmost importance to upholding its absolute independence, absolute insistence on fielding its candidate in all centres of agrarian struggles including those where our Party has been historically entangled in struggles against Karmi kulaks, its firm refusal to act as junior partners of Samata Pany, to share a common manifesto, common programme and common campaign.

OUR RELATIONS WITH SAMATA PARTY

Regarding Samata Party, I quote what I had said in the August ’94 State Cadre Meet at Patna, “Regarding JD (George) I want to clarify one thing. Nitish, in the name of opposing Yadav excesses and Yadav domination is uniting Kurmis and other castes. We don't agree with such an idea. ... Large sections of Yadav in Bihar are poor and middle peasants. ... We are trying for a polarisation within Yadav community. ... We cannot go as per Nitish's idea. We have fundafamental differences with them. In fact it is the reverse. The way he is gathering Kurmi support. we have a struggle on this issue ... with Kurmi kulaks.” (Lokyuddh, September 15-30, 1994)

Then again in February 1995 when talks on seat adjustment broke downs, I wrote, “We tried for electoral adjustment with Samata Paany. Actually what we wanted was to win over this party to our side on an agenda of social change, keeping aside the politics of Laloo versus Nitish or the Yadav-Kurmi divide. However, we have not yet succeeded in this venture because the leaders of this party wish to come to power through manipulations based on caste. Rather they have tried to marginalise our party.

"For us communists, any adjustment with a representative of bourgeois democracy doesn't mean sacrificing our independence, nor can we help such at party to come to power at the cost of our development and expansion." (Lokyuddh, February 1-15, 1995)

Here again I must clarify that our relations with the HMKP of George Fernandes began several months before the split in JD when we entered in joint struggles to defend sovereignty. Still the Samata Party leaders in Bihar were averse to go in for any joint activity and alliance with us. They held several rounds of talks with CPI and CPI(M) and then with Anand Mohan. We made it clear that until they sever all connections with BPP, any alliance with us is ruled out. Only when they openly denounced BPP did a formal dialogue begin in the form of an intellectual seminar where differences between Nitish's perceptions and mine on the dalit question were clear to any attentive listener. There was nothing secretive in our relations with Samata Party. And it was precisely when they tried to reduce us to the status of a junior partner in the pattern of JD-CPI/CPI(M) relations and made winning potential as the criterion for seats distribution that we decided to break off the relation. We squarely pointed out to them that we shall be contesting all those seats which are politically important to us in the context of the needs of our movement. The victory or the number of votes are simply immaterial. Talks broke down and we decided to plunge into the battle single-handedly. It was only on desperate insistence of their central leadership at the last moment that we agreed to have a token alliance. A deep scrutiny of the whole struggle with Samata Party in the course of forging the alliance and its eventual reduction to a token alliance will reveal to any neutral observer that our tactics were based on the very negation of “the political opportunism so commonly witnessed in the Indian commmunist movement in the past.”

There is that nothing unprincipled in the whole process of concluding the alliance. Well, one may, of course, object to the very decision of forging an alliance with Samas Party on account of its class character etc. Herr one must not forget the stark realities of practical politics. We were the sole left opposition to the Janata Dal regime for the last five years. CPI and CPI(M) were with Laloo Yadav, and MCC and PU were bent upon eleminating us, Laloo Yadav had split our legislature group and we had lost four out of seven MLAs we earlier had. By invoking the Mandal plank he was slicing away our support among OBCs. A section of Party ranks had deserted us to join JD's bandwagon. The general impression was that JD and MCC were eating away our social base and Laloo Yadav arrogantly declared that the Party was finished for good. MCC-PU too were jubilantly making similar declarations. We were indeed encircled from all sides.

THE LENINIST TACTICS OF ALLIANCE

It was at this juncture that we took recourse to various measures to stave off the crisis and rejuvenate the Party. The first task of course was the intensification of agrarian struggles and extending it to new frontiers right up to the very bastion of Laloo Yadav in North Bihar. Secondly, we contrasted the slogan of social justice with the slogan of social change and held a massive party rally at Patna. Thirdly, to extend the battleline within the JD camp we invoked the spirit of the '74 movement, activised our student organisation to take up militant battles and called upon all democratic elements in the Janata Dal to rise against corruption and the betrayal of '74. We clinched the offer with George Fernandes as we sensed an impending split in JD. The split did materialise after a few months and the splitters walked out invoking the very plank of the 74 movement. In the context of ourselves facing the Janata Dal as the main adversary in Bihar, the tactics of utilising any split within it was totally justified, more so when we ourselves had played the catalyst role in aggravating the split.

Mind you, for the entire five years in our struggle against the JD government we never had any truck with opposition parties like the right-wing Congress and BJP. On our part, our first priority had always been to develop closer relations with the Left. We tried to clinch every such opportunity but the concrete political situation prevailing prevented our coming closer. With the change in situation now when the JD has obtained a majority on its own and CPI's willingness to share power has been shunned, the latter has been forced to sit in opposition benches. And once again, under political compulsion, the process of left unity has gained momentum.

Equating independence with self-imposed isolation may sound very revolutionary, however it is nothing but an infantile disorder that can only wreck the movement. Seeking mass allies even if temporary and unreliable and utilising every split in the camp of one's main adversary is an integral part of Marxist-Leninist tactics. Our bid for seeking alliance with Samata Party and JMM was only an implementation of this tactics and in the five year career of Laloo Yadav it was only for that brief period that we could turn the tables on him and force him to spend many sleepless night. Maintaining the absolute independence of the party of the proletariat within the alliance was a newer phase of Pany practice and CPI(M) emerged from that unscathed and with flying colours. Even our worst adversaries had to concede that CPI(ML)’s votes were based on its own strength and on the strength of the agrarian struggles of the rural poor.

The Sheshan Phenomenon

Here I must add that we did support Seshan’s moves to introduce ‘free and fair’ elections in Bihar, a state where the entire election process had been reduced to a mockery. We, however, knew their limitations. ‘Free and fair elections’ in an ideal bourgeois sense simply means doing away with the process of open coercion like booth capturing etc. In other words, it means a free play of capital in deciding the outcome. And therefore, ‘free and fair elections’ in a bourgeois society still remain bourgeois in their essential nature.

However, we never supported Seshan’s arbitrary actions in splitting and delaying the election process and we came out with the statement that it is all designed to help Congress(I). We also refused to make any joint representation to the Election Commission on election irregularities along with Congress(I) and BJP as suggested by Samata leaders. Therefore, it is wrong on the part of Mr.Gupta to accuse us of becoming the tacit supporters of other opposition parties on this count.

Facade of Laloo’s Charishma

Mr.Gupta attributes Laloo’s victory to his personal charisma, his identification with the common masses, his giving voice to the long-suffering silent majority, etc. Well, how has one to define his victory? It is a fact that except in CPI(ML) strongholds JD did get overwhelming support from the rural poor, and that the rural poor did get carried away by his demagogy, more or less in the fashion they earlier backed Indira Gandhi or back NT Rama Rao and Jayalalitha now. Our Party has hailed the assertion of rural poor in elections which only expresses their strivings for a dignified and better life. But this does not completely explain the full import of the victory of Janata Dal. Even if the allegation of administration’s active connivance with JD is rejected, none including Laloo Yadav has accused the Bihar administration of in anyway working against Janata Dal’s interest. Given that Bihar administration is organically linked with big landowners, as pointed out by Mr.Gupta himself, how does Mr.Gupta explain this strange behaviour of the administration vis-a-vis the messiah of the poor?

It should not be forgotten that a large number of JD MLAs are renowned criminals and several of them come from upper castes, particularly Rajputs, with notoriously feudal backgrounds. The other face of Laloo was revealed in garnering the support of upper caste gentry with the plea that only he can save them from Naxalite violence.

During his five-year rule, by distributing privileges and favours with impunity he won over several powerful feudal elements to his fold who originally belonged to Congress(I) and BJP. To win Muslim support religious fundamentalism was invoked to the extreme, and barring a few exceptions, the Muslim gentry too solidly backed Laloo Yadav.

In short, beneath Laloo’s individual charisma is hidden a social coalition of various power groups and landed interests of several dominant castes including a significant section of upper castes. If these social dynamics are not understood one is liable to be trapped in a one-sided, liberal and social-democratic interpretation of Laloo’s victory.

Laloo Yadav is nothing but the ruling class response to the growing revolutionary struggle in Bihar. This is the secret behind the support given to him by the administration as well as by the majority of dominant power groups: Laloo Yadav is quite conscious of his mission and one can find him simultaneously projecting himself before the upper-caste landed gentry as the alternative to the violent Naxalites. When he claims that Naxalites handed over guns to the poor and he has handed them books he exposes his mission of disarming the people mentally and physically in the otherwise highly violent and armed society of Bihar.

A comrade writing in Lokyuddh has ridiculed our election practice as a transition from area-wise seizure of power to area-wise seizure of seats. But a deeper analysis reveals that our electoral gains and our anti-feudal struggles are organically related. The areas where we won victories are the areas where the struggles were sharpest and, if the last three months are any indication, our victories have only gone to further intensify the pitch of struggle. In fact these areas represent the model of integration of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggles par excellence. Despite our marginal presence in the assembly we were very much part of mainstream politics in Bihar for the past five years. The next five years will be no exception.