Presentation by Prakash Karat at a
discussion on “Political Challenges Confronting the Left” at a seminar
organised by the Council for Social Development at New Delhi on August
8, 2012
Imperialist globalization and two decades of neo-liberal policies
have wrought significant changes in Indian society – on the class
structure, on social and political relations.
I
For the Left, the major challenge is how to understand these
changes under a neo-liberal regime, confront them and work out suitable
strategy and tactics.
How has it affected the basic classes?
A big section of the working class is not in the organised sector
or in regular, permanent employment. Even within the organised sector, a
large number of workers are on contractual basis. The recent struggle
in Maruti-Suzuki has highlighted this aspect. There is intense
exploitation of the workers in the unorganized-informal sector. We have
to bring all these sections into the working class movement.
While there is an overall agrarian crisis, there are changes in the
agrarian relations. Some sections are experiencing intensified
exploitation like tenant farmers apart from the poor peasants and
agricultural workers.
How has it impacted the allied classes?
How have the changes strengthened the ruling classes?
The Left has to work out its strategy by concrete analysis and
studies. The direction of the class struggle and the political and
social movements have to be developed on this basis.
II
A concomitant development of the globalised finance capital and the
advent of neo-liberalism has been the growth of identity politics in
India. Identity politics based on caste, religion, tribe, ethnicity
and region is posing a major challenge for the Left in India. The
ruling classes and imperialist finance capital find such politics
eminently suitable for their interests. Fragmentation of the people on
the basis of narrow identities and keeping them separate ensures that
there is no threat to the Rule of Capital and the State. The challenge
before the Left is to tackle identity politics by building common class
based movements, while at the same time, taking up the issues of caste,
social and gender oppression experienced by different sections of
society.
For the dalit or women worker, class unity and class-based
movements will make sense for the dalit workers only if the working
class movement takes up the issue of his or her specific exploitation.
For instance, dalit workers are paid a lesser wage for doing the same
job in many places. Similarly, a women worker will relate to the
class-based movement only if the question of her getting one-third or
half of the wages earned by a male worker is taken up. There is the
issue of the Muslim workers, lack of access to jobs and discrimination.
So building the class-based unity and movement requires the taking up of
the specific issues of social oppression suffered by these sections of
the working people.
The question is often posed as to why the Left is not making any
advance in the Hindi region. There is also an erosion of support. One
answer to that is the failure of the Left to successfully counter
identity politics; caste-based mobilization by the bourgeois parties is
the norm. Taking up the class issues and integrating them with the
struggle against social oppression and caste discrimination is the way
forward. But entrenched caste politics has made this a difficult
proposition.
Till the Left and the Communist party in particular can organise
the rural poor – poor peasants and agricultural workers, overcoming the
caste barriers, there can be no worthwhile advance.
III
The neo-liberal outlook is not confined to the economy alone. It
has a profound effect on politics and the political system. The nexus
between big business/capital and politics has become more pronounced.
More and more businessmen and capitalists at various levels are the
politicians in the bourgeois political parties. The unprecedented use
of money power in elections is a direct outcome of this nexus.
The Left parties are the most badly affected by this flood of
illegal money in the electoral system. In a recent by-election to the
Lok Sabha in Andhra Pradesh, it was reported that Rs. 2,000 per voter
was distributed by the winning party and a similar amount was also given
by the other major party. We have advocated decentralization and the
panchayati raj system. Here too, we find the growing trend of money
being used in a big way even in the village panchayat election for
becoming the sarpanch. It is only in states like West Bengal, Kerala
and Tripura, where the Left has a strong mass base, where there is
higher political consciousness and where the Left has the wherewithal,
that we are able to withstand this onslaught of money power.
Parliamentary democracy itself is getting corroded by the insidious
use of money power. Democratic politics and the Left parties are
squeezed out in this process. The democratic set-up is getting denuded
by this intertwining of big capital and politics. The Left’s stand on
democracy and the present parliamentary democratic system has to have a
clarity based on a clear class conception of the type of democracy that
we have. Democracy in a bourgeois State which pursues neo-liberal
policies cannot be idealized as “democracy” per se. The struggle to
utilize all democratic rights and opportunities available within the
present system for the people has to be combined with a powerful extra
parliamentary movement which alone can determine whether the people will
get more democratic rights and will have a greater say in a
democratic set-up.
At present, from the parliament to panchayats, electoral politics
is a major part of the people’s political activity. The Left has to
play an active role in this political process while constantly striving
to enlarge the political sphere and activities outside the electoral
parliamentary system which is the main arena of struggle.
IV
The Left has continue to develop the working class and peasant
movements all over the country. They are the mainstay of the Left. In
the recent period, a good development has been the unity established by
all the Central Trade Unions – the INTUC, AITUC, CITU, HMS, BMS and
others – came together for the February general strike. They are now
planning another phase of the joint struggle. This has brought wider
sections of the working class together. Notable is the participation of
the women workers - anganwadi, ASHA, mid-day meal workers and so on.
Equally important is the struggle on social issues, protecting the
democratic rights of the people and bringing the issues of the dalits,
women, tribals and other socially-oppressed sections on to the centre
stage.
We need a broad unity of the Left. This means that the
Left-minded persons and groups outside the Left parties are brought
together on a joint platform on agreed issues, to begin with. This has
been set out in the Political Resolution of our Party Congress held
recently.
The Left’s interventions in the cultural sphere have lagged behind
compared to what it was 30 to 40 years ago. There has to be a
rejuvenation of cultural activities and productions and the effective
use of new media and communication technology.
