Communists don’t make progress by merely adopting resolutions. This was the general feeling among delegates present in the CPM’s four-day organizational plenum on Wednesday afternoon.They wanted the party politburo to do some introspection over its activities before setting guidelines for the party’s primary unit.
Fact is that nearly 50% of the 16-member CPM politburo members have hardly any role in building party organization in the priority states other than Bengal, Kerala, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Prakash Karat had made a promise at an open rally at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi to make a breakthrough in the Hindi belt, soon after taking over reins of the party as general secretary . It didn’t happen. Instead, the party suffered reverses in Bengal with its leaders taking the back seat in national politics. As of now, few, including the most visible central functionaries like Sitaram Yechury , Prakash Karat and Brinda Karat, couldn’t do what Hannan Mollah did in Rajasthan in his own way .
Delegates from Bengal and Kerala wanted a change in party functioning from the top. Amiya Patra from Bengal came up with a specific proposal.Patra held that politburo members, other than secretaries of states like Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and Surjya Kanta Mishra or chief ministers like Manik Sarkar, should dissociate themselves from party state committees and devote more time in other states. The proposal, if accepted, will have a bearing on a lot of politburo veterans, including Biman Bose. Bose is in charge of Assam apart from Bengal.
Two other names have come under focus -M A Baby and Mohammed Selim -as some within the party would like to see them leading the coming electoral battle in Kerala and Bengal. However, Yechury is leaving it to the state committees to take the call. While admitting the need to strengthen innerparty democracy on Wednesday , Karat held that the party plenum will take “concrete steps” to address the issue.
The admission, however, isn’t enough to satisfy the plenum delegates. They want politburo members to come down from the ivory tower and take the lead in struggles.
“We were happy when our state (Bihar) was included in the party’s priority list. Later, we found that leaders come for party meetings and mass ralli es only . They have hardly any time to stay with us and help us identify the mass issues and give us guidance. Sitaram Yechury is a busy man. Even members of the central secretariat hardly have time for us,” a delegate from Bihar said.
Delegates held that most CPM leaders do not have the acumen or humility to participate in spontaneous social movements or those on identity or cultural issues and identify the sentiments that can set the stage for a bigger political battle. “We need to come out of this top-down approach and develop local struggles from below.The organizational document lays emphasis on this. But the task is easier said than done,” a CPM central committee member said.