The report of the CPM Central Committee meeting held at Calcutta, published in the December 16-31 issue of “Dalit Voice””, would have been dismissed as a forgery but for the fact that the fears and complexes of CPM show through the document. The CPM is convinced that an ideological warfare is being fought against it. The party sees enemies everywhere, enemies to the right, enemies to the left, enemies in front and enemies behind.
The party is fighting too many enemies at the same time. They range from the RSS of the extreme Right, to the Naxatites of the extreme Left. It is obsessed with the fear of infiltration. The latest group to earn its ire are the Christian agencies On the one hand the CPM accuses the Christian agencies of sowing seeds of separatism and on the other charges them with assuming a Left image. It strikes one as rather humorous that the CPM should be perturbed over the Left image of the Church agencies. Surely the CPM has no monopoly on the Left image. It lost it long ago. Has the CPM abandoned its strategy of making common cause with Leftist elements ? Has it lost its nerve to usher in revolution with their cooperation ? The report denounces the activities of the Church in Tripura. The reason is not far to seek The CPM has built up a strong base among the immigrant Bengalis from Bangladesh. It has no. hold over tribal affairs in Tripura The party is out of the picture as far as the tribals of Tripura are concerned. The CPM has identified itself with immigrant Bengalis. The tribals have been reduced to a minority and dispossessed of their homeland As the Church mostly works among tribals, the CPM feels threatened by its activities. This is the reason why the CPM has declared a war on the Church there. At the height of tension and clashes between the tribals and the immigrant Bengali population in the summer of 1979 the CPM workers subjected Christian institutions to raids and slanders. Standing by the oppressed minority of tribal population is a crime in the eyes of the CPM. With the connivance of the administration, which is controlled by the party, the repression against the Christians still continues. The report makes no mention of these facts. The refugee influx certainly has not harmed the interests of the CPM. And as things stand today, it does not suit CPM’s interests to espouse the cause of the tribals. It is obvious that the party’s primary concern is not liberation of the oppressed or the defence of human rights, but control of men and matters. In political alliance, its relations are governed by its desire to be in the driver’s seat. This desire has sometimes landed the party right in the middle of the soup. In its attempt to browbeat its alliance partners in the erstwhile LDF ministry in Kerala, it has suffered severe reverses. The CPM has further displayed this trait in its relations with the Kashtakari Sanghatana of Maharashtra of which the report makes explicit mention. When the party found its influence over the Warlis of Thane district waning, owing to the activities of the Kashtakari Sanghatana, item barked on a campaign to malign the Sanghatana. Strangely enough, at this stage, the party came to the defence of businessmen and the officialdom who have been oppressing the Warlis. It seemed that suddenly the party discovered identity of interests with these strange partners. The party was not satisfied with this campaign. On the morning of October 18, 1980″ an armed mob of CPM party workers and hired men descended on the adivasi villages and indulged in arson and looting. Several people including women and children recieved severe injuries. The CPM could not have carried out this attack with out the connivance of the police in this episode the hypocrisy of the CPM has been exposed in all its nakedness. Once again the party had sacrificed the cause of the oppressed on the altar of political expediency. It is true that the Church has given the tribals a sense of pride in their Identity and in their heritage. It has done so by educating them. This service to the tribals redounds to its credit and is consonant with the spirit of the Constitution of ” India which offers them special protection and gurantees their separate existence. The CPM Central Committee has considered it necessary to caution the party workers and leaders against the tactics of the Church agencies. It even strikes a note of despair when it says : “It is a pity that our intellectual comrades, the professors, teachers, lawyers are unable to put up a fight and stand paralysed before the offensive on every front’. The CPM’s troubles do not end there. Today the party faces the stiffest opposition from the Naxalites on the extreme Left. They accuse the CPM of betraying the cause of revolution. The CPAI should know that there is only a thin line of separation between revolution and counter revolution. It depends on which side you are. What you do is revolution; what the other man does ¡s counter revolution. India’s domesticated brand of Marxism would make a good subject of study. The CPM has come to terms with caste and the bourgeois class. It is common knowledge that casteist and bourgeois elements wield enormous influence on its policies.
