On Karat's KARATE in Vijaywada

The following article is a pre-edit by Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya on Vijaywada Comedy....

Signals from Vijayawada and Lalgarh –

and Challenges before Revolutionary Communists

- Dipankar Bhattacharya

Contrary to media speculations predicting a veritable showdown between the so-called Bengal line and central line in the CPI(M), the Vijayawada ‘mini-Congress’ of the CPI(M) ahead of the crucial West Bengal and Kerala polls of 2011 turned out to be a rather tame affair, saving the real fireworks maybe for a later-day post-mortem. The much-hyped ‘rectification campaign’ was quietly forgotten and the revived ‘anti-Congressism’ on the national level was carefully calibrated by Prakash Karat himself with his remark ‘never say never’ regarding a possible future alliance with the Congress. And of course, weaning the Congress away from the TMC remains the ultimate tactical dream of the comrades in both Alimuddin Street as well as AKG Bhavan.

The Vijayawada session adopted a special resolution on West Bengal and Kerala which seeks to once again describe the CPI(M)-led governments in these two states as products of history and decades of struggles. The resolution would like to appropriate every development in these states – from increased rice production to reduced infant mortality – as a CPI(M) achievement, and demand popular sympathy as a besieged and beleaguered victim at the receiving end of a grand conspiracy of the ruling classes. Imperialism, the Indian big bourgeoisie, foreign-funded NGOs, the corporate media, the Maoists and the ‘so-called intelligentsia’ are apparently all colluding to oust the CPI(M) from power because of the CPI(M)’s opposition to neo-liberal policies.

What the resolution does not do is to explain the paradox as to why and how most of these conspirators who were all praise for the CPI(M) model in West Bengal till the other day suddenly turned against it. The DFID, ADB and World Bank have been closely involved in both West Bengal and Kerala; Ratan Tata’s press conference with Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and the full-page newspaper advertisement praising the dynamism of CPI(M)-ruled West Bengal are too recent to fade from even the proverbially short-lived public memory; and the corporate media’s love affair with the charming ‘Buddhadeb Babu’ and the Bengal intelligentsia’s organic ties with the ‘ministry of culture’ administered personally by the ‘culture’-loving Chief Minister have never been a secret.

Regarding Kerala, the resolution talks of the threat of fundamentalist forces and an anti-CPI(M) ganging up of casteist and communal forces. Here again, the CPI(M) is silent about its own selective policies of covert and even overt alliances with the same casteist and communal forces. In the last election, the CPI(M) was busy courting some Muslim organisations and now the CPI(M) Chief Minister invokes Hindu fears and prejudices by talking of a conspiracy to turn Kerala into a Muslim-majority state! Vijayawada resolution is eloquent in its attempt to project the CPI(M) as a great champion of the democratic rights of the Muslims, but conspicuously silent about its own Chief Ministers (both in West Bengal and Kerala) periodically invoking the communal prejudices propagated and nurtured by the RSS whether in the name of combating Bangladeshi infiltration, fundamentalism or terrorism.

Clearly, as long as the going was good, the CPI(M) never adopted a resolution to explain all this in the light of the glorious communist legacy it claims to inherit and follow! Today when the tide has turned, the CPI(M) is trying to fall back on history and portray itself as a beleaguered victim of a grand anti-communist offensive. The CPI(M) says the ruling classes never gave up their conspiratorial offensive, but how come they are able to sway the people today in a way they could never in the recent past? The resolution says the CPI(M) has detected a few errors in its system and is fixing them and the people can once again trust the CPI(M) establishment. So much for the CPI(M)’s grand ‘rectification’ rhetoric!

But if one reads between the lines, the truth does have its own way of asserting itself here and there – the main resolution, for instance, has this to say with regard to strengthening the CPI(M)’s independent role: “The Party’s work among the basic classes should be given priority. The lag in the work amongst the peasantry and the rural poor in building class and mass struggles has to be overcome. … This is necessary to give a struggle orientation to the organization.” Here one can read the confession of fear of a party which knows it has only been paying lip-service to the idea of struggle and is facing serious isolation from the basic classes. But giving ‘a struggle orientation to the organisation’ is not a linguistic question – it has never been achieved just by inserting two sentences and paragraphs in resolutions which are otherwise mortally afraid of facing up to the truth.

While the CPI(M) was busy brainstorming in Vijayawada, on August 9 Mamata Banerjee held a professedly ‘apolitical’ rally at Lalgarh accompanied by the likes of Medha Patkar and Swami Agnivesh, addressing masses mobilised primarily by the Maoist-backed PCAPA. Her address was meant primarily for the Maoists – she asked them to rethink their boycott strategy (which she says only benefits the CPI(M)), promised them ‘development’ (school, hospital and jobs for all in railway factories!) and dialogue, hinted at a possible conditional moratorium on the operation of joint forces and had a word of grief for the killing of Azad (“the way Azad was killed was not right”). The CPI(M) keeps asking the Congress to explain Mamata’s ties with the Maoists – but she is merely pursuing the strategy already perfected by the Congress in Andhra Pradesh. The Maoists had readily played ball in Andhra and paid a heavy price. They seem to be ready to repeat the course in West Bengal, busy as they are eulogising Mamata even as her government spearheads the Operation Green Hunt.

Mamata Banerjee has been around in West Bengal politics for several decades, her dramatic rise began as a young Congress MP way back in 1984, but her brand of maverick populism never really got a broad support in rural Bengal as well as among the urban intelligentsia till Singur and Nandigram happened. Ever since, she has acquired an iconic status as the only immediate alternative to a thoroughly discredited and considerably degenerated CPI(M) establishment in West Bengal. While all kinds of forces are marketing her as the personification of change (Swami Agnivesh, for instance, concluded his 9 August speech at Lalgarh with the categorical exhortation “Naya Zamana Aayega, Mamata Banerjee ka Zamana Aayega” – Bengal will witness the birth of a new era, the era of Mamata Banerjee), revolutionary communists will have to summon all their perseverance and courage to expose and challenge her politics precisely on the touchstone of ‘change’ – the most popular political word in Bengal today.

The CPI(M) is not wrong in talking of a concerted anti-Left offensive on the part of the ruling classes. But it is surely wrong in hoping that it could selectively use one part of the offensive (Operation Green Hunt – the entire CPI(M) resolution is not only conspicuously silent about it but also tacitly endorses it) for its own benefit (the CPI(M) talks so much about the semi-fascist terror of the 1970s but has hardly learnt anything from it). And the CPI(M) is completely dishonest about what has triggered the anti-Left offensive – what has enabled the ruling classes to go on the offensive is not the CPI(M)’s professed opposition to neo-liberalism, but its readiness to embrace it even at the risk of alienating and antagonising the peasantry and the working people.

The CPI(M) will have to pay the price for its opportunist sins and revolutionary communists can have no sympathy for it on this score. A firm and decisive struggle against the CPI(M)’s opportunism is central to any meaningful defence of the legacy and gains of the Indian communist movement and resistance to the anti-Left offensive of the ruling classes at this critical juncture.

“SEZ” in the driving seat, but what drives SEZ?

Special Economic Zone has now taken up all sorts of different connotations. What it (de)noted once upon a time when the concept was born is now history of the forlorn passé. What it has come upon is quite confounding lost among a myriad of conflicting ideas. What it actually has been signifying today is what we might plunge in to fathom. For different folks it signifies different. For CPM and the left it is that “thing” which really not only baffled themselves but has been as fleeting as it could be. To Mr Karat- the G.S of CPM – it is very clear and very unambiguous- it is land acquisition. All Mr Karat could map in his recent deliberations about SEZ is the question of land acquisition, it ethics, modalities and rationale. No one else either in CPM or rather anyone in the “think-tank” of various denominations and flavour, except of course the noted exception of Sam Pitroda,[whose value to the ruling echelon is just an ornamental position and noteworthy suggestion taking with a definite reassurance that none of whatever he would suggest would ever be implemented] has ever come across any other essential point in SEZ. No one talks about developing SEZ in existing multi-storied buildings in cities, no one talks about overhauling the barren and unutilized land of forsaken industries, no one talks of acquiring debris-land that can be re-structured. SEZ now means acquiring fertile agricultural land from the peasantry- either and most profitably and easily by force or in dearth of any other recourse left- at some compensatory price that would be arbitrarily fixed without regard to the existing market price.

What is market price is again nothing but a forcible imposition. Whenever a land is earmarked for any “industrial development” the perceptible value of that land shoots up hundred times or even more- the so called “market price” that the authorities talk about never mention that, they only talk about the lowest of the price of the land when and if they are considered fallow and unusable. Opportunity cost is the price for any normal commodity when the market comprises individuals but when the market deals with government or multi-nationals or industrial houses supported and sponsored by ruling political parties then opportunity cost is simply not in the consideration. The difference of the opportunity cost or the average of opportunity cost five years later from the desired point in time of running the project, with the existing lowest average is the absolute ground rent that is first imposed on the peasants then acquired by the government and then gifted to the multi-national firm as a head-start bonus. This is the real “subsidy” doled out to the industry- with however no condition imposed on the buyer on usage. Ruia group and Goenka group has made real money in this process and then transforming the acquired land to build up real estates. The RENT that can easily be called as “Super-Rent” [ if Super-profit is extracted by manipulating the market for commodity produces then Super-Rent is the extraction by manipulating the nature of the land and then switching the purpose all done with extra-economic or extra-market political pressure]. Super-Rent extracting land mass and the related business needed a clause of “national interest” – as vague as it was in its inception and now developed into corrupt rationality to mean the all-encompassing suzerainty of the intermediary [which is most likely some public authority] and the buyer.

A peasant would accede to relinquishing his rights to the land when he would find that the regular stream of income in the alternative track would be more than keeping his land intact not only today but in tomorrow’s market value.

Additionally, while changing the nature of the land acquired a piece of land gets into a broader social relationship from what it is now. While as an agricultural piece of land it is socially necessarily connected through its being a producing space- that produces socially necessary commodities and of course another space that takes care of the daily need of the family outside the market system. Thus an agricultural piece of land is primarily a familial relationship and then a social relationship to the extent that the produce hits the market. But when the same piece of land gets transformed into a part of a bigger plot that is used in industry or production of non-agricultural commodities, it enters into a far broader social relationship not only through its capability and raison-d’etre of producing industrial commodities but also being a space and tool in creating industrial jobs and other service related jobs that almost always accompany an industrial space. Every element of this relationship has a price value or an exchange value in the market. The aggregate of this value when averaged over the general market in an economy creates a price tag – which is the opportunity cost of relinquishing the title of the land by the farmer. In advanced industrial countries pieces of land that are “acquired” for national interest do not change the title. The mines or industrial plots are leased from the landowner peasants and they get a substantive portion as RENT. In this particular case RENT is distributed to the peasant original owner and the present owner of the firm. The specific industrial activity that has increased the value of the land is then shared between the two owners. This is even tolerable and rather justifiable. What happens in our semi-colonial India based on a semi-feudal culture is that the land is taken away for a song from the original owner and the entire RENT goes to the firm owner. This is SUPER-RENT because the normal principles of RENT going to the owners are not in vogue. The Land is transformed, market is manipulated and transformed with a motive that was never shared earlier. The land is simply bluffed out. An agent that is the firm owner is seldom the user but another agent in the real estate market. The intermediary is never present when the end-users use them. The entire market actors are befooled by one stakeholder which had been there for a while, extracted out the potential value and taken a hike. This is what Salims of Indonesia, Ruias of Bengal, TATAs and now even all middle ranking industrialists are doing. Prized possessions of more than 10 acres were gifted to these people at the laughable price of 1 INR in the Salt Lake Rajarhaat area and now they are sliced and diced and given out as Real Estate commodities- even the public authorities are not getting anything beyond their normal occupational taxes. This is what SEZ has come to. So already transformed and forsaken pieces of land are and had never been in the consideration. SEZ is about “very clearly” [ the same epitaph used by M. KARAT] acquiring fertile agricultural land and then making it barren enough to be used [ or cannibalized] into brick and mortar bases for the ultimate objective of REAL ESTATE.

Agricultural land cannot have any market value. If by any stretchable imagination some value can be ascribed that is the future value all discounted to the present time- and that would be so high than no piece of land can ever be transformed. Transformation of land and simply that is therefore a commodity in a corrupt and rogue market called REAL ESTATE. The real estate market is rogue and corrupt from the inception because no one can ascribe a definite growth path of trajectory of the REAL ESTATE pricing over a future period of time. The huge volatility of this market imposes other kinds of RENT [again a form of SUPER RENT through this speculation] on the owner at any point of time. The only smart stakeholder is the one who owns the land and sells it off in the most expeditions and exigent time-slot, one who would never have any use value or valorisation associated with it. LAND – the only resource that could not have been stretched or squeezed is now successfully virtualized in the speculative commodity market. As soon as an agricultural land is transformed it dashes to the inevitable destiny of diluting itself in this virtual speculative Capital market of REAL ESTATE. Land can therefore be only effectively transformed ONCE and FOR ALL times. All later transformations are simply milestones in the inevitable downward chute.

Land transformations are always therefore steps toward more and more imperialist dominations being imposed on to the people. This time the “people” are not simply the direct actors connected to a specific piece of land. It is an entire society that was connected through intricate social relationship and whose nature we could not fathom when the piece of land was not transformed. After the transformation we figured out what we lost. The small 1000 acre of Singur Land [ one of the three most fertile and valuable pieces of land in the whole world] produced a very special kind of potato and other species of legumes and pommes-de-terres, we now realize the loss of that land when the prices of those in the entire West Bengal rose up by leaps and bounds. This is the social relationship affected which can only be realized when the land got lost. A commodity gets its “market value” when and only when it is lost, value attained in absentia is the latest form of value acquiring. This is as dangerous as it could be.

Revisionism is myopic in its pristine and unconscious form. It starts not always through a very defined and clear cut ulterior motive of cannibalization but it leads inevitably to that end. The smartness is to nip the possibility at the outset. Revisionism in methodological terms works through part-viewing and does not analyse from the overall international and national perspective. It then looses the control, it is like a navigator thinking he is the master and the machine takes off in his own way. Monsieur KARAT thinks he can patch here, patch there and can get away he however finds himself outside control.

Monseignor Karat choses "Mistakes"

Vijaywada. The venue of a "Special and Extended Party Plenum", not to set right, but to "fix" some patches only to set the cart of bourgeois power sharing rolling till the next election. M.Karat and company has turned minimalist under the avowed garb of Marxists. Minimalism is very focused, it runs fast one-track with break-neck speed towards its goal, everything is subservient to achieving its only aim- the rise to power. Means has no meaning unless they serve directly and fastest toward the end. Karat is excellent minimalist, even better than his college buddy Yechury. The party has to be kept in shape, it has to win back the lost ground in WB and Kerala, it has to manage to steer with its status quo and of course above all to bring back the monetary resource it enjoyed while it was in power. Yes, they know it will dwindle when outside power. but whatever loss mitigation can be possible. All these objectives have nothing special to do with the "ism" they avow. The "ism" is a nice commodity for CPM, nice enough to get some levy from some gullible white collar workers [In India we eulogistic-ally call them that actually the most privileged petty bourgeois who want to have the best of all the worlds]. Leftism is the "best policy" that can fetch them that amount. The typical behavioral trait a white collar public servant petty bourgeois donning the identity of a "worker" is eclecticism. And eclecticism based on pragmatic operational methods is what CPM's leftism is, that we call in Indian context as Indian Social democracy. CPM will survive, survive with dissensions, with fractions, with splits and with re-organization- this is a different kind of survival, a survival that can live long with crises, a survival that does not feel shy of differences but rather take a little pride in that. CPM has inherited this trait from the Congress party of India, that sees its strength in as many as dissensions and lobbies as it can contain. CPM has in fact gone beyond that by keeping a seemingly unified party structure and yet would contain all kinds of conflicting and yet cohabiting ideas. CPM maintains the structure of a communist party structure espousing "democratic centralism" by manipulation- the modus operandi of the manipulation is very simple- take out and throw away the spirit and the essence, keep all the form and attires intact, that will "teach" the cadres how effectively to flout the "ism" they espouse. This is what CPM had been doing all along. In Vijaywada, they repeated the same - they made a great potion- a little from Yechury and Bengal line, a little from the just opposite KARAT line, a little from a Tripura Line, a little from Hindutva by the latest Hindutva-master Comrade Achyutanandan, a little from Orissa's land struggle and then a lot from Somenath Chatterjee, the phantom of Jyoti Basu and Harkishen Singh -- all nicely cooked to form a stock of CPM leftism.

Leftists, revolutionary communists expect too much from CPM- though in a negative way. They grin to find out how far CPM have fallen out of Marxism and Leninism and then show that as the "exposure" of CPM- CPM however is hardly bothered. They wanted to become good managers of bureaucratic Capital in India and sentinels of American Imperialism- the best way they found is to swear against it a fine craft of deception.. they have now kept their party cadres at bay and contained by saying that no communist party can survive by not opposing Imperialism and in deeds have been always the first the implementation of Imperialist tact and acts. CPM can not be exposed, because it does not care about exposure, there is nothing to expose. Those who try to do so actually prove how strong CPM is in machinations, manipulations, in forgery, in liedom and in all kinds of negative subversion. CPM wants actually to show the managers of International Capital that they are the most effective crafty group of crooks and can sustain Capital in the most crises ridden predicament.

Monsieur Karat has now to set right the future track for the party- without much of accountability, simply till such time and situation whereby they can cling on to whatever small while going down. Whatever means they need to take is OK, if that requires some minor penning across some clause be that as it may, if that requires chiding some section and restructure be that as it may as long as the loss is minimal to whatever extent they can save.

In the contemporary history of the fall of CPM, it had experienced three moments and all of them enacted in West Bengal- They are Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh. All three are connected to the SEZ. However M. Karat sanctifies Singur, finds great fault with Nandigram and now zealously guards all horrendous acts in Lalgarh. Simply Random choice. If Singur policy is correct how come Nandigram was wrong? if Nandigram was wrong how come Lalgarh policy is correct? Has there been any difference in any of the three policies? even M Karat did not come out with any explanation. He does not need to. He basically balances between the Bengal line [ of supporting SEZ implementation] and the Tripura line [of opposing forcible land acquisition] and the Kerala Line [ of hobnobbing with the Capitalists] and the line of the rest of the party including those Delhiwallahs led by Prasenjit Bose and Karat himself [ of sprouting radical anti-imperialist rhetoric]. Trapiz game is the art every revisionist has to learn as (s)he does not have to mind ideology or politics or class matters. "Nandigram relegated the anti-SEZ movement years back" - Oh is that right? then why did the West Bengal government bring in the SEZ law way back in 2003, full two years ago than it had come to be an act in the Indian scenario? Why did they were the first to implement in Singur? How could they delink SEZ- the bauxite exploration, the mineral induced dispossession and displacement in case of Lalgarh? Well, CPM is a post box where you can not reply or ask back. Karat is the CEO of that company - a service Capital formation company to form Capital aiding imperialism and multi-national globalization which however speaks the language of dissension. It talks the walk of opposition and walks the talk of subservience even to the extent of forcible compliance. - This is Karatian "Marxism" or CPM style of revisionism.

Monseignor Karat choses "Mistakes"

Vijaywada. The venue of a "Special and Extended Party Plenum", not to set right, but to "fix" some patches only to set the cart of bourgeois power sharing rolling till the next election. M.Karat and company has turned minimalist under the avowed garb of Marxists. Minimalism is very focused, it runs fast one-track with break-neck speed towards its goal, everything is subservient to achieving its only aim- the rise to power. Means has no meaning unless they serve directly and fastest toward the end. Karat is excellent minimalist, even better than his college buddy Yechury. The party has to be kept in shape, it has to win back the lost ground in WB and Kerala, it has to manage to steer with its status quo and of course above all to bring back the monetary resource it enjoyed while it was in power. Yes, they know it will dwindle when outside power. but whatever loss mitigation can be possible. All these objectives have nothing special to do with the "ism" they avow. The "ism" is a nice commodity for CPM, nice enough to get some levy from some gullible white collar workers [In India we eulogistic-ally call them that actually the most privileged petty bourgeois who want to have the best of all the worlds]. Leftism is the "best policy" that can fetch them that amount. The typical behavioral trait a white collar public servant petty bourgeois donning the identity of a "worker" is eclecticism. And eclecticism based on pragmatic operational methods is what CPM's leftism is, that we call in Indian context as Indian Social democracy. CPM will survive, survive with dissensions, with fractions, with splits and with re-organization- this is a different kind of survival, a survival that can live long with crises, a survival that does not feel shy of differences but rather take a little pride in that. CPM has inherited this trait from the Congress party of India, that sees its strength in as many as dissensions and lobbies as it can contain. CPM has in fact gone beyond that by keeping a seemingly unified party structure and yet would contain all kinds of conflicting and yet cohabiting ideas. CPM maintains the structure of a communist party structure espousing "democratic centralism" by manipulation- the modus operandi of the manipulation is very simple- take out and throw away the spirit and the essence, keep all the form and attires intact, that will "teach" the cadres how effectively to flout the "ism" they espouse. This is what CPM had been doing all along. In Vijaywada, they repeated the same - they made a great potion- a little from Yechury and Bengal line, a little from the just opposite KARAT line, a little from a Tripura Line, a little from Hindutva by the latest Hindutva-master Comrade Achyutanandan, a little from Orissa's land struggle and then a lot from Somenath Chatterjee, the phantom of Jyoti Basu and Harkishen Singh -- all nicely cooked to form a stock of CPM leftism.

Leftists, revolutionary communists expect too much from CPM- though in a negative way. They grin to find out how far CPM have fallen out of Marxism and Leninism and then show that as the "exposure" of CPM- CPM however is hardly bothered. They wanted to become good managers of bureaucratic Capital in India and sentinels of American Imperialism- the best way they found is to swear against it a fine craft of deception.. they have now kept their party cadres at bay and contained by saying that no communist party can survive by not opposing Imperialism and in deeds have been always the first the implementation of Imperialist tact and acts. CPM can not be exposed, because it does not care about exposure, there is nothing to expose. Those who try to do so actually prove how strong CPM is in machinations, manipulations, in forgery, in liedom and in all kinds of negative subversion. CPM wants actually to show the managers of International Capital that they are the most effective crafty group of crooks and can sustain Capital in the most crises ridden predicament.

Monsieur Karat has now to set right the future track for the party- without much of accountability, simply till such time and situation whereby they can cling on to whatever small while going down. Whatever means they need to take is OK, if that requires some minor penning across some clause be that as it may, if that requires chiding some section and restructure be that as it may as long as the loss is minimal to whatever extent they can save.

In the contemporary history of the fall of CPM, it had experienced three moments and all of them enacted in West Bengal- They are Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh. All three are connected to the SEZ. However M. Karat sanctifies Singur, finds great fault with Nandigram and now zealously guards all horrendous acts in Lalgarh. Simply Random choice. If Singur policy is correct how come Nandigram was wrong? if Nandigram was wrong how come Lalgarh policy is correct? Has there been any difference in any of the three policies? even M Karat did not come out with any explanation. He does not need to. He basically balances between the Bengal line [ of supporting SEZ implementation] and the Tripura line [of opposing forcible land acquisition] and the Kerala Line [ of hobnobbing with the Capitalists] and the line of the rest of the party including those Delhiwallahs led by Prasenjit Bose and Karat himself [ of sprouting radical anti-imperialist rhetoric]. Trapiz game is the art every revisionist has to learn as (s)he does not have to mind ideology or politics or class matters. "Nandigram relegated the anti-SEZ movement years back" - Oh is that right? then why did the West Bengal government bring in the SEZ law way back in 2003, full two years ago than it had come to be an act in the Indian scenario? Why did they were the first to implement in Singur? How could they delink SEZ- the bauxite exploration, the mineral induced dispossession and displacement in case of Lalgarh? Well, CPM is a post box where you can not reply or ask back. Karat is the CEO of that company - a service Capital formation company to form Capital aiding imperialism and multi-national globalization which however speaks the language of dissension. It talks the walk of opposition and walks the talk of subservience even to the extent of forcible compliance. - This is Karatian "Marxism" or CPM style of revisionism.