On Smart Ways Of Handling Dissent
By K.P. Sasi
08 June, 2010
Countercurrents.org
Several decades back, once com. Krishnapillai, one of the celebrated first communists of Kerala was beaten up by his opponents. The badly wounded communist leader lay in the hospital while com. K. Damodaran and other party workers rushed to the see him. Obviously disturbed by the sight, K. Damodaran, the other initial communist known in Kerala more for his intellectual pursuits, told the activists who were around, that the incident should to be immediately replied by beating the opponents back. From the bed, Krishnapillai raised his hand. He said that the need of the hour was to deal with it politically and not physically. Ultimately, the party followed his instructions.
This incident shows the existence of a leadership with political wisdom. Krishnapillai knew very well that if the victim was the communist, the public sympathy would be with the communists and if it was politically used, the party would grow in its strength. If the offender was the communist then there would be a drainage of public support. Maoists in India must learn from this great leader.
Where have the leaders with political and ideological wisdom disappeared? The general feeling in Kerala is that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is suffering because of the group fights within. I think the basic problem is the lack of a leadership with political and ideological wisdom and even if there are many such `good and wise’ people at a lower level of hierarchy, unfortunately they remain silent. Therefore, if goondaism is expressed by any party organisation, a patronage is provided by the leadership and the sensible people inside remain quiet. The channels of party communication will do everything to misrepresent and justify the event. Recent incident of violence on C.R. Neelakandan is one of the latest examples.
Well known activist intellectual C.R. Neelakandan was invited to speak at a public function in north Kerala. As per the reports, DYFI, the youth wing of the CPI(M), along with their local leaders jumped to the dias and physically assaulted him badly. Neelakandan is still in a hospital in Trichur. After all, what was his fault? It is well known that he had differences of opinion with the party and he used to be vocal about it. The party should also realize that it is not just CR, but a large number of people have differences with the party’s policies. After the incident of violence on CR, it is obvious that there will be more people vocal against the attitude of the CPI(M). How many people can you beat up?
I do not wish to underestimate the intelligence of the leadership of the CPI(M). But this incident is certainly going to remain as a clot on the political behaviour of the party. Because CR is not an ordinary person. He has a backing in Kerala which cannot be seen in organizational and cadre terms. This was built over a long period of time where he intellectually articulated a critique of the development model in Kerala which the party could neither comprehend nor support. He was also a strong supporter of many people’s movements which were either avoided by the party or negated by the party.
The attack on CR was certainly a planned one. They were waiting to beat him and as soon as he uttered one word over the mike, they pounced on him. The incident was described as fascist and undemocratic attempt by many. It is certainly `undermocratic’, since CR who was an invited public speaker was not even allowed to start the speech.. But I do not know if we can use the term `fascist’ because the term `fascism’ has a deeper historical and ideological meaning. What was expressed by the local DYFI leaders was simple goondaism which was expressed many times before on many others, unfortunately with the blessings of the party leadership as well as the state machinery including the police machinery. The newspapers, when they became critical to some of the party’s concerns, they were attacked several times. But what the leadership has not visualized is that it is not just the print medium, even many popular Malayalam commercial films, have criticized this behaviour of the party several times through different popular scenes. Perhaps, the party leadership does not feel that films influence people. So they were spared.
The expression of `muscle power’ by the CPI(M) is already finding negative results in West Bengal. If people of Singur and Nandigram were against the projects, minimum political wisdom is to allow proper negotiations and discussions. However, the `intolerance of criticism’ does not allow the party to express such wisdom. Their feeling is very clear: `Either you are with us or you are against us.’ This attitude prevents any positive discussions and its logical extension is organized goondaism.
But Kerala is very different from West Bengal. There is a civil society and a mainstream media which is much more active than their counterparts in West Bengal. There is also a tradition of a long list of people’s movements during the last three decades outside the leadership of political parties and many of these struggles were even successful. In fact, the number of people’s movements that have been successful in the state of Kerala cannot be compared to those in any other state.
The struggle against Silent Valley made history with the Central Government stopping the mega dam on the rain forests of Kerala rich with bio-diversity. After that, the people of Kerala stopped two nuclear plants: one in Kothamangalam and the other in Peringome. It is also in this state that the people drove industrial giant like Birla from Mavoor and a globally powerful multinational Coca Cola was stopped in Plachimada. When Periyar, Malampuzha and other water privatization projects like Attappadi came up, the people of Kerala came out on streets and expressed their power till the projects were halted. Trawling during monsoon season was regulated because of stiff resistance of the fisher people. In recent times, the project to reclaim the sea from Veli to Shankhumukam covering an area of 5000 hectares had to be dropped because of the same reason. The people of Kerala also stopped many sand minding projects as well as a major bauxite mining project in north Kerala. Pooyankutty dam and Pathrakkadavu projects are symbols of successful resistance. The Govt. of Kerala was also forced to accept that Endosulfan has created many victims and offered a small compensation to them, even if the amount is in reality a pittance which can not even cover the cost of their medical care. Needless to say that an unregulated Endosulfan is creating victims in other states without many responses. The Govt. of Kerala was also forced to accept the land rights of the dalits who put in a strong resistance for a long time, in spite of the initial attacks by the State as well as party machineries. The list of achievements of people’s movements may go on. Some may say that these are only partial success stories, since many people are still facing problems in some of these regions. But I would argue that it is time that we learn to celebrate success and initiate proper documentation on these struggles so that a next generation as well as the activists in other states will be benefited.
What was common in all these struggles was that none of these struggles were led by any political party. How did such a phenomenon take place in a society where the intrusion of party politics in civil society is much more than that of most of the other states? It is interesting that many positive elements in CPI(M) also supported some of these struggles. However, if the national leadership of the party could learn lessons from such struggles, the historical blunders like Nandigram and Singur would not have taken place. Their concept of development would have been very different by now.
C. R. Neelakandan was an active supporter of many of these struggles. He has actively written, and talked on many such struggles and physically supported them at the right time. It is because of this involvement that there is a respect for such a person in Kerala. It is therefore the responsibility of this poltical section outside the control of the political parties to overcome the deep pain of violence on Neelakanthan.
Some of those who responded to the attack on Neelakandan described it as a `Stalinist’ aggression. This is certainly true. The strategy of Stalin was to brutally crush all dissent, whether it be from within the party or from outside. But the organizational structure of the party of Stalin also had a foundation of a concept of party which he inherited. And thereby, he could physically massacre a large number of people who actually built the Russian Revolution. Perhaps it is time for the CPI(M) to seriously evaluate the structure and concept of the party which allows such incidents to happen. Normally, any debate on the party structure would end up in Lenin, where he wrote that this structure represented as the `vanguard of the working class’ led by a team of `professional revolutionaries’ (obviously from the middle class). In this age of information technologies, perhaps the traditional concept of a party structure may become a bit outdated. If more democratic space is allowed within the party, too many people need not be thrown out of the party like in today’s times. And too many articulate people’s voices need not be crushed with personal attacks. They could be handled with intelligent democratic discussions.
Let the existing leaders learn a bit more from the historical experiences of their own past leaders like Krishnapillai, about the need for political wisdom. If the leaders are unwilling to change, then it is the responsibility of those who are silent within such party structures to initiate democratic dialogues till positive results are achieved. If the people outside political parties can achieve successful results, I am sure, people within can also achieve them.
