There have been two interesting votes pertaining to left politics in recent times – one in Germany and the other in Calcutta. In Germany, the Social Democratic Party voted to enter into dialogue with the Christian Democratic Union for government-formation. Implicit in the vote was the recognition that the purity of the socialist doctrine cannot for now be allowed to let State power be captured by populist forces that include neo-Nazi elements.

In Calcutta, the central committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) voted not to have any electoral or tacit understanding with the Congress in the general elections. Clearly, the Mensheviks led by the party general-secretary feel that the Bharatiya Janata Party cannot be defeated without a comprehensive secular consolidation that would include the Congress. The Bolsheviks think that aligning with the Congress may be less advisable than letting the right wing return to power. Interestingly, the collective cultural and social experiences of the country under the current regime seem not to have dented the ossified perception of the hardliners within the CPI(M).

The German Social Democrats have long accepted that they cannot capture State power in Germany on their own. But there are those within the Indian Left who believe that they will win the requisite electoral majority to form a single-party government at the Centre. They argue that short of such exclusive sway, the Left will not be able to operationalize its programmes and policies. It is another matter that the exclusivists within the Left are seldom able to explain the political measures they intend to put in place that would have the potential to yield a pan-Indian electoral majority, given that its power to unleash mass resistance movements dwindles by the day.

Although it is the contention of the hardliners that the Congress and the Hindu right-wing are interchangeable, one suspects that the Congress is resented for occupying the oppositional space that they think belongs to the Left. If this perception has a foundation, it becomes easier to understand why the hardline faction within the Left would want the Congress to weaken to a point where Indian politics may yield a direct macro-ideological confrontation between a clearly defined Right and Left.

There is, of course, an alternative view that economically and socio-culturally the centre of gravity of this pluralist nation rests on a Nehruvian ideology that requires a broad coalition of rationalist and welfarist forces to govern India. This view is unfavourable from both ends for now.

The larger issue that the hardline Left seems not to worry about is India post-2019 should the present dispensation return to power. The hardliners do not seem to want to entertain the thought that the constitutional republic could then experience structural changes of a far-reaching kind.

This anxiety may perhaps be obviated by the conviction that little bits of India will always remain bastions of the Left. This may seem like the acceptance of a truncated, balkanized future for left forces, one that flies directly in the face of its cherished praxis of ruling India with exclusive clout.

There is the possibility that the equation between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks may reverse at the party congress in April. The more the Left distances itself from efforts to construct a pan-Indian alternative to right-wing totalitarianism, the more vestigial it will become. The Left needs to acknowledge that such an alternative cannot be built on the exclusive agenda of any single entity, and that the threat to the constitutional republic is real enough to give anyone in the Opposition the luxury of political exceptionalism.

If the party congress does not reverse the decision of the central committee, it will be interesting to see how the current general-secretary and his supporters respond to their defeat. Will they acquiesce to the party line or will there be another split?

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