JD(U) also performed pretty poorly. To a slightly lower extent, RJD and NCP.
Skla On 26 June 2014 19:01, Sukla Sen <[email protected]> wrote: > [Points to ponder. > The Congress, the Left, the BSP, the DMK, (also the SP) - all have > performed disastrously. > Arguably, so has the AAP, with the (freak?) exception of Punjab. > Leaving aside the too obvious case of the BJP, the AIADMK, the Trinamool > and the BJD have performed rather spectacularly.] > > > http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column-can-the-left-recover-from-its-election-debacle-1997804 > > Can the Left recover from its election debacle? > Thursday, 26 June 2014 - 6:00am IST Updated: Wednesday, 25 June 2014 - > 8:09pm IST | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA > > Almost as incredible as the Left parties' electoral rout, which halved > their Lok Sabha seats to their lowest-ever total (12, even counting two > Left-backed independents), is their failure to come to terms with its > magnitude, quality and causes. Instead of acknowledging the debacle as the > result of deep-rooted flaws in its programmes and strategies, a massive > leadership failure, and its alienation from the people, the Left first > practised denial by alleging large-scale rigging, then admitted to its > "poor" showing, and finally accepted its central leaders' "primary > responsibility for the failure". > > The CPM has shrunk to its worst national score, and a pathetic two seats > (the same as the BJP) in West Bengal, which it ruled for 34 years. The sole > consolation is its victory in tiny Tripura (two seats). The CPI and > Revolutionary Socialist Party have been reduced to near-irrelevance with > just one seat each nationally. The Forward Bloc has been wiped out. Worse, > all them have lost not just votes, but chunks of their social base, to the > BJP in a Right-wing wave they did little to resist. In Kerala, the > long-standing trend of the Left winning alternating elections has been > broken. > > Yet, no heads have rolled in the Left. The handful of CPM leaders who > offered to resign were told not to: unlike "bourgeois" parties, Marxists > believe in "collective", not "individual" responsibility! Ideologues, who > have long privileged "parliamentary cretinism" (Lenin) way above grassroots > mobilisation, now argue, charlatan-like, that their leaders don't resign on > the basis of election results: these are far less important than a failure > to expand the party's "mass base". > > But this denies that flesh-and-blood individual decisions have huge > political consequences: Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's > Singur-Nandigram-indusrialisation-at-any-cost policy ravaged the CPM's > already-feeble "mass base" in Bengal, and Pinarayi Vijayan's narrow-minded > conservatism has visited devastation upon the Kerala party, whose chances > of winning the 2011 Assembly elections he all but sabotaged. And what of > the central leadership's responsibility/complicity in allowing the Left's > drift towards quasi-neoliberal policies at the state level, which it > rhetorically opposes nationally, and its dogmatic insistence on > organisational Democratic Centralism, which brutally suppresses free > debate? > > There's stunning silence on these issues, now postponed to future central > leadership meetings. The CPI, which is usually less dogmatic and more > self-critical, does no better. All that these parties promise is a review > of "the political line and organisational functioning... to take corrective > measures", and forging "close links with the masses" to "conduct struggles" > to defend their "livelihood interests", "secularism and democratic rights". > How, and on what issues, this will be done isn't spelt out. > > The only new, and welcome, element is the CPM's decision to enlist > non-party "Marxist experts" to study the social-political impact of > liberalisation to enable the party "to re-invent itself". Past experience > casts doubts on how genuinely open the CPM would be to such independent > analysis. > > The Left parties' crisis is existential and comprehensive--encompassing > ideological-programmatic perspectives, political-mobilisation strategies > (to reverse erosion of their cadre, and trade union and kisan bases), and > about reviving internal democracy. Unless they undertake radical, brutally > honest rethinking, and re-establish their once-redoubtable presence in > grassroots struggles, they could go into terminal decline even if they win > a few elections. > > That would a great loss for Indian democracy. The Left is virtually the > only part of India's political spectrum with a commitment to the > underprivileged and to emancipatory social change, which isn't mired in > corruption, and has made rich contributions to our cultural, intellectual > and political life. If the Left ceases to exist, we would have to re-invent > it. > > *The author is a writer, columnist, and a professor at the Council for > Social Development, Delhi* > > -- > Peace Is Doable > -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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