CPM’s Right Turn at Development Crossroads

As CPM supports neo-liberal policies, needy communities are increasingly pushed out of the welfare net, raising questions about its commitment to the marginalized.

Outrageous comments by CPM functionaries like Elamaram Kareem and MM Mani against dissenting voices are nothing new. Both have long been notorious for their inflammatory rhetoric.

What is surprising, however, is CPM’s temerity to question the Accredited Social Health Activists’ (ASHA) right to strike. Bizarrely, the party views their demands for better wages and working conditions as blasphemous and an unpardonable violation of work-wage agreements.

This approach reflects certain fundamental changes CPM has undergone over the years. Once self-proclaimed champions of the working class, the party can no longer identify with the proletariat. Nor is it willing to tolerate dissent. This underscores CPM’s quest for ‘absolute order’ and an ‘unbreakable system’ when in power. As the party increasingly self-identifies with power, it has distanced itself from workers and their struggles—unless they belong to organized groups with significant electoral clout.

Political scientist G Gopakumar describes this othering as a reflection of ‘the politics of 33%.’ Pro-left organized groups, including service organizations, student unions, and trade unions, help LDF secure 33% of the vote share even during the worst electoral drubbings. CPM alone garners a minimum of 22% from this segment. An additional 6% often propels LDF to power, he said.

“The striking ASHAs may not fit into this political matrix,” Gopakumar notes, explaining why their demands are dismissed.
Since the party and govt became indistinguishable under chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, CPM and its feeder organizations have become prisoners of self-manufactured truths.

The absence of an alternative economic programme has pushed the party toward neo-liberal policies and crony capitalism, albeit under fancy names. As contradictions intensify, party functionaries paint fictitious pictures of projects and programmes that CPM would have once branded as anti-poor and neo-liberal in a non-LDF regime.

For instance, CPM state secretary MV Govindan’s claim that the controversial semi-high-speed rail project would benefit Kudumbashree workers by enabling them to sell snacks and pickles is a classic example of the party’s political packaging of crony capitalism.

Similarly, the ongoing effort by SFI functionaries to portray the private universities that CPM plans to introduce as wonderfully different and socially responsible is the latest in a series of manufactured truths.

According to them, it was not political opposition but personal animosity that led an SFI activist to manhandle former state higher education council vice-chairperson TP Sreenivasan minutes before the Oommen Chandy govt hosted an international conclave on private investment in higher education. SFI is now working hard to legitimize this narrative.

While Vijayan is often targeted for CPM’s ideological departure, it would be unfair to hold him solely responsible for the party opting for neo-liberal programmes and policies in Kerala.

“It’s true that CPM doesn’t have a serious alternative economic programme. No single leader is responsible for this predicament. Since CPM shifted its allegiance to a different class, the absence of an alternative programme doesn’t bother them either,” observed social scientist KT Rammohan.

Rammohan adds that despite discarding leftist politics, CPM has found shortcuts to serve its electoral goals. A strong beneficiary ecosystem props the party up electorally, even as core leftist values erode. “This could be why CPM leaders speak of labour and work using the language familiar to the apostles of industrial capitalism,” he says.

Vijayan’s leadership has perhaps made it easier for CPM to dump its ideological baggage and replace it with the politics of development. Known for his reliance on brute force rather than ideological principles, Vijayan has never been concerned with academic or Marxist underpinnings. Initiatives like the Navakeralam campaign, investment conclaves, K-Rail, and private universities were to cater to the aspirations of the upper middle class.

Academic and social critic Damodar Prasad offers a different perspective on the CPM’s ideological conundrum and rightist tendencies. “Pinarayi Vijayan has adopted a post-ideological revisionism that none of his predecessors in CPM could successfully implement elsewhere in the country due to self-doubt and ideological baggage. In this new political context, issues like those of the ASHAs are not a matter of crucial concern for CPM,” he explained.

Political scientist J Prabhash, however, doubts the longevity of CPM’s new approach. “They moved on and embraced right-wing policies long ago. Their approach to the ASHA strike proves this,” he says.

While leftist ideology may linger, the left as an electoral force will continue to lose its appeal, he said. “Even if LDF retains power for a third consecutive term, it won’t save leftist politics or CPM. As an electoral force, the Left will move further right until there is nothing left in the left. Leftist politics may regain currency only when people get sick of rightist politics,” he concludes.