CPI(M) sibling rivalry on minorities

New Delhi, July 29: The “favourite” communist son is threatening to undo the Bengal sibling’s clawback project.

The Kerala CPI(M) has trained its guns on “Muslim extremism” at a time the bruised Bengal unit is trying hard to win back minorities before the Assembly elections next year.

Fully backing the Kerala unit, the central leadership of the CPI(M) has decided to focus on highlighting what it feels are the perils of “Muslim extremism”. The conflicting approaches are set to intensify the clash between the Bengal and central lines in the CPI(M).

Kerala chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan has already fired an explosive salvo, drawing attention to fundamentalism in the wake of an assault on a college teacher whose palm was chopped by assailants linked to a radical Islamic outfit called the Popular Front of India (PFI).

Most of those picked up for the grisly attack — apparently because a question paper prepared by the lecturer contained allegedly derogatory references to Islam — belong to the minority community.

“In 20 years, they (fundamentalists) want to make Kerala Muslim-dominated. Youngsters are being given money and are being lured to convert — marry Muslim women and then give birth to Muslim children so that they can multiply,” Achuthanandan recently said in Delhi.

Communists — especially a veteran like Achuthanandan — usually do not make such sweeping statements. But it betrayed the unease in the CPI(M) as it battles an erosion of votes from two key minority communities in Kerala — Muslims and Christians.

The CPM appears to have antagonised both communities — in a small state like Kerala minor swings can change the outcome in elections — by a series of steps ranging from interventionist education policies to attempts to split the Muslims.

In the disastrous Lok Sabha elections last year, the CPI(M) in Kerala had cosied up to a radical group called PDP in an attempt to undercut the mainstream Muslim League, a Congress ally that is widely considered secular.

Achuthanandan had then opposed the understanding, saying it was illogical to woo splinter minority groups at the cost of alienating the majority Hindus — a stand the CPI(M) central committee had later endorsed.

The pro-minority gamble failed and now the Kerala CPI(M), with the blessings of even Achuthanandan’s rival faction led by state party chief Pinarayi Vijayan, is wooing the majority community. A decision to dump a Muslim breakaway faction from the Left coalition had paid off and created a pro-CPI(M) Hindu tilt in 1987.

However, in Bengal, the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government is leaving no stone unturned to win back the minority community, whose desertion is considered one of the main reasons the party did so miserably in successive elections.

Nandigram, which has a considerable number of Muslims, was the flashpoint which channelled the disenchantment that had welled up over the years.

Since then, Bhattacharjee has announced a government job quota and a series of welfare measures in a desperate attempt to stem the slide.

The Kerala offensive has come at that inopportune juncture — something the Congress has sought to underscore by pointing out that the CPI(M) has allied with the BJP to target the UPA in Parliament over price rise.

The Bengal CPI(M) fears Trinamool Congress might latch on to the Kerala controversy and try to widen the minority alienation from the Left.

Some Bengal leaders are pointing fingers at Karat, saying he is more concerned about Kerala than Bengal. “Karat’s attitude regarding Bengal is totally defeatist,” said a leader from the eastern state.

Bengal leaders feel that given the sensitivities, Achuthanandan’s views should have been kept confined to Kerala and not pitched at the national level. If some CPI(M) members raise the Kerala issue in Parliament, it will add to the agony of the Bengal unit.

“Attacking Hindu terror works fine for us. But taking on Muslim extremism is a very sensitive issue and so we should be careful. Achuthanandan is sounding like the Bajrang Dal and the central party is backing him,” said a senior CPI(M) MP.


J.P. Yadav, The Telegraph