Ex-Comrade: The Opium of Bhagavad Gita

After long discussions and deliberations among Communist patriarchs, the much-awaited answer to their riddle, ‘How we failed in Tripura’, has finally come to light. CPM central committee member Gautam Das has been entrusted with the historical responsibility to officially announce the reasons, validated by dialectical method, behind the ‘utterly disappointing outcome’ of the Tripura Assembly election. Gautam Das enumerated a bunch of reasons in an article, titled ‘Electoral Setback in Tripura and its Causes’, in the current issue of People’s Democracy, the official mouthpiece of the CPM. It seems the author has a ‘two-fold mission’ as it also addresses a supplementary question, why will Communists continue to remain a laughing stock in India? Inverting the words of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the proponent of Dialectics which was later adulterated by Marx, we learn from the political history of India that Indian Communists learn nothing from history.

Making a mockery of prevailing destitution and rampant poverty and backwardness in the state, the first half of the article eulogised the 25-year-long Communist rule in Tripura and its ‘achievements’. The second half details the ‘reasons for serious setback’, but brushes the real reasons and issues under carpet.

Before dwelling deep into the Communist analysis, readers must bear in mind that motivating others, giving hope to the people and talking development are graver sins than apostasy according to the red book of Communism! The article accuses RSS Sarsanghchak Shri Mohan Bhagwat of motivating the Hindu religious leaders in Tripura on his last visit to the state! The article alleges BJP of bribing the voters throughout the state, ridiculing the democratic spirit of the people of Tripura.

Then comes the terrible blunder, the Swayamsevaks were caught red-handed while distributing ‘RSS membership forms’ at temples! The article goes like this, “For the last three and half years, RSS workers regularly used to visit different temples and paid huge money. They used to distribute RSS membership forms.” One will nearly bust a gut laughing at the ‘serious’ observations of the party, the final outcome of nearly month-long discussions held at various levels from Agartala to New Delhi. Since it is a well-known fact that RSS offers no formal membership, what else can define the sheer ignorance of the CPM about fundamentals of the RSS, which has been declared as the party’s major ideological adversary.

Moreover, at last, the party has discovered the reason, which thwarted the advancement of its ideology in the Hindu heartland. The article alleges, “‘Gita was freely distributed particularly among women who used to visit temples.” Yes, reading Bhagavad Gita can disillusion you about your violent and exclusive ideology of Communism. Well, better late than never, the Communists have now officially acknowledged that it is the time to put an end to their nine decades-long expeditions in Bharat, which is essentially Hindu in culture, where a foreign and invasive ideology can hardly retain its foothold for a quite long time.

As a balancing act, the party intellectuals seem to have come to terms with reality towards the end of the article. Conceding the fact that the BJP made inroads to the tribal belt in Tripura, a traditional vote bank of the CPM and it harnessed the disenchantment of youth who were born and brought up under CPM-rule. It went on to argue that “Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed four election rallies and in all the public meetings, Modi promised the government employees implementation of seventh pay commission awards, promised the social pension benefit holders to raise their pension amount from Rs 700 to Rs 2000.” While projecting Modi’s promise as an unpardonable sin, the CPM has no qualms in admitting that Tripura has been following the Fourth Pay Commission Report under the CPM rule while all the other states have implemented the Seventh Pay Commission Report.

Marking a departure from the party’s knee-jerk reaction, the article gives scant space for the usual suspects like Congress, Electronic Voting Machine, muscle power of ‘Sangh Parivar’ etc, which they had extensively pointed out as the reasons for the failure in the press release close on the heels of the declaration of the results. According to the fictional analysis concocted for its lumpen proletariat and organic intellectuals of CPM, the BJP has committed three cardinal mistakes in Tripura: Gave hope to the people, Restored the civilisational values and Promised a future of development. Tripura has thus turned out to be a forbidden land for Communists and the people of Tripura who have been hailed as progressive for nearly two decades, have been rendered reactionary in overnight.