India's Communists in a Quandary

...The Rightists, led by trade-union leader S. A. Dange of Bombay, favor Russia, oppose China's adventures in the Himalayas and broadly support Nehru's foreign policy...

...Nor are the Centrists and the Leftists in any happier position...

...Three years ago, the Kerala Government of Namboodripad, the new General Secretary, was dismissed by the Indian President for attempting to subvert the Constitution and was subsequently routed in a midterm election...

...The Leftists, meanwhile, were given four seats on the Central Secretariat, which has been expanded from seven to nine members—leaving three Rightists and two Centrists to hold the uneasy balance...

...Despite his spectacular electoral victory, Krishna Menon is not noticeably stronger in New Delhi...

...In ordinary times under settled, political and economic conditions, such cynicism and political hypocrisy would get the treatment it deserves...

...But whereas the Prime Minister has the power and the ability to hold his polyglot Government together for some years to come—and even to hammer out some kind of cohesion—it is extremely doubtful that Chairman Dange is in a similar position...

...In addition, the party was almost wiped out in the State of Maharashtra whose capital city is Bombay...

...In northern Punjab, even the usually correct Praja Socialists flirted with Master Tara Singh, the Sikh leader who wants to carve out a separate homeland for his community in northern India...

...At home, the Communists plan to continue their infiltration into the Congress party in order to support "progressives" like Defense Minister V. K. Krishna Menon, while at the same time saving Nehru from the "reactionaries" with which he is "surrounded...

...But for India these are hardly ordinary times...

...In Bombay, for example, the Congress joined with the Communists to get a member of Nehru's Cabinet re-elected...

...Dange, an able parliamentarian, is known to desire a nationalist Communist party based on the soil and free of international supervision and control...

...In the view of New Delhi's Hindustan Times: "The session of the National Council only has served to underline the disarray in which the Communist party finds itself today, both in the spheres of organization and policy...

...Following India's general elections in February, which returned the National Congress party to power, Nehru formed a new Federal Cabinet combining almost all of India's major geographical regions as well as all the Party's fissiparous political strands, ranging from near-Communist to ultra-conservative...

...What he has in mind appears to be something resembling the Yugoslav Communist party, and China's persistent pugnacity is helping him toward his goal...

...But he has a long way to go before he can convince the people of this country that the Indian Communist party has abandoned its extra-territorial loyalties...

...But the Communists, trying to ignore these criticisms, hope their party will now be able to face two ways in foreign affairs simultaneously—toward both Moscow and Peking...

...Sharokh Sabavala is The New Leader's correspondent in India...

...Now the Communist party, the main opposition bloc in the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament), has followed suit in an attempt to unite the disparate elements in its own house...

...Communist party leadership has for some time been split between Rightists, Centrists and Leftists...

...As Spring advances and melts the Himalayan snows, Chinese ultimatums begin to descend on New Delhi...

...Troubled by the recent death of General Secretary Ajoy Ghosh and the general elections which did not see the party make any directly significant advances, India's Communist leadership met last month in New Delhi to decide what to do about its differences...

...Leftist leader Jyoti Basu, however, has been branded a traitor by no less a personage than Nehru, and this is not likely to enhance either his present insignificant national reputation or the Leftist cause...

...Elsewhere in the country, political lines are just as hopelessly entangled...

...if anything, he is noticeably more subdued...

...In the last 18 months, Communists have been systematically resigning from the Communist party and joining the Congress party, while, of course, actually remaining loyal Communists...

...The Leftists, represented by Jyoti Basu of Calcutta, continue to think Nehru the running dog of imperialism, openly support Chinese aggression against India and profess no faith whatever in the Indian Constitution...

...Under the new reorganization rules, none of these three frustrated men will have sufficient power to oust the other from the party's Central Secretariat...

...What will happen to the party during this time is anyone's guess, though it can hardly be expected to prosper...

...During Nehru's recent illness, it could not help but be noticed that it was Finance Minister Morarji R. Desai who seemed to be acting as the de facto Prime Minister, not Menon or Mines and Fuels Minister K. D. Malaviya, another "progressive" favorite of the Communists...

...But Nehru's Cabinet has considerably disappointed the infiltrators...

...Instead, they all will jockey for position during the next five years to add to the power of their respective factions...

...This situation could strengthen Chairman Dange's position and better enable him to deal with the party's Left-dominated Central Secretariat...

...Nehru's Cabinet, no less than the Communist party's hierarchy, reflects the national disarray on the political front...

...The Prime Minister has not, as they expected, leaned to the Left...

...In Madras, the Communists lent support to a frankly communal and anti-Brahmin local faction, which also wants all the southern states to secede from the Indian Union...

...If rifts in the party organization have forced it to make structural innovations providing for a division of power between a Chairman and a General Secretary, differences of policy have compelled it to suggest contrary lines of action, aimed at denigrating the Congress party and, at the same time, at inducing 'progressive forces' within it to support a national democratic front...

...THREE-WAY SPLIT PLAGUES THE PARTY India's Communists in a Quandary By Sharokh Sabavala Bombay The Communist party of India, never conspicuous for its original thinking, has stolen a leaf this time from the political notebook of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru...

...Lest anyone mistake this as a victory for the Right, however, Centrist leader E. M. S. Namboodripad was appointed General Secretary...

...The Indian Communist party's quandary deepens as border clashes between the Indian and Chinese armies seem more imminent...

...After prolonged deliberations, the National Council hammered out the following formula: For the first time, there is to be a party Chairman— S. A. Dange...

...The Leftists, while losing some important seats in Calcutta, not only held their former position in the key state of West Bengal but have picked up 26 new seats in the Legislature of the southeastern state of Andhra...

...Another leading Indian paper thought Chairman Dange would be no more than the "ineffective noisebox of the Communist party's warring factions...

...The Centrists, following the lead of former Kerala Chief Minister E. M. S. Namboodripad, have been inclined to fence-sitting not only between Russia and China and Rightists and Leftists, but also between the party factions which support democratic processes and outright rebellion...

...A prominent Bombay fellow-traveler recently told me that he and 5,000 "like-minded spirits" were about to join the Congress party, but had drawn back in "disgust" because the "old man [Nehru] is up to his tricks again...

...Dange recently lost his Parliament seat from Central Bombay, a working class district which formerly was the Communist redoubt in western India...

...Every party, not excluding the Congress, has gone in for some blatant horse-trading before, during and since the elections...