Harkishan Singh Surjeet cannot play Marx, despite the beard that adorns his visage and the suffix that burdens his party. Blame it on history. So Harkishan Singh Surjeet plays God. An easier vocation which demands little responsibility but offers full autonomy. He plays with the destiny of coalitions and the frailties of prime ministers. Few general secretaries in the dark history of communism have enjoyed this rare privilege. They had an empire to preserve, masses to control, territories to expand. What does General Secretary Surjeet have? A fossilised mind, an ancient textbook, some funny slogans, a bagful of conspiracies and, of course, a coalition to unmake. This lord does not have even the luxury of a Pravda. So Surjeet pronounces his commandments from the safe platforms of private television channels. The latest one not only promises hell for his ``intimate'' ally I.K. Gujral but exposes the disunity of the United Front. Mulayam Singh Yadav would have been a better prime minister; Gujral, with his inept handling of Laloo Yadav and Joginder Singh, had ``harmed the UF prestige''; Deve Gowda as prime minister was more active than Gujral -- doesn't Surjeet-speak betray that destructive arrogance of a mischievous god, a god of manipulation and malevolence?

At a second look, it becomes clear that Surjeet's arrogance is born out of the artificiality of his own party. The CPI(M), a regional party with a national -- and occasionally international -- pretence, has lost India as well as history. But in this age of coalition, the party has turned its numerical strength into an extra-constitutional authority. This authority is inversely proportional to the `Soviets' it controls. And, by virtue of being an outside supporter, the party continues to wield this authority with minimum responsibility. It is this scenario which gives an apparatchik like Surjeet the fantasy that he can rule India by proxy, that methods of manipulation can be hawked as principles. Perhaps Gujral refuses to be his wilful puppet, as Deve Gowda was. What else can explain the General Secretary's sudden declaration of no-confidence in the Prime Minister? His alternative -- Mulayam Singh Yadav -- only illustrates the cultural backwardness of his anti-communalist politics.

There is a method in the CPI(M)'s senile manipulations. Remember the days of uncertainty that followed Deve Gowda's fall? As the farmer was fumbling in utter desperation to postpone his own political mortality, as leaders were multiplying only to be rejected at the last minute, the CPI(M) was the only party that exploited the anarchy to enhance its ``principles''. The principles were a sham, as proved by the party's dubious anti-Congressism and its fixation with pliable candidates. Today, Comrade Surjeet is only exploiting yet another weak moment of the coalition. He can very well afford to camouflage his manipulation with principles. For his party derives its oxygen from the wreckage of the coalition it is supposed to preserve. In another era, communists seized power through revolutions. Today, a party still haunted by that memory seeks power on the sly. As Surjeet targets Gujral, what is on display is the pathology of communist politics.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.