Disquiet in CPM after suicide,comrades blame leadership

“He was a valued comrade who gave a contribution to the development of the party and the trade union movement. The manner of his death is both tragic and painful,” Karat told The Indian Express in the CPM’s first official reaction to the tragedy. Asked if the CPM regretted the decision to strip WR of all party posts,Karat declined comment.

CITU president and CPM Politburo member M K Pandhe insisted the disciplinary action against WR had been “right”.

“The party did the right thing. The party’s decision has nothing to do with it (WR’s suicide). The decision was taken after proper inquiry. There is nothing wrong done by the party… It (his suicide) was unfortunate. What can we do?” Pandhe said.

Several Central Committee (CC) members who had gone along with the decision to take disciplinary action against WR are,however,now saying that the “stand on your own and fall on your own” attitude adopted by the leadership can potentially wreck the party.

Demands have also begun to be raised for a re-look into the implementation of the “rectification drive” in the light of the WR episode.

“We don’t need the class enemies to kill us. Our leaders will manage it themselves,” a senior CC member said bitterly. “There is no cadre policy and the leadership has no assessment about our cadre,” he said. He did not want to be quoted because the CPM follows an iron-clad rule that organisational matters should be raised only in party fora.

But the disquiet is apparent. The emerging view is that while the party might perhaps have been right in taking action against WR,it was wrong to have left him to fend for himself in his hour of crisis. Several leaders also suspect that WR became a victim of groupism in the Tamil Nadu party unit.

“The leadership should have communicated to him that the disciplinary action was just an exercise to correct him. After all,he was not expelled from the party,and we should have made him feel that he was still part of the family,” another senior CC member said.

Some comrades took a more stridently dissenting line. “By taking action in a particular case,the responsibility of the leadership doesn’t get over. At a time when we are under attack from all quarters,elimination of our cadre instead of trying to correct them shows our leadership’s weakness,not its strength. We can’t drive people to a point where they kill themselves. We all have to take responsibility for his (WR’s) death,” a senior leader said.

Though no one is yet willing to come out in open dissent,party insiders said several senior functionaries have made up their minds to convey their views to the leadership in writing.

Some CC members recalled that the matter of disciplinary action against Varadarajan had come up suddenly in the CC meeting held in Kolkata earlier this month,and a decision had been taken without much discussion.

Though Varadarajan denied the charges leveled against him at the meeting,the CC decided to strip him of his posts because the state unit wanted him punished. “Frankly,we didn’t get time to mull over it,” said a CC member.

Top CPM leaders in Kolkata said WR listened silently when Prakash Karat first referred to the case of former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee to make the point that the party would not tolerate indiscipline,and then proposed his (WR’s) removal at the CC meeting.

“WR did not utter a single word,” said a senior leader. Leaders present at the meeting said

WR later submitted a written note to Karat before leaving.

Many West Bengal CPM leaders said WR’s case needed “better handling” by the party general secretary. Many asked what actually constituted “immoral” activity,why the party leadership needed to interfere in what was clearly a private,family matter,and why WR’s note was not discussed in the CC.

Old-timers pointed out that Varadarajan’s was not the first case of suicide in the party — they recalled the tragic fate of leaders like Desraj Chaddha and Shailendra Shaily. “Nobody knew why they committed suicide,” they said. Shaily,a central committee member and secretary of the Madhya Pradesh state committee,killed himself in 2001,while Chaddha committed suicide around two decades ago.

“Comrades feel alone when faced with adversity. It seems there is lack of comradeship within the CPM. It is becoming clear that we don’t treat our cadres or our leaders well. This ‘stand on your own and fall on your own’ attitude is not good for the party,” said a senior leader.

Many said the Varadarajan episode had showed that the rectification drive,which started towards the end of last year to root out ‘non-Communist’ trends that had crept into the party,should be undertaken with great care.

“Rectification is becoming elimination. The idea is to point out errors and give comrades a chance to correct themselves. We should be helping them rather than washing our hands of the matter after having taking action,” said a Politburo member.