The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has dispelled the grim forebodings of the Jeremiah. The outcome of the ideological churning at the Hyderabad session of the 22nd party congress mirrors the pragmatic realism ~ articulated pre-eminently by Jyoti Basu ~ close to 55 years after its foundation (7 November 1964).

Not that the dialectical process, embedded in the Hegelian triad of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis resulting in a new thesis was manifest in the confabulations of a party that bears witness to the burial of ideology. And yet to avert deepening dissension ~ not to be confused with a split ~ the party did resort to a bout of semantic quibbling, in effect drawing a fine distinction between an “understanding” and “alliance” with the Indian National Congress ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The compromise, that has been reached, in Hyderabad has at best staved off a crisis; it would be presumptuous, even off the mark, to greet the upshot as a “tectonic shift” in the CPI-M’s paradigm. Having lost its bastions in Bengal and rather surprisingly in Tripura, the party clings onto Kerala… contending with the in-house factions. The CPI-M would hate to be labelled as a regional party; nonetheless, it has reaffirmed that while it may be down, it is not out.

It can be expected to trim its sails in keeping with the winds of change, most particularly the Right-turn ~ as in certain countries of Europe ~ exemplified by the ascendancy of the Bharatiya Janata Party. This is the stark signal that has been emitted by the 22nd congress.

The party will not deny the discord at the helm over the equation with the effete Congress that once brought the country freedom. Yet the bickering was mild in comparison to the 20th congress in Kozhikode ~ when the moderate VS Achuthanandan, once the Chief Minister of Kerala, walked off the dais and the distinguished economist from JNU, Prabhat Patnaik, took the earliest flight out of Thiruvananthapuram to Delhi.

On closer reflection, there is little that is novel about the matrix of an “understanding” with the Congress. Prakash Karat’s formula of “no truck” with the Congress would have been unwittingly tantamount to playing to the BJP gallery ~ an anathema no less. Though the “thesis” dished out in Hyderabad might be anathema to the traditionalists and hardliners, the idea, it would be useful to recall, was first floated by Jyoti Basu in the 1990s in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babari Masjid and the imperative to keep the BJP at bay.

It was tried out in 2004 when the party, indubitably under the overarching influence of Basu, agreed to support the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance. The honeymoon was over in July 2008 when the party withdrew support to the UPA over the Indo-US nuclear deal… this time under the assertive leadership of Karat & Co.

The Bengal lobby is yet to reconcile itself to the withdrawal; in point of fact, the Left debacle in 2011 has in large part been attributed to Karat’s rather reckless assertion of authority and the snapping of ties with the Congress, reinforced with the expulsion of the Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, from the party.

From Singur/Nandigram to the coalition at the Centre, both the party’s government and its hardliners had played into the hands of Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress. Though the contours are yet to be spelt out, the halfway-house of an “understanding” with the Congress vindicates the stand of the Bengal lobby, however unpalatable to the comrades in Kerala, pre-eminently its present Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan.

In the net, Yechury’s “minority draft”, so-called by his detractors within, has triumphed over the Central Committee’s “majority view” (aka of Karat). His tactical line has been accepted, after all. He has countered the overwhelming dominance of his detractors in the Politburo and Central Committee. The anti-Yechury camp, as it were, still has a slight upper hand in both the pivotal entities. Chiefly, the 80-year-old S. Ramachandran Pillai, Karat’s close confidante in the Politburo, has been retained.

Furthermore, the number of members from Bengal in the 17-member Politburo, has risen from four to six, notably with the induction of the Citu general secretary, Tapan Sen, and Nilotpal Basu. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, under the weather for quite some time, has been dropped as “special invitee” though the party may yet benefit from his advice in the face of ideological contretemps. He has already caused a flutter in the roost by breaking his silence over the pre-panchayat poll mayhem.

The kerfuffle within the CPI-M has to an extent been resolved with the election of Yechury as general secretary for a second term. It is an index to the discord within that the appointment of the person at the helm was a subject of intense speculation… even 24 hours after Yechury’s tactical line in relation to the Congress was adopted.

His re-election, therefore, gives the Bengal lobby a mild edge… certainly over Kerala and arguably also over Tripura whose former Chief Minister, Manik Sarkar, was among the probables. The party in the tiny state, where it ruled for 25 years without any major hiccup, now requires his presence most acutely. Which alone explains why he wasn’t relocated to the central leadership.

The party’s nod to Yechury’s second innings at the crease has come after months of internal bickering and semantic quibbling over whether or not to have what they call an “understanding” ~ and not an alliance ~ with the Congress. Both his role as the party’s No. One and his political line ahead of the next Lok Sabha election have been reaffirmed. Hyderabad has not diluted his significance in the overall construct. A firm decision on the electoral compulsion was as imperative as a decision on the next man at the helm.

Markedly, the incumbent’s candidature was decided by a show of hands in the newly-elected 95-member central committee. It is the absence of a vote, albeit a certitude of inner-party democracy, that has been able to avert what might have been a visibly split decision. No less critically, it has been able to avoid a contest after a bout of ideological churning over the equation with the Congress.

The party has generally been reserved while greeting the re-election; none has gone on record to suggest that Yechury has upstaged the Prakash Karat/ Pinarayi Vijayan school of Marxist praxis though that must be the underlying message. The renewal of his position cannot but be welcomed by the apparatchiks of Alimuddin Street and the omnipotent CalDC (Calcutta District Committee). His proximity to the Bengal lobby has been a striking feature of inner-party politics.

Few sessions of the party congress have been as stormy as the one just ended. A reassuring message from Yechury was, therefore, compelling ~ “If there is one message that has gone out from this 22nd party congress, it is that the CPI-M has emerged united and determined to carry out the revolutionary task”.

More accurately, it is a party of reluctant revolutionaries with a singular agenda ~ the defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The CPI-M has been a mute witness to the burial of Ideology. The “course correction” in West Bengal, advocated in the aftermath of the 2011 debacle, remains a non-starter. At the end of the day, only the BJP retains its ideological credentials. The CPI-M, the only other astute party in the spectrum, is groping.

The writer is a Senior Editor, The Statesman