After the Indian Union Muslim League made it clear that it was firmly behind the Congress's layered stand on both Governor Arif Mohammad Khan's perceived overreach and the Vizhinjam anti-port protests, the CPM has shown signs of settling back to its default mode of keeping the IUML at a distance.
"The CPM will always be the first to support and encourage anyone who wants to fight for Kerala's development and against the political agenda of the Sangh Parivar. It was on this basis that we had welcomed the stand taken by the Muslim League and others in the issues related to Vizhinjam and the Governor. Such a stand, no matter who adopts it, we are duty-bound to welcome with an open mind. This should not be confused with the entry of a party into the LDF," the CPM state secretary M V Govindan said in his latest column in 'Deshabhimani', the party mouthpiece.
This clarification, which comes more than a week after the state secretary sanctified the League as non-communal, suggests a quick and urgent recalibration of the party's political strategy.
Top CPM sources had earlier told Onmanorama that the party's original intention in declaring the League as a non-sinner was not to prepare the ground for the party's entry into the LDF fold but to sow seeds of dissension in the UDF.
A senior CPM leader said it would be a gross mistake to read Govindan's remarks as an invite to the IUML. “The party is realistic about the chances of the IUML hopping over to the Left. We are aware that a highly influential section within the League, including its state president Panakkad Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal, consider the Marxists as dangerous as the RSS,” the leader said.
The objective, therefore, was solely to destabilise the UDF.
CPM fox and UDF sheep
The CPM was trying to cash in on the feeling that the League was disturbed by Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president K Sudhakaran's remarks that seemed soft on the Sangh Parivar. It was also no secret that the League had found some of Governor Arif Mohammad Khan's stand on Muslim affairs highly objectionable, especially his chastisement of Muslim religious leaders for their insistence on hijab.
Sensing that the League had a deep distrust for Khan, the CPM had unleashed a political campaign projecting the Congress leaders and the Governor as co-conspirators.
The Congress party's, especially opposition leader V D Satheesan's, thumbs up for the Governor's move to sack vice chancellors en masse came in handy for the CPM. The party also pounced upon the initial confusion in the Congress on how to respond to a government-sponsored Bill to remove the Governor as Chancellor.
The CPM also made it seem that the League and the Congress were not on the same page on the Vizhinjam issue. The League did not want the port construction to stop. The Congress also held the same stand but was not vocal about it. This allowed the CPM to declare the IUML as pro-development and the Congress narrow minded.
In short, the CPM was merely attempting to intensify the League's disenchantment hoping that in due course it would derail the UDF.
CPM proposes God disposes
As it turned out, the exact opposite happened. The CPM's strategy to set the cat among the pigeons ended up with the pigeons closing ranks.
The League and the Congress started backing each other, like duet singers who had rediscovered the art of complimenting each other. Such a note of harmony was heard from the opposition side during the just concluded Assembly session.
The Congress and the Muslim League stuck to the same arguments. On Vizhinjam, both were against a construction freeze even if it meant an endorsement of the government approach.
At the same time, in one voice they said the government had badly failed the fishermen and had let the issue drift dangerously. "We should consider ourselves lucky that nothing more happened in Vizhinjam," League parliamentary party leader P K Kunhalikutty said.
On the Governor's issue, too, both the parties adopted the same nuanced stand. They wanted the Governor taken off the chancellorship. That said, both argued that the Bill would not address their biggest fear: the CPM interference in university affairs.
On top of all this, Sadiq Ali Thangal himself said that the League was an integral part of the UDF.
Even if Govindan had intended only to weaken the UDF, the impression that emerged was that the CPM had tried to woo the League and failed. No wonder the CPM state secretary made a subtle but quick retreat.
Liberal and rational sins
Even then it does not look like the CPM has any plans, at least in the near future, to go back to old style League bashing. General education minister V Sivankutty's eagerness to assure the League that the government would not push ahead with its gender-neutral policy was a pointer.
All that the Muslim League finds offensive about the gender-neutral policy are in fact the very ideals for which the Left is supposed to stand for. For instance, the League MLA N Samshudheen told the Assembly that the policy would sneak in liberal ideas into the classrooms. Further, he said the students would be trained in rational thinking.
Ideally the minister should have defended what the government had claimed to be progressive but instead Sivankutty responded like he was deeply sorry if the League got the feeling that the LDF government was out to inculcate liberal and rational thinking in students.
