Waste management in Alappuzha, organic vegetable cultivation in Ernakulam, palliative care in Kannur, and now accident relief work in Kochi and a volunteer force for any occasion in Kannur… The CPI(M) in Kerala seems to be considering non-political (or apoliticalIJ), voluntary social service as the most practical way to broad-base its political organization in the changing times.
The newest in Kerala CPI(M)'s voluntary initiatives is a volunteer force in Kannur whose members will be available for service in almost all kinds of situations — marriages, funerals, disaster management, accident relief, etc. The first force had taken birth in Kannur, considered as the Marxist heartland of Kerala, and will gradually have units all over the State, if party district secretary P Jayarajan can be believed.
"A section of the media is projecting it as a resistance force. That impression is wrong. This force is meant to help people of all sections in their needs," according to Jayarajan. The force is being constituted first as one of young men aged between 20 and 30 and there are plans to constitute a women's volunteer force as well.
What prompted the general impression that the volunteer force could be a resistance force was its uniform and the six-foot wooden rod (Danda) the volunteers would reportedly carry. A senior party leader admitted that the force could resemble the RSS in its outward appearance but its mission is not to resist political opponents.
According to Jayarajan, the volunteer force will work in different fields and the volunteers will be given physical training in first aid, rescue operations, etc. "Anybody can seek the services of the volunteer force," he says. The force will make its first public appearance with a district-level volunteer march in Kannur on May 26.
Also, the party in Kochi will witness soon the creation of an accident action force of selected head-load workers and autorikshaw drivers, trained in accident relief operations like administering first aid to accident victims, handling of the injured and taking them to hospitals. In the first phase, the force will have 200 members.
Social service is an area with which nobody may find fault, but critics of the CPI(M) are interpreting the new trend in the party as an indication of how it is being unable to politically adapt to the changing political and economic realities of the world. They say that this emphasis of the party on "NGO-ism" is a sign of its "rapid journey" into self-apoliticization.
"Marxist leaders may be tempted to claim that the involvement in social service is part of a strategy to broad-base the party. But the fact is that they are unmistakably entering a capitalist domain where tools for social survival for parties and companies are charity and social service. Indeed, this move is a direct result of liberalization," said a former CPI(M) theorist.
"This is nothing new. People like me had predicted this when the intellectuals and economists of the CPI(M) had made the 1996-2001 party-led government in Kerala launch the people's plan programme. It was the start of the CPI(M)'s large-scale NGO-ism for the society and politics," he said.
Critics also point out that the DYFI, the youth outfit of the CPI(M), has already lost its image as an organization that steers youth onto the path of Marxian thought and people's revolution and has become an apolitical group whose main activity is organizing events like village football tournaments and medical camps just like any other apolitical voluntary organization.
"Indian Marxists talk about the need of changing party strategies in accordance with the changes taking place in the society. But, instead of preparing the party to face the challenges of the socio-economic changes, it is surrendering to those changes," says a Kochi-based historian with close links to the CPI(M). "I am sure the capitalists would like it," he adds.