Again, the common adversary was the Congress, as in 1967 when the Samyukta Vidhayak Dals of the Hindi belt brought the communists and the Jan Sangh together. This camaraderie was confirmed during the days of the Janata Party in 1977-79 and the Janata Dal in 1989-90. On both occasions, the Left provided outside support to these formations which included the Jan Sangh-BJP.

The only departure from these tactics was when the two motley alliances led by H.D. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral took office at the centre in the mid-Nineties. In these cases, it was the Congress which gave outside support along with the CPI(M) to governments which included the CPI. The objective of this unusual togetherness of the Congress and the communists was to keep out the BJP. It had finally dawned on the Left that the only effect of its relentless anti-Congressism was to strengthen the “communal” forces, which the comrades were supposed to fight.

The awareness of this danger persuaded the Left to continue to befriend the Congress from 2004. But the rupture between the two on the Indo-US nuclear deal again brought the communists and the “communalists” together. The two acted in unison in parliament on the deal and have since taken similar stances on all major issues as in the case of last Monday's bandh. It can also be said with a fair degree of certainty that the two will continue their indirect alliance in the foreseeable future.

The political scene, however, is a little different from what it was in the Sixties and Seventies when they first came together. At that time, their joining of hands was an act of desperation. Since the Congress was seen as an immovable object, virtually all the other parties had no alternative but to stand together. Ideology was discarded for the sake of survival on the ground. It is also possible that the Left did not realize that the main beneficiary of this unity would be the saffronites. The communists probably flattered themselves by thinking that it was they who would forge ahead.

Both these possibilities can now be discounted. Neither will the BJP gain as much as it did in the Nineties from the latest round of anti-Congressism, nor will the Left. In fact, the latter will probably suffer even more setbacks than it did in last year's parliamentary polls. On the other hand, the BJP's declining fortunes can be seen from the fall in the number of its allies in the NDA from 24 in Atal Behari Vajpayee's time to three - the JD (U), Akali Dal and the Shiv Sena - at present. Of these, the JD (U) is evidently uneasy in the BJP's company, as was seen in the Nitish Kumar-Narendra Modi spat recently, and may reassess its future in the NDA after the Bihar elections later this year.

In a way, therefore, the country is returning to the period when the Congress was a towering presence - although it is still nowhere near what it was in the Fifties and early Sixties - while a weak Left and a weak BJP are banding together along with some of the smaller parties to keep up their spirits and prevent being trampled on. However, there is an additional factor which will be discomfiting for them. In the Sixties and Seventies, communism was a potent force while the Jan Sangh-BJP had the latent support of the orthodox Hindus and sections of the middle class.

But the demise of communism in the Soviet Union and China's embracement of market economy have robbed the Left of much of its appeal. The fizzling out of the BJP's temple agenda has also shown that the country will not abandon its multicultural ethos. So, both the communists and the “communalists” have lost their main ideological planks. The ease with which they could drum up support earlier with slogans like “amar nam, tomar nam, Vietnam, Vietnam” and “mandir wohin banayenge” was no longer possible.

For the Congress, the high growth rate, which draws international acclaim, and the hedonistic mall-and-multiplex culture have given it the image of a modern party, which reflects the aspirations of the growing middle class. The aam admi may not have benefited as much as the middle class, but the Congress has won the battle of the TV channels, where the communists are projected as habitual spoilers and the BJP leaders as conservatives with a mofussil mindset. Unless the Congress makes a serious blunder, either in the PakAf region or by losing ground to the Maoists, the anti-Congressism of the Left and the BJP will not be of much help. (IPA Service)