may 21, 2011

Getting to the Roots of Failure

here are those who say that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] and the Left Front (LF) it headed would not have suffered the electoral debacle in West Bengal that it did if a Harkishan Singh Surjeet and a Jyoti Basu were at the helm, the former in A K Gopalan Bhavan in New Delhi and the latter in Writers Building in Kolkata. A deft handling of the Congress Party more persuasion, less intimidation by the former would have checkmated an electoral alliance of that party with the Trinamool Congress, while a skilful combination of coercion and consent by the latter in the acquisition of agricultural lands for the moneybags, and the attraction of private investment more through his image of a comrade of big business than by having to dole out further fiscal concessions, would have kept the partys social contract with the people intact. In other words, the inexperience or incompetence of the CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat and of the LF government Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee along with that of West Bengal CPI(M) State Secretary Biman Basu did the party in. But that would be a shallow analysis of the debacle, and would merely call for a change of leadership with the core of the partys programme of 1964 intact. Surely deeper criticism and self-criticism would be in order. Going by the CPI(M)s 1964 programme, did the conduct of the party and the government it headed for 34 years in West Bengal promote the maturing of the conditions for the peoples democratic revolution (PDR), the partys immediate goal? Did LF governance bring the desired immediate relief to the people in the last decade of that period of governance? Did it strengthen the mass movement as the partys programme thought it would? Did it educate the people on the need for replacing the present bourgeois-landlord state and government headed by the big bourgeoisie? Tragically, instead the people rejected the CPI(M). To put it bluntly, the LFs electoral defeat reflects the publics rejection of the CPI(M)s promotion of the process of primitive accumulation of capital for instance, in the conversion of agricultural lands to real estate through coercion, benefiting capital. Wonder what Marx would have had to say, for the party did this in his name! Surely, the partys theory and practice calls for ruthless criticism and selfcriticism. In this, and in these columns, we can at most lay out the canvas and begin to sketch a few strokes, hopefully not wild ones. With the approach of the transfer of power from the British colonialists, the original CPI went through a militant Maoist
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phase (1946-51 in Telangana) but soon, in the post-Stalin period, and especially after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (in 1956), the party adopted the path of peaceful transition to socialism at its Amritsar Congress in 1958. But then the Sino-Soviet ideological split and a long-drawn factional struggle led to the formation of the CPI(M) in 1964. And soon thereafter the CPI(M) leadership was confronted from within by the embrace of Maoism by sections of the party in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh following the Naxalbari revolt of 1967. While the party publicly voiced the slogan peoples democratic revolution is our word of worship, it was clear that, like the CPI, it was wedded to the parliamentary path, for the necessary ideological, political, organisational and military preparations for the PDR were non-existent. Elections and participation in government became the main form of struggle. Over time, the CPI(M) became an integral part of the structure of governance in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura. In states like Tamil Nadu, along with the CPI, it placed itself at the tail-end of either the DMK or the AIADMK, alternately pronouncing one of them as progressive and the other regressive. And, during 2004-08, while its central wing never failed to verbally denounce neo-liberalism, its West Bengal state wing and the LF government it headed actually promoted the primitive accumulation of capital the worst component of neo-liberal economic strategy eventually leading to a huge electoral failure. So where does the party go from here? The Maoists have united to bring about a larger and stronger party to lead a protracted peoples war to usher in their version of the peoples democratic revolution. The CPI has long since apologised for its collaborationist politics before and during the Emergency and thus the differences between it and the CPI(M) are now nowhere as serious as they appeared to be in 1964. The time has therefore come for the existence of just two distinct streams of the Marxist Left in India the Maoist and the non-Maoist, the latter working towards a peaceful transition to socialism. It is high time the non-Maoist stream concedes that even as it has the right to launch struggles, for instance, against the setting up of special economic zones in states where it is not in power, other political parties have the right to do the same in the states where it is in power. And, it will have to take a position other than its present counter-revolutionary one vis--vis the Maoist stream when the latter conducts its

may 21, 2011

vol xlvI no 21

EDITORIALS

extra-constitutional forms of struggle on behalf of the poorest of the poor. The West Bengal elections witnessed a record voter turnout, close to 85% of the electorate. The LF did manage to get 41% of the vote; nevertheless its share of the vote fell precipitously from that of the last assembly elections in 2006. In the opposition now, surely priority will have to be assigned to extra-parliamentary struggles. The new Trinamool Congress-led government, after an

interregnum, is going to spearhead what Left academics would call structural retrogression the progressive reforms of the first decade of LF governance will be in danger of being reversed and the process of primitive accumulation of capital by other, more ruthless, means will go on. This will pose a new challenge to both the non-Maoist and the Maoist streams of the Left. In the process one hopes that both will overcome their political weaknesses and theoretical inadequacies.

Experimenting with the Young

n inquiry committee, set up by the central government to investigate charges of unethical testing of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines on tribal girls in Andhra Pradesh (AP), has questioned the role of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the state government in the observation study. In 2010, the state governments of AP and Gujarat, an American non-governmental organisation (NGO) PATH and the ICMR conducted a post-licensure observation study of HPV vaccination in the two states. The vaccine had already been licensed for sale in the country in 2008. The study funded by the Gates Foundation with the vaccines supplied free by pharma companies Merck Sharpe and Dohme and GlaxoSmithKline vaccinated tribal girls in APs Khammam and Gujarats Vadodara districts who were between the ages of 9 and 15. The study was stopped in 2010 after the death of seven girls in AP. Cervical cancer is the most common cancer in Indian women and kills 74,118 of the 1,32,082 diagnosed with it every year. Early detection, by way of regular pap smear tests and treatment are the most effective ways of dealing with it. However, awareness and availability of this test are low and despite the high incidence, India does not have a national cervical cancer screening programme. The main form of the cancer accountable for 80% to 90% of the cases is caused by HPV which is a sexually transmitted infection. The HPV vaccine, available and used in some countries including India, is not only very expensive but the subject of a virulent controversy on its side-effects. Though the inquiry committee did not find a direct link between the seven deaths and the vaccine, it said that the cause of death in all cases could not be established with certainty. The promoters of the project insisted that it was only an observational study. But the inquiry found it to be a clinical trial as it involved the study of a pharmaceutical product on humans and four of its five primary outcomes related to the evaluation of vaccine safety. Therefore, it should have compulsorily followed protocols under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1954. An expert from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) assisting the inquiry has pointed out that the project design didnt take the issue of serious adverse events (SAE) seriously nor did it appoint an independent monitoring agency thus causing an unacceptable delay in the reporting of deaths. Ironically, while PATH had insurance cover, the subject girls did not. Of the 100 consent

forms studied by another expert, witness signatures were absent in 69 and of the 14,253 such forms in AP over 2,763 had been signed by the wardens/principals of the tribal students hostels and not by the parents. Health activists have questioned the choice of tribal subjects for the study. Media reports quote AP government sources saying that the blocks in Khammam were chosen because of the high incidence of cervical cancer there. But by the governments own admission there is hardly any data to support such a contention. In her letter to the union health minister, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP Brinda Karat points out that the discussions of the inquiry committee, which are partially reflected in the final report, question whether the project was aimed at boosting the interests of the two pharma companies. These discussions, detailed in the appendix to the report, question the sources of the funding as apart from the Gates Foundation and the free vaccines, neither the central governments body on vaccines nor ICMR contributed monetarily. Karat also points out that one of the roles assigned to ICMR in the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by its director is advising on plans for results dissemination to support decision-making for use of the HPV vaccine. Yet a year before the two companies received a sale licence in 2008 and even before any independent study on the vaccine, the ICMR committed itself to supporting and promoting its use in the Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP). Given the high incidence of the disease and the huge population in the adolescent stage (the vaccine is most effective before any sexual activity has taken place), which therefore constitutes the potential market for this expensive vaccine, serious and ethical questions must be raised about the ICMRs role. Poor women have higher rates of last stage diagnosis not only due to a lack of awareness and reluctance to discuss sexual health issues but also because they lack access to medical help. Rural women also tend to be at a higher risk than their urban sisters. What compounds these factors is that the HPV grows cancerous without overt symptoms in the subclinical stage. Once detected, primary healthcare facilities cannot be depended upon to monitor and follow through. Making the pap smear test widely available and raising awareness are urgently needed in these circumstances. Dodgy observation studies only add to the fear and confusion that ordinary citizens feel in the face of serious diseases.
may 21, 2011 vol xlvI no 21
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