Mariam Alexander Baby, 71, started his political journey while still in school, as a member of the Kerala Students Federation, the forerunner to the Students’ Federation of India or SFI. He joined the CPM when he was 18. In 1975, during the Emergency, he was arrested for mobilising students. He rose through the ranks quickly and became a Rajya Sabha member at 32. Unlike his predecessor Prakash Karat, he made a successful electoral debut in the 2006 Assembly elections in Kerala, and served as a dynamic minister of education and cultural affairs in the state cabinet.

Baby has a reputation as an outstanding Marxist theorist, and is also said to be a connoisseur of the arts, literature, music and films. Not many might know, but he has been the driving force behind the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, an international exhibition of contemporary art.

After working in the shadows for the past decade as a member of the Politburo, Baby has now emerged top boss of a party that has been going through a downturn. In this interview, he talks about the various challenges ahead of the party and the wheels of change that have supposedly started turning. Here are excerpts.

Q. The CPM national conclave at Madurai witnessed the rare event of an election to the central committee. The last such election was in 1978. According to some reports, the Maharashtra and Bengal units wanted to anoint All India Kisan Sabha president and Politburo member Ashok Dhawale as the new general secretary. Is this true?

I don’t know where you got this from. I was elected by a majority of party members. My name was proposed by Mohammed Salim and supported by Ashok Dhawale. The election happened in a thoroughly democratic method.

Q. Taking over from Sitaram Yechury, how big is the challenge? And what is Prakash Karat’s influence on you?

Sita was two years older to me. I have shouldered the responsibility with the hope that I will not bring him ill name. Prakash is a very serious, devoted and theoretically-oriented comrade. That he is a hardliner is an exaggeration. The general secretary is guided by the Politburo and the central committee. Beyond a point, no general secretary can give leadership to evolve the party’s political line; it’s a collective work.

Q. You face a tough task ahead.

See, our party has undergone vicissitudes in the past. Now we have some decline. We accept the reality. We are being assaulted in different parts of the country, including Kerala. Even though we have a CPM-led LDF government, our comrades are being attacked and murdered. In West Bengal, the situation is chaotic. We don’t have the freedom to function properly. In Tripura, it is worse. We are celebrating the 156th birth anniversary of Lenin. Recently, we witnessed a mammoth mass mobilisation at Calcutta’s Brigade Parade Ground. It was a mobilisation of workers, agricultural labourers and the dispossessed. They are coming forward. They say it’s a non-parliamentary upsurge. Our representation in the (Bengal) Assembly is zero, but representation among the people is very powerful.

Q. Why doesn’t this support get converted into electoral gains in Bengal?

We have discussed this and identified the reasons. We are going to act on them.

Q. The CPM had been in power for 34 years in Bengal but you cannot identify a seat and say, “we will win this one”. Why?

We have identified a few constituencies where the Left can make some substantial advance and also win. We also identified the reasons for our setback in Bengal. There are organisational issues. We are in the process of rectifying wrong tendencies.

Q. Is that a euphemism for corrupt practices?

Tendencies not befitting a Communist. Alien trends among a section of party members. People say, “Oh! The CPM worker is not supposed to be like that. Their leaders must be role models.” There are certain administrative shortcomings and we also have to attract youth. Inducting young women like Minakshi Mukherjee into the central committee is part of the process. There are others like Kaninika Ghosh and Deblina Hembram. The target is a minimum of 25 per cent women in the central committee. At the 23rd party congress, we decided that in every party committee there should be at least two members below 40. It is difficult to convince members about the change as we are moving away from the conventional way of promoting only seniormost comrades to top positions.

Q. At the Brigade Parade ground rally, most of the people were over 50. It reflects the Bengal CPM’s inability to attract youth.

We are taking steps. Minakshi has been included in the state secretariat. We have to communicate the idea of socialism and bring in more youngsters.

Q. But how?

One way is through cultural interventions. At the recently concluded party congress, every state delegate discussed the issue of culture, of rejuvenating democratic and progressive cultural organisations like the IPTA. This is all the more important because the fascistic RSS project of a Hindu Rashtra is being presented before the people as cultural nationalism. The 24th party congress has identified cultural projects as a major task. Additionally, efforts to communalise festivals should be prevented.

Q. When the Right wing exploits religious events for mass upsurge, what stops the Left from countering by turning secular festivities into events of mass connect?

This time, the Bengal state committee has decided to celebrate Rabindra Jayanti as well as Kazi Nazrul Islam’s birth anniversary in a big way. We will be celebrating eminent cultural personalities such as Tagore, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Victor Hugo, (Jose) Saramago. We critically admit that we have not been giving sufficient attention to upholding the pluralistic tradition of celebrations.

Q. What about minority issues? The issues of Dalits, tribals, religious minorities, LGBTQ+ people, the physically and mentally challenged.

We have to systematically address their problems so they feel this party is with them. We are also trying to project certain issues missed or deliberately ignored by mainstream media. Last October, a Karnataka court sentenced 98 people to life imprisonment in a 2014 case of attack on Dalits near Koppal railway station. I was involved in the struggle. A party sympathiser was attacked and thrown onto a railway track. The police did not register any case. I was in charge of Karnataka those days. We participated in the agitation and it resulted in a landmark judgment. I am saying this to point out that we are with the Dalits.

Q. But didn’t it take the party too long to understand the reality of the caste struggle?

In the party’s Platform of Action in 1934, the caste issue was taken quite seriously. But in between, the social issue and due emphasis on class struggle was considered more important. It was a wrong notion that class struggle will take care of caste distinction.

Q. Aren’t you going to meet Mamata Banerjee?

You know the situation in West Bengal, how our comrades are systematically being attacked by Trinamool workers. If that stops and a different situation emerges in West Bengal… (he stops short of making a statement). But have no confusion that we are not opposed to Mamata Banerjee being in the INDIA bloc.

Q. What is the situation in Kerala? The BJP opened its account in the state in the last Lok Sabha polls. The BJP’s vote percentage is increasing…

The RSS and communal majoritarian ideology is entering the minds of people whom we thought would never succumb to such ideology. Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci spoke about how hegemony works through the so-called soft methods such as culture and sports. Cricket, Bollywood, everything is controlled by the BJP. This moves on 1001 hooves. So gullible people are getting attracted and this is a big challenge. This is the time we make people understand the difference between Communists and communalists.