While recounting his childhood days at Chila village in Birbhum district of in West Bengal, Ram Chandra Dome remembers the daily struggle for survival and the fact that only he and another of his nine siblings could finish their graduation. Earlier this month, the 63-year-old was inducted into the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) at the 23rd party congress in Kannur, Kerala.
He is the first Dalit to be included in the CPI(M)’s highest decision-making body, which at present has 17 members. The move may have created a flutter in political circles, but for those who know him and have followed his political career, Dr. Dome’s elevation is hardly a surprise.
A committed party man, Dr. Dome, who completed his MBBS from Nil Ratan Sarkar Medical College in Kolkata in 1977, has always been a “people’s doctor”, often prescribing and giving medicines to the poor from the party office in Birbhum, even at the height of political campaigns during elections. “For the Scheduled Castes or Dalits, it is not merely social exclusion, but a lot of it is economic exclusion. My father was a poor village carpenter. He never thought I will be a doctor, forget an MP or a Polit Bureau Member,” he tells The Hindu.
In 1989, when Dr. Dome was elected to the Lok Sabha from Birbhum, he was 29 and at that time, was the youngest CPI(M) MP. From 1989 to 2014, he was elected to the Lok Sabha seven times, on six occasions from Birbhum and on the seventh (2009-14), from the adjoining Bolpur seat, after Somnath Chatterjee retired.
During his 25 years in the Lok Sabha, he says, he has seen it all — from regime changes to the new politics of religion gaining ground.
The CPI(M) leader feels his elevation to the Polit Bureau is an “event” but not a “historic event” as many observers have described it. “At the CPI(M), we want to include people from different social backgrounds, but in the selection of the leadership, nobody is given preference. Hundreds of comrades from backward communities, Dalits and Adivasis, have been working with the CPI(M) since its inception. They are representatives of the working classes,” he says. In the past, several Dalit, OBC leaders were part of the CPI(M)’s Central Committee, too, Dr. Dome points out. His inclusion in the Polit Bureau comes after senior leaders like Biman Bose and Hannan Mollah stepped down because of their age.
Big responsibility
Dr. Dome says the constitutional guarantees and the enabling mechanism for the development of Dalits, OBCs and STs can work only if there are proper economic policies to back it. “These guarantees are meaningless when the economic policies of the BJP-led government at the Centre are pushing for privatisation and leaving the people at the mercy of market forces. We have witnessed how the pandemic affected the poorest of the poor, particularly the SCs, STs and OBCs, pushing them to the brink,” he says.
With the party reposing faith in him, Dr. Dome says it is a big responsibility, particularly at a time when the CPI(M) is facing a challenge to hold on to its support base in the State. In the 2021 Assembly polls in West Bengal, the CPI(M), which had been in power for over three decades, failed to win a single Assembly seat. The party drew a blank in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls too.
The CPI(M) leader believes the people of West Bengal did look at the BJP as an alternative to the Trinamool Congress between 2018 and 2021 but adds that the phase is over and the people are once again putting faith in the party. “Though it has taken more than a decade, the Trinamool now stands exposed, with complete lawlessness prevailing over the State. The dole politics of the Trinamool is only for electoral dividend and there’s no real emancipation of the masses. People are realising that the BJP and the Trinamool are two faces of the same coin,” he says.
Dr. Dome, who started his working career as a doctor at a primary health centre in a remote village in West Bengal, believes the recent civic polls in the State gave some indication of what’s to come. “Our party believes in the emancipation of working classes. We have to connect with the people on the ground and explain how the governments at the Centre and the State are failing them.” As a Polit Bureau member, his task is cut out.
